Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

The worst bushfires in Australia's history have wreaked havoc and destroyed entire towns.

As the Australian bushfire crisis enters its fourth day, the fires continue to rage and the death toll continues to climb. Survivors are calling affected areas “hell on earth”. The destructive and tragedy is off the scale.

The fires have spread on the back of an unprecedented heat wave across southern Australia, with temperatures reaching up to 47 degrees Celsius and staying over 40 degrees for days on end. Conversely, in the north of the country, torrential rain continues to cause widespread flooding, isolating towns and hundreds of homes. Read more »

One ship from SOF’s flotilla on July 20

After the USA company Queensland Energy Resources (QER) announced its proposal to build a shale oil mine in Whitsunday, Australia, Save Our Foreshore (SOF) – a local community group aiming to protect foreshore land in the area – launched a campaign against this destructive initiative.

QER is an integrated resources and energy company owned by the Manhattan-based investors, Ziff brothers, which also owns most of Queensland’s known oil shale resources.,

Created in 2004, SOF says that informing people is crucial in this kind of fight, and to this end it organised a Boat Rally and a public information day on Airlie Beach, on Sunday 20 July.

It is common knowledge that fossil fuels are a short-term, dirty solution to a large problem, and squeezing oil from stone (shale is basically oily rock) is an incredibly polluting and energy-intensive operation. That this operation should be contemplated in one of Australia’s most pristine marine environments is perplexing. Read more »

An activist climbs down a ladder in a stairwell above the coal stockpile. © Greenpeace

Our colleagues across the Tasman have just pulled off an audacious action at the Eraring Power Station.

In a 5.5 hour blockade of the coal fired power station, they stopped more than 10,000 tonnes of greenhouse emissions.

Read more »

Greenpeace Australia ship tour website

The Esperanza has arrived in Australia and over the next 6 weeks Greenpeace will be travelling up the eastern seaboard of Australia, campaigning hard to get the federal government to acknowledge that renewables can do the job and that the time is up for fossil fuels.

So stay tuned – The Energy [R]evolution tour has begun! Check out the awesome website here

Hunter Valley, NSW, Australia: At dawn this morning the Greenpeace hot air balloon flew over Liddell and Bayswater coal-fired power stations in the Hunter Valley, delivering a spectacular climate change message to the federal government: ?Save the climate – No future in coal?. (c)Greenpeace/Sewell

Recognise this balloon? Our cobbers over the ditch have been getting up to some mischief.

Australian Prime Minister Rudd wants to stop dangerous climate change and we want to give him the chance to show that all his talk is not just hot air. So, at dawn today, the Greenpeace hot air balloon delivered a message to Kevin in spectacular fashion: “Save the climate – No future in coal”.

The balloon flew over two coal-fired power stations in the New South Wales Hunter Valley, launched by a team of Greenpeace staff and volunteers camped in the Hunter Valley. As the eyecatching aircraft flew above coal stacks, it attracted plenty of attention on the ground. Read the full story here.

There’s some more photos on Flickr

The Greenpeace ship was forced to leave the Southern Ocean but an Australian Government ship – the ‘Oceanic Viking’ arrived on the scene just before they left.

It was our hope that under the eye of the Australians the whaling would not resume.

However, although the Australian vessel has been following the whaling fleet since then they have reported that the fleet began whaling shortly after Greenpeace left the scene.

They have now released some shocking images and video of the whaling in the Southern Ocean including of a mother minke whale and its calf being hauled aboard a Japanese whaler.

The video us available here but be warned – it is graphic.

It’s big news on Google