The Greenpeace activists we’ve been covering who shadowed and then scaled an oil rig in the Arctic have now spent 3 days hanging from the Cairn Energy oil rig, stopping it from drilling for oil, in an Arctic survival pod.
While the pod is made to protect the activists from the weather, I can’t say it looks very cozy. Here’s an initial video from inside the pod. And an update:
http://youtu.be/3QbFmqyFo7o
“Hannah and Luke have been living in an Arctic survival pod suspended under the belly of a giant oil rig. They’ve been there now for three days. It’s not easy – even if the pod shelters them from most of the bad weather, it’s still a tiny little thing, and they’re in a hostile environment,” JulietteH writes. Read more here: Love for the pod.
And you can read an update from one of the two activists in the pod after they had been there for 48 hours here: Update from the Arctic survival pod: 48 hours and going strong!
The captain of the Esperanza (one of the two Greenpeace ships up there in the Arctic right now), Madeleine, also wrote a little today on the wonderful, amazing trip up there and the absurdity of drilling for oil in the Arctic. Here’s a piece of that:
We encountered Liev Eriksson South of Greenland & followed the rig until we had the opportunity to take action.
It was like following a great lumbering giant as Liev Eriksson pushed her way through rough iceberg-strewn waters off the tip of Cape Farewell.
We tailed the rig up the West coast of Greenland. It was incongruous to see the spectacular snowy mountain wilderness with this agent of destruction in the foreground. On one calm morning we watched mirage-like inversions of images where mountains & icebergs morphed in Dali-esque forms lit by lurid early light.
This phenomenon is known as an Arctic mirage or “Fata Morgana”. The term Fata Morgan comes from King Arthur’s enchanted sister Morgana, who dwelled in a crystal castle beneath the sea.
Sounds breathtaking an worth protecting.
Related Stories:
- Greenpeace Activists Now Preventing Arctic Oil Drilling Operation
- Polar Bear Blocks Cairn Energy Headquarters, Greenpeace Activists Shadow Oil Rig in Arctic
- Greenpeace Activists Repeatedly Locking Themselves to Amflora GM Potato Warehouse in Sweden
- Arctic Drilling to Push Us Over the Stupidity Tipping Point?
- Global Warming Opens up Arctic Seas and Closes Arctic Roads