Lisa Vickers aboard the Esperanza in the UK writes...
I’m on the Greenpeace’s ship Esperanza and we're leaving London today. I can’t tell you where we’re going yet, but I can tell you that we are off to confront the oil industry’s reckless search for the last drops of oil on the planet.
We've also released a map that features some of the most dangerous drilling sites in the world.
We’ll let you in on the secret as soon as we can, and we’re going to need your help along the way. While we expose the most dangerous drilling on the planet, we’ll need you to take action at home.
Companies like BP are taking massive risks to drill in ever more dangerous places rather than investing in clean energy to halt climate change.
In our own waters, off the west of the Shetland Isles, BP and others are eyeing up the oil reserves under the deep sea. This delicate ecosystem, which is home to dolphins and many other species, would be devastated by an oil spill.
For some countries the Gulf oil spill was a wake up call, the US have already banned new deep sea drilling and last month the European energy commissioner called on all EU countries to follow suit.
But our government has announced new tax breaks for off shore projects which has lead to a rush of applications for deepwater drilling by companies like BP and Total.
We need to tell the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, that for the sake of our coastal environment and the climate we don’t want any deep sea drilling in UK waters.
Another Greenpeace ship, the Arctic Sunrise, has just arrived in the Gulf of Mexico for a three-month expedition to provide independent scientific analysis of the impacts of both the oil and chemical dispersant on the Gulf ecosystem. We have to know the truth about the damage that was done.
But we don’t have to run a single test to prove that oil drilling is dangerous and deadly. BP has done that work for us. And now the crew of the Esperanza are going to expose the desperate and dangerous lengths the oil industry is going to feed our addiction to fossil fuels. You’ll be able to follow our progress online over the coming weeks. I’ll be updating the website everyday with blogs, photos, videos and tweets and I’ll let you know what you can do to help.
You’ll also be the first to know our final destination if you sign up to get daily updates from the ship by email, SMS, Facebook or Twitter. Hope to see you online.
- Lisa Vickers
Onboard the Esperanza somewhere in UK waters