Greenpeace Activists Now Preventing Arctic Oil Drilling Operation

greenpeace activists arctic oil rig

Following up on a post last week on the two Greenpeace ships that were in the Arctic’s “Iceberg Alley” shadowing a Cairn Energy oil rig looking to do what no other oil company is doing — drill for oil in the Arctic — that I wrote here on Planetsave, the news is now that Greenpeace activists have scaled the rig and are hanging from it in an “Arctic survival pod” that includes food and water for up to 10 days.

Greenpeace reports that this will keep Cairn Energy from drilling for oil 100 miles off the coast of Greenland.

“The rig’s operators, Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy, is the only company planning to drill in the region, but if it strikes oil this summer it will spark an oil rush that would devastate the fragile Arctic environment,” the organization’s press release appropriately states.

Amazingly, the Greenpeace activists on the rig got around a Danish warship that, as I reported before, was “protecting” the rig from them.

Here’s more:

At 3am local time three expert climbers in inflatable speedboats launched from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza and scaled the 53,000 tonne Leiv Eiriksson. They avoided a Danish warship that had been shadowing the Greenpeace team for days, having been sent to keep the protesters from the rig. The climbers then set up camp a few metres from the huge drill-bit that Cairn hopes will strike oil in the coming weeks. If drilling is delayed for just a short time, Cairn could struggle to meet a tight deadline to complete the exploration before winter ice closes in, forcing it to abandon the search for another year.

Apparently, the Greenpeace activists hanging from the rig are pretty confident that they will be able to stay there for some time and considerably disrupt Cairn’s oil drilling plans. “Despite the extreme waters below, we’re safe and secure. There’s no way Cairn can drill for oil while we’re hanging next to their drill-bit, and it’s going to be extremely difficult for them to remove our survival pod,” 25-year-old Luke, one of the climbers, has relayed via satellite phone. “To drill for oil here would be dangerous insanity. We have to stop the Arctic oil rush.”

For more on this story, visit Greenpeace.

Related Stories on Planetsave:

  1. Polar Bear Blocks Cairn Energy Headquarters, Greenpeace Activists Shadow Oil Rig in Arctic
  2. Greenpeace Activists Repeatedly Locking Themselves to Amflora GM Potato Warehouse in Sweden
  3. Arctic Drilling to Push Us Over the Stupidity Tipping Point?
  4. Greenpeace Gives Us Updates on Facebook Unfriend Coal Campaign
  5. Global Warming Opens up Arctic Seas and Closes Arctic Roads

Image via Greenpeace

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