Westward Ho: Days 6 & 7 – in the zone

Blog post from Jeanette on Vega received at 08:30am thursday morning.
Apology for the blog free days.When Bunny and I reached our final destination and joined the Vega as co-skippers, we lost access to computer and e-mail. This is being transferred via radio to s/v Baltazar where Ros is kindly typing it up.

Since the drill ship Noble Bob Douglas arrived Tuesday morning with supply ship Hart Tide, we have been driving in small circles between them, within the 500 metre zone.

The other boats are watching from outside the zone. We can not visit them again without risking implicating them in our actions, and we haven’t rigged the sail to stabilise the rolling. There have been hours of extreme boredom and moments of exhilaration, especially learning most of the Arctic 30 have been bailed, and that Anadarko’s operation here is illegal, because the Environmental Protection Authority signed off their consent without sighting their emergency spill response plan which they are supposed to approve.

There has been great loss of dignity as the wind rose to 20 knots and our tight circles sent us barrelling from one wall to the other, and many bruises on heads, shins and shoulders. Last night, anger: as the second supply ship the Bailey Tide got sick of waiting 500m away all day and decided to dock with the drill ship, with us in between. Neither ship responded to our communications and requests for their intentions, and little wooden Vega was nearly squished between two giant steel hulls, closing in our narrow strip of water and squeezing us out like toothpaste. There is a lot of lawbreaking out here, and it mostly isn’t us.

I suggest you check the Oil Free Seas Flotilla and Greenpeace NZ websites for photo and video blogs. I may be able to send one more when we head back and rendezvous with the rest of the flotilla.

Over and out.

Jeanette

While they sleepwalk in Warsaw: icebergs calve, emissions climb, “pause” disappears

PIG B31

Warsaw has seen a deluge of important climate-related information released — so much that it’s been difficult to keep up — but still not enough to steel negotiators to reach an equitable arrangement that gives us all a chance at a reasonable future climate. And at the same time, the planet has been sending signals that it’s not happy. The Pine Island glacier has finally calved the giant iceberg that first started to shown signs of cracking away from the ice stream a couple of years ago. Iceberg B-31 has been described as being the size of Singapore (about 700 km2), but isn’t likely to move far from Pine Island Bay in the near future. NASA Earth Observatory coverage here and here; see also Telegraph (UK) and Antarctic Sun.

The Global Carbon Project announced earlier this week that greenhouse gas emissions are projected to reach the highest level in human history this year — 36 billion tonnes. There are some encouraging signs that the rate of growth may be slowing, but nowhere near enough to enable the planet to avoid hitting a two degree rise in the first half of this century. There’s an excellent visualisation of national emissions at the Global Carbon Atlas (and at the Guardian). See also The Age, Think Progress. Continue reading “While they sleepwalk in Warsaw: icebergs calve, emissions climb, “pause” disappears”

Polish Government and Big Coal kick own goal in Warsaw

Greenpeace banner on Polish Ministry of Economy. Photo: 350.org
Greenpeace banner on Polish Ministry of Economy. Photo: 350.org

I’m not sure if the Polish Government really meant this to happen.

In the run-up to the climate talks, they had scurried round and found a bunch of largely fossil fuel and car sponsors to help them out.  Thanks to these sponsors, we’ve all been given coal-coloured bags with a big oil service company logo on it. Such a contrast from Durban where we had lovely cloth bags made from recycled fabric, made by people from villages across South Africa.

But in Warsaw today, he Polish Government and the coal industry must have been so pleased with their idea of setting up the World Coal Association “Coal Summit” at the same time as the climate talks. They even managed to persuade the UN Climate Convention’s Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres to speak at it, much to the fury of the youth, whose invitation she turned down.

But that’s when it all started to unravel. Continue reading “Polish Government and Big Coal kick own goal in Warsaw”

Westward Ho: Day 5 – we chased them off

News today that the drill ship is 50 miles off New Plymouth, having passed wide of us in the night and headed south. Seems likely they had planned to rendezvous with the supply ship we saw yesterday morning and do customs clearance out here, but thought better of it when they saw us. All we know is that the supply ship turned around and went back to the site where the Ignoble Bob now is and they are apparently doing customs clearance there.

We’ve just had word that they expect to arrive at first light tomorrow. Whatever, we’ll be here.

Continue reading “Westward Ho: Day 5 – we chased them off”

Welcome to the Carbon COP

The Polish National Stadium
The first week here at the climate talks in Warsaw kicked off with the super typhoon Haiyan hitting the Philippines in a terrible tragedy, brought into the meeting by the country’s lead negotiator Seb Yano, whose fast has been joined by many from civil society. The plight of his people has been a rallying call around the world as we all look at the aftermath of this storm with horror.  Is it a direct result of climate change? What we do know is that the sea surface temps were 1.5degC above normal, and that we can expect more intense cyclones as the earth’s temperature warms.  But  as NCAR’s Kevin Trenberth wrote:

“The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that it is the wrong question. All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be….”

As we’ve been all walking around in circles of the Polish National Stadium, trying to stay sane, looking at the images from the Philippines and the campaigning by their government to get a stronger outcome, it seems several governments have kept their eyes firmly OFF the ball, instead  taking the opportunity of the occasion to walk away from their commitments. Continue reading “Welcome to the Carbon COP”