I thought I would share an email I received from GREENPEACE. I like to follow them because their belief’s about our environment and its’ importance to our sustainability are similar to mine. I appreciate the success stories that they share and am saddened when I hear about the atrocities that we humans are inflicting on our environment and wildlife. Please support them in any way you can – here is the email:
Hi there,
The Arctic holds a special significance for Greenpeace. The campaign that gave birth to our movement over 40 years ago stopped nuclear testing in Alaska.
Many people thought a nuclear test in Alaska wouldn’t affect them. But if you live on Earth, it affected you.
The radiation from those tests swirled around the world and entered your eyes and my eyes and everyone’s eyes.
Forensic pathologists can tell a victim’s age by looking for radioactive carbon in the eyes. If you were born in the 60s or early 70s like me, you’ll have more radioactive carbon. The level gradually decreases for people born after nuclear testing ceased.
The founders of Greenpeace won their campaign and helped stop nuclear testing. But now things are happening in the Alaskan Arctic that could change a lot more than just the carbon in our eyes.
Some people see the Arctic as the canary in the coal mine, the warning to stop burning fossil fuels and find clean alternatives. Shell doesn’t see it that way. The oil company sees open ocean where once there was 3m thick sheet ice and thinks, “We could drill there now.”
So Shell is off to the Alaskan Arctic in search of the last drop of oil. In the process, it will spread carbon across our skies warming the planet, as well as oil across the world’s most fragile ecosystem, hastening its collapse.
And when the oil has been burnt and the ice has all melted, the ocean currents will change. All the sun’s heat that was once reflected by the shield of sea ice will be absorbed by the open, black waters. Just as the radiation from nuclear tests spread around the world, and the carbon emissions from Shell’s oil spread around the world, so that heat will spread around the world.
If you live on Earth, it will affect you.
Unless we stop them.
The founders of Greenpeace were eleven hippies in a boat but they built a movement that ended commercial whaling, stopped toxic dumping and protected Antarctica.
You are part of that movement. Together, we are three million people. We have 40 years’ experience of winning campaigns, protecting ecosystems and stopping companies like Shell.
Later this week, we’re going back to save the place where we were born, and to save the world. A movement like Greenpeace can do that, and there’s only one movement like us.
Come with us.
Graham Thompson
Greenpeace UK
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/arctic
COALITION OF POSITIVE ENERGY 