Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International Head, Arrested After Scaling Oil Rig In Arctic (VIDEO)

Two Greenpeace activists, including the head of Greenpeace International, Kumi Naidoo, were arrested Friday after scaling an oil rig off Greenland in protest of drilling in the Arctic.

The activists were being detained in Greenland's capital on charges of trespassing and violating a Dutch court's injunction secured by the oil rig's operator the week prior.

According to a statement from Greenpeace, the activists launched an inflatable speedboat from the group's Esperanza ship early this morning. From the small boat, they proceeded to climb a ladder up one of the legs of the rig, owned by Cairn Energy, despite powerful water cannons being used in an attempt to deter them.

Once aboard the rig, soaking wet, the Greenpeace chief demanded that Cairn halt its drilling operation and leave the Arctic. He also sought a meeting with the Master of the rig to present a petition of 50,000 people that have requested to see Cairn's oil spill response plan.

Raw footage courtesy of Greenpeace.

According to Greenpeace, Naidoo radioed the Esperanza just prior to his arrest and said:

“It looks like I’m being arrested now. They say I’m going to be taken to Greenland, but what happens after that I don’t know. I did this because Arctic oil drilling is one of the defining environmental battles of our age. I’m an African but I care deeply about what’s happening up here. The rapidly melting arctic sea ice is a grave warning to all of us, so it’s nothing short of madness that companies like Cairn see it as a chance to drill for the fossil fuels that got us into this climate change mess in the first place. We have to draw a line and say no more. I’m drawing that line here and now in the Arctic ice.”

Reuters reports that the injunction Cairn secured against Greenpeace means they could face a possible penalty of 50,000 euros ($71,800) a day if operations were interrupted. But Cairn said Friday's actions have had no impact, and prior occupations have lasted much longer.

The injunction bars Greenpeace from going within 500m of the rig, and was issued after 20 activists were arrested in the last month for trying to stop the rig from operating, The Guardian reports.

Morten Nielsen, Greenland deputy police chief, tells Reuters, "This is business as usual." But according to Greenpeace's Ben Stewart, "This is far from over. The battle to stop Arctic oil drilling has only just begun."

Comments

[pappy50]

06:33 AM on 06/23/2011

Bob Hunter of Greenpeace.

" Pat, this is the beginning of something really important and very powerful. But there is a very good chance it will become a kind of ecofascism. Not everyone can get a Phd in ecology. So the only way to change the behavior of the masses is to create a popular mythology, a religion of the environment where people simply have faith in the gurus."

[RolandXX]

07:42 AM on 06/20/2011

If they want to save the arctic, they could start by scuttling that oil-leaking piece of junk esperanza they're riding around in.

[sabelmouse]

12:26 PM on 06/20/2011

how do you know it's leaking. have you encountered it somewhere ?

[sabelmouse]

12:47 PM on 06/20/2011

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/about/ships/the-esperanza/

[FrankLuchan]

12:44 AM on 06/20/2011

I'd check to see where this guy was the days leading up to the Deepwater Horizen disaster.

[RolandXX]

07:43 AM on 06/20/2011

Exactly.

[sabelmouse]

08:35 AM on 06/20/2011

flagged as malicious rumour and attempt at character assassination.

[FrankLuchan]

09:57 AM on 06/20/2011

Or more likely.......If the SHOE FITS.....

[jdjay]

11:33 PM on 06/19/2011

please don't print my last post it was not well thought out.

[GunnisonVern]

12:47 AM on 06/20/2011

I apologize. It was springtime and I driving through northern Nevada(a desolate hell on earth) listening to an audiobook, Moby Dick, when the put together the relationship between the end of whaling and the oil industry. In my mind I put together the thought with the reaction of the stereotypical flower coverred vw bus, with the Save the Whales bumber sticker, owner of bus, let your imagination run wild, in mind. I put the thought together just to get a bad reaction. In the years since I have heard historians confirm the relationship so I doubt it was an original thought. It takes a different bread of person to blog in enemy teritory. I am not proud that I am that person. Reading conservative website to me is boring. I like being kept on my toes in defending my viewpoint. You admitted you had not so well thought out moment. I am admitting I am not so nice a person who set you up. I am sorry.

[jdjay]

07:08 AM on 06/20/2011

That's ok, I apologize if I insulted you. I often exaggerate to try to make my points as well. It was an interesting out of the box observation that you made and it provided me some food for thought so I thank you for that actually.

[Thankgoodness]

10:53 PM on 06/19/2011

People really need to look at the true cost of coal and oil, the true cost isn't what is factored into your monthly bill and gas prices.

Economists call them externalities, there are many. Military, which is costly and kills many people, environmental, to our wildlife, natural resources, cancer clusters caused by poisoning surface and ground water. Coast guard costs, clean up costs, etc, etc. etc. Most of these cost are absorbed by the tax payer. Not the coal and oil companies. Not to mention the effect fossil fuels has on climate change.

The truth is coal and oil cost much more then we really know, and if we operate in a true capitalist system the the company producing any product would pay for all these cost before the product goes to the market.

[GunnisonVern]

11:37 PM on 06/19/2011

Oil is the lifeblood of our ecconomy. Farm without oil? Transport that food without oil? Maintain our electrical grid without oil? Get to work without oil? Medical systems without oil? Home heating without fossil fuel? Extract commoditties without oil?
Currently? Their would be very few reminants of civilization left and that would be left in a state of anarchy. The true cost of oil is that it IS the eccomony.

[ADRealist]

12:41 AM on 06/20/2011

Which is why we need to immediately look into how to preserve it and find alternatives from non-renewable energy sources. If it was possible to create a 10+ war then it is possible to succeed at this. Other countries such as Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, and practically every other developed nation that is not America has already made amazing progress.

Not long ago America was the only industrialized nation. Now soon China and India will join the mix and many populations will double and double again. Nobody knows how much oil is left but demand is going to skyrocket with a chart in the shape of a hockey stick and we are unprepared this will be the end of the human race.

[DrMandible]

09:57 AM on 06/20/2011

First poster is right. Energy and mining companies do not internalize the cost of doing business. I deal with it every single day. When a mine pollutes community water without paying the resulting medical bills and cleaning the water, there is externalization. When a coal plant creates lung disease to nearby residents, there is externalization. When we buy gasoline without any price adjustment for repairing the damage done by burning it, there is externalization.

[GunnisonVern]

09:33 PM on 06/19/2011

The fleet of whaling ships on the small island of Nantuckit bragged that they lit the lamps of the world. The whaling fleets where on their way to wiping out entire species if they continued. The whaling slowed down and was almost eleminated when oil was discovered in Pennsylvainia and refined into kerosene to light these same lamps. Who saved the whales? The oil companies... it is a solid fact.

[Thankgoodness]

10:30 PM on 06/19/2011

doesn't mean they are saving the world now.

[GunnisonVern]

11:03 PM on 06/19/2011

I should not be so hostile in my opposition to the entire "green" movement. I am of the opinion that the United States is model for the rest of the world. Clean water, relitively clean air, a birth rate that results in a negative population and a quality of life I honestly believe susstainable. I think of it as an inclosed water balloon. When you apply pressure in an area that is not wanted... It bulges out in another area. Ethenol for fuel results in food shortages. Electricity from solar cells results in higher cost and unintended toxins from the manufacturing process.... not to mention the storage problems, multiply your car battery by 20 and replace every 7 years! We have made improvements to our inviroment over time but forcing uneconomical solutions is not the answer. Algae Ethenol has posibilities I am excited about. But currently the system is working and the technology just has not caught up for a realistic transition. Human life is the number one factor in my equation. Paul Watson of Whale Wars and one of the founders of Green Peace advocates a human population of a billion people. Not sure how he intends to accomplish this but I will do my best to see that he fails in a world of 6.9 billion.

[jdjay]

11:30 PM on 06/19/2011

You are joking right? Black gold, the savior of the world? You make it sound like they made a conscious decision to take the moral high ground when they were actually just attacking new resources that were thousands of times more profitable. Forgive me if you are joking here. You have to be right?
The subtle truth of the matter is that Mother nature distracted them enough to save something very dear to her. Mother nature as a servant of God Himself. God distracted them enough to preserve something he considers to be sacred.
But lets give credit to the coal/oil monopoly who loves the whales so much that are willing to turn their vital life energy into crude just so they can rake in dat money.

[GunnisonVern]

11:46 PM on 06/19/2011

I can live with God creating crude oil to stop us from killing all the whales. But their is no doubl that it was the discovery of that crude that stopped mankind from killing all the whales.
Making up stories about oil companies using the lifeforce of whales to make crude is the real joke and does not change the facts.

[GunnisonVern]

09:15 PM on 06/19/2011

What a bunch of hypocrites! Shouldn't the be rowing a boat over to the big oil rig? The giant greenpeace ship did not have any sails! I am all for salad shooting hippies living green off the land, but when they use the fruits of industrialization to fight the very same industrialization you proclaim as wrong, you have lost.
The same thing occured to me when I watched a group of young muslim men stone a poor girl to death in accordance to sheria law. They filmed the whole thing on their camera phones. Fundamental extremism can not exist when the extremist embrace the tools of their enemies.

[Thankgoodness]

10:32 PM on 06/19/2011

are you a solider? is that why you saw what you saw?

[GunnisonVern]

11:05 PM on 06/19/2011

The video is on youtube. ie cameraphones

[DrMandible]

09:59 AM on 06/20/2011

They didn't create these problems. They don't have to be isolationist survivalists to protest the problems associated with oil. Your comment is such an adolescent ad hominem argument against their message.

[GunnisonVern]

02:18 PM on 06/20/2011

I am simply asking where the integrity of Greenpeace is when it comes to using oil to fight oil. I am not the only one to comment on this.
I have more than defended ALL of my remarks on this page hardly earning the adolescent remark.

[offshore4848]

07:51 PM on 06/19/2011

I Find the whole thing silly and hypocritical. Green peace motors around and tells everyone how bad they are for burning fossil fuel.
Being a 30 year veteran of offshore oil and gas exploration I can assure those leery of this activity that there are redundant barriers in place to prevent a gulf of Mexico type accident. This particular rig is loaded with cutting edge technology, maybe a little bit of research could result in a mutual understanding, let's face it, oil ain't going away anytime soon.

[ellwood145]

05:15 PM on 06/19/2011

OH YEAH HAPPY FATHERS DAY I LOVE YOU POP

[ellwood145]

05:13 PM on 06/19/2011

I am all for conservation, and what they due is admirable, but it just takes a mistake by this guy and this rig blow up. Then years of work will be discredited and those watercannons will become 50 calibers.

[DrMandible]

10:00 AM on 06/20/2011

All he did was climb up there and demand to talk to the person in charge. He wasn't lighting fireworks, for God's sake.

[politicscorner]

10:33 AM on 06/19/2011

Good to know that this environmental leader is willing themselves to put it on the line.

Wouldn't it be nice if our political leaders were willing to do the same instead of asking someone else to do the fighting for them.

[Thankgoodness]

01:49 PM on 06/19/2011

f&f!

[Toddynho]

02:22 PM on 06/19/2011

x2

[lightningbolt]

10:17 AM on 06/19/2011

Clean renewable energy is the only type of energy that can power the entire world indefinitely, cleanly, safely and profitably.  All other sources of energy will run out and leave the planet in ruins.

[HazelPethigFan]

11:58 AM on 06/19/2011

Perhaps greenpeacers should become scientists and engineers to help develop this new energy technology. They would have a more direct effect on change that way than looking like fools piloting oil powered boats up to an oil rig to protest oil.

[lightningbolt]

01:47 PM on 06/19/2011

Not everyone has the ability to become a scientist or engineer.

[Thankgoodness]

01:52 PM on 06/19/2011

do you really think that oil is a good thing? there are many alternatives already developed, but not funded.

[HazelPethigFan]

12:09 PM on 06/19/2011

and by the way....using renewable fuels to replace oil is now officially opposed by you left wingers. It's called ethanol. Yes. more fossil energy is needed produce oil based fuels than ethanol. The left wingers propaganda against ethanol is now shameless and irresponsible.

Disagree? here's ethanol facts actual data straight from the Dept of Energy:
http://www.energy.gov/media/Myths_and_Facts.pdf

It's ironic the left wingers are now quoting anti-ethanol statements used by Big Oil. Big Oil has always been against ethanol (duh)

[lightningbolt]

01:48 PM on 06/19/2011

Ethanol may be renewable, but it has many disadvantages.  It requires lots of water and cuts into the food supply, for example.

[Thankgoodness]

08:13 PM on 06/19/2011

the over use of ethanol caused a massive food shortage, that could have something to do with why "left winger" otherwise known as the custodians of the planet and humankind, started thinking it wasn't a great idea.

[Lozange]

10:10 AM on 06/19/2011

The real guilty party is Geoge Economou, of Ocean Rig and Dry Ships registered in tax heaven Marshall Islands off the coast of China. At a time when Greece is bankrupt and the world is bailing it out, this Greek billionaire doesn't pay his taxes at home. Meanwhile, he's got plenty of money to jumpstart oil exploitation in the Arctic while his countrymen have to adopt austerity. Creep.

[Toddynho]

02:36 PM on 06/19/2011

Is that true? Is there a link? Sounds preposterous and right in line with BIG OIL and their MO. And here we have a thread infiltrated by fools who think peacefully protesting a potential disaster in the arctic should be met with violence, and the company's CEOs met with billion dollar subsidized bonus. It's a crazy world.

[jdjay]

09:36 AM on 06/19/2011

You should take all this hatred as a compliment Kumi. Jesus, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, etc...got a lot of hate mail too. That's what happens in this age when you fight for the higher moral ground.

[Toddynho]

09:38 AM on 06/19/2011

"You have enemies? Good that means you stood up for something in your life.."

- Winston Churchill.

[Thankgoodness]

01:53 PM on 06/19/2011

well said!

[Thankgoodness]

01:53 PM on 06/19/2011

exactly!!!!

[sabelmouse]

08:48 AM on 06/19/2011

also this
http://justcoz.org/