Stop Drilling the Artic

This email was received from Greenpeace this morning. 

Good morning,

The sun is just coming up here in the Arctic and it's been an exhilarating 24 hours. Our activists are still hanging from the underside of the oil rig and they're sleeping soundly.

Early yesterday under the cloak of darkness we managed to evade Danish navy commandos and our climbers successfully scaled the legs of Cairn Energy's Stena Don rig, bringing the company's Arctic drilling project to a grinding halt.

If you haven't emailed him yet, please email Cairn's boss Bill Gammell and tell him to stop drilling in the Arctic.

So far, 12,000 of you have sent messages to Cairn's boss Bill Gammell telling him to stop Arctic drilling. Thank you - it's already had an impact. We heard that we've scared BP off drilling in the Arctic.

According to the Guardian, a senior source said: "With the Greenpeace ship already harassing Cairn off Greenland - a company which has an exemplary safety record - everyone realised it would be political madness to give the green light to BP."

But that's not enough. While we're happy to have stopped BP drilling in the Arctic for the moment, Cairn Energy is drilling here now. And we have to stop them.

It doesn't matter which company's logo is on the rig, it's the drilling for oil that's the problem. And that's exactly why our climbers are still on Cairn's Stena Don rig today. If we can hang on long enough, Cairn will miss their summer drilling window and have to head home until the ice melts next year.

The situation is still tense - we're getting reports that the Greenlandic police and Danish navy are planning their next move, as they certainly didn't expect us to get past their warship and patrol boats so quickly. Our climbers have food to last for days in their suspended tents, but we can't predict what the response from either Cairn or the authorities will be. We're prepared for every eventuality though.

I'll keep you up to date with developments as they happen. You can also follow what's happening live and listen to updates we made yesterday. I also want to say a big thank you for all of your messages of encouragement, supporting us and for calling on Cairn to stop their drilling.

If you haven't already, please email Cairn's boss Bill Gammell and tell him to stop drilling in the Arctic.

Thanks,
Lisa - on board the Esperanza

PS. Two other brave Greenpeace activists in Japan, Junichi and Toru, are awaiting the final verdict from a two-year trial. They exposed a scandal involving government corruption within the tax-payer funded whaling industry and are on trial for theft and trespass. The verdict is due on Monday 6 September and the prosecutor has asked they be jailed for one year and six months.