In 2010, in the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, we gave iconaclastic investigative journalist Greg Palast a ride in one of our inflatable boats, so that he could bear witness to parts of the Gulf of Mexico shoreline that BP didn't want the media to see. A reporter for BBC's Newsnight, the Guardian and others, Greg was also an investigator on the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and won the George Orwell Courage in Journalism award for his documentary "Bush Family Fortunes" - Dave W.
Greenpeace poisoned me and I'm forever grateful. In my investigation of the BP Deepwater Horizon horror for British TV, I got nothing but jive from British Petroleum. Nature's a happy toilet: she cleaned herself up, BP told me and told NPR: bacteria ate the oil.
Then Greenpeace showed up with a shrieking fast Zodiac boat, loaded up with the brilliant professor of biology, Rick Steiner... and got dumped right into the goo and the scum and toxic oil sludge that BP said didn't exist.
Marine Biologist Rick Steiner collecting oil samples Photo: © Greenpeace/Kate Davison
As a journalist reporting for BBC and The Guardian, I rely on Greenpeace to cut through the fact pollution contained in industry press releases. When Greenpeace says there's oil out there, Greenpeace SHOWS me the oil (or, in this case, dumps me into it). Hard, gooey facts.
And here's part of the story that could not have been written without the persistence and cussedness of Greenpeace.
Read on: Ma Nature, the Happy Toilet, a segment of Greg's new book, Vultures' Picnic: in Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Carnivores.
Update December 8th 2011: Greg Palast, author of Vulture's Picnic interviewed on Greenpeace Radio
Photo: ©:Greenpeace/Daniel Beltra