Serious Humour – Greenpeace challenge

Written By: - Date published: 8:15 pm, June 13th, 2010 - 8 comments
Categories: Environment, Mining - Tags:


From the Greenpeace website:

Man, if I’d know our competition to redesign BP was going to be this successful, I’d definitely have chained a couple of volunteers to computers in the basement to deal with all the entries. (Want to volunteer with us, by the way?) As it is, I’ve spent a solid two weeks staring at a laptop screen downloading, saving, converting to JPEGs, typing into spreadsheets..

Some great entries and well worth a view. Meanwhile the Guardian is reporting that:

The government moved to quell suggestions of indifference to the BP oil disaster today when both David Cameron and the chancellor, George Osborne, spoke to BP’s chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, urging all sides to find a constructive solution to the environmental crisis.

Will be interesting to see what moves are made here in NZ to stop any repeat of these events.

8 comments on “Serious Humour – Greenpeace challenge ”

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  1. Locus 1
    13 June 2010 at 10:14 pm

    The most important lesson from the environmental crisis in the GOM is not about stopping the leak! It is for governments to wake up to the fact that they are responsible for regulating dangerous industries to ensure that there is NO chance of this kind of incident ever happening again. Big companies don’t self-regulate unless its due to explicit demands from their customers, (competent) regulators and shareholders.

  2. kaiserm 2
    13 June 2010 at 10:20 pm

    I wonder whether if Thatcherism hadn’t sold off the final SOE shareholdings this wouldn’t of happened but…it probably would have…
    it a good thing we aren’t destroying BP at the pumps though…many are private franchisers…also of course helps BP actually clean up this mess rather than leave it in the hands of the US administration…Katrina cleanup wasn’t flash aye?

  3. Jenny 3
    14 June 2010 at 7:41 am

    Gulf of Mexico – Tar Sands – Coal Gasification

    Brilliant initiative by Green Peace. That they have also tied the campaign into not just the Gulf of Mexico disaster, but to the fossil fuel industry’s general irresponsibility and trashing of the environment.

    This campaign, by capturing the attention of the world in a creative way, may mark a turning point in people deciding to take action to force to end the reckless destruction of our environment by these profit driven energy companies.

    Here in New Zealand we must move to act too.

    Let us demand right now;

    That the prospecting of the Waikumera basin must never be allowed.

    And the idiotic plan by solid energy for coal gasification must be stopped.

    Hands Up, or else!

    I swear the threatening logo of a man pointing a petrol pump at us like a gun, is theirs.

    The obvious subliminal message that they are trying to impart is that we must have this technology or else.

    We should endeavour to, like Green Peace has done, subvert this image.

    Any ideas anyone?

    • Jenny 3.1
      14 June 2010 at 7:57 am

      P.S. The link I supplied was not quite the right one, I meant to provide. The one I gave will get you there eventually, but here is the right one.

  4. Jenny 4
    14 June 2010 at 8:09 am

    Just a postscript on the general irresponsibility typical of competitive profit driven energy companies.

    My Mother who is 74 was listening to the radio, and heard on the BBC, a report from the father of one of the men who died in the BP oil rig explosion who said that only a week before his death his son had told him that the company had been pressing them to cut corners.

    I apologise that this is not verbatim and as it was told to me over the phone the next day.

    (My Mum doesn’t have a computer so she couldn’t provide me the link from the BBC archive, bless her.)

    anti-spam Dear

  5. Fred 5
    15 June 2010 at 2:41 pm

    What exactly do you propose to use instead of Oil, gas, or coal?

    Maybe we could burn carbon credit certificates?

    Not much use for anything else.

    (and please don’t say windfarms, I might spill my coffee)

  6. Jenny 6
    15 June 2010 at 11:18 pm

    What I do not believe, is that we can blindly go on as if there is no tomorrow.

    What I do believe, is that we could seriously cut back in the use of fossil fuels without too serious affect on our quality of life.

    What I do not believe, is that we can return to some past Arcadian utopia that never really existed.

    What I do believe, is that not to cut back in fossil fuel use, risks a serious crash that could completely destroy the technological civilisation that sustains us.

    What I do believe, that what is missing is the political will at the top of our society.

    I do not believe that market driven solutions, (like ETS) can solve a problem caused by the market.

    What I do believe, is that if the imagination of millions of people of good will can be harnessed in creative ways, powerful and soulless corporations like BP and Solid Energy can be brought to heel.

  7. Fred 7
    17 June 2010 at 2:40 pm

    The BP Oil Spill is about to get MUCH, MUCH worse.
    The top kill has failed. If they seal the well and it is compromised down hole, the whole lot will come apart.

    “The magnitude and impact of this disaster will eclipse anything we have known in our lifetimes if the worst or even near worst happens … ”

    http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593/648967