Corporate Anti Hero

So, if you go to http://www.loveletterstothefuture.com you can upload a message, to be put in a time capsule to talk to the future about climate change. David Suzuki sent one, Cory Doctorow sent one. There's going to be a hi-tech time capsule.

And if you do upload something, you get a message saying "Search for me, Maya 2109"

And if you search the site for "Maya 2109" you get something a bit interesting, and a note that says 'unlock to activate'. Looks like an ARG about climate change to me. If only I had time to play it...

Not much bloggage of late, principally because my much better two thirds has been hit with pneumonia. That's been pretty exhausting and time consuming, but we're well on the road to recovery now. :-)

And of course, work has been ramping up big time.

Today Lisa get's her vaccination against the Mexican Flu. An article in yesterday's paper said "babies sit quietly, toddlers squeal like stuck pigs". Let's hope she acts her age then.

A few hours ago a path to victory in the campaign to stop Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean opened up. There's still a long way to go but it's definitely on the cards.

And the path is exactly where the campaign strategists said it would be. Which is nice, especially if, like Junichi and Toru, you've bet your freedom on them being right.

Details here.

My bet with condign - which runs till 2030  - may be looking a little better if this news holds out.

There's certainly no denying that the IEA comes under a lot of political pressure, and that almost everyone involved in the oil trade has a powerful incentive to overstate the volume of known / economically recoverable reserves.

come in colours other than red.

Hat tip to Eco-geek for finding it

She can roll over, she's got a tooth, and now she can push herself backwards along the floor.

That's a huge breakthrough in baby mobility. 12:39 this afternoon...

So the US House has passed health care reform, with a public option, by five votes, with one Republican in favour (220, 215). Which kind of puts those elections in the middle of the week where the Democrats picked up two votes into a different light doesn't it?

It'll be interesting to see if this gives House Democrats a bounce in the polls (I'd guess it will) and whether that translates into some extra enthusiasm in the Senate.

Lisa has her first tooth. Front left, bottom jaw. It arrived with a minimum of of tears and so far she seems pretty much unaware of it. 19 to go!

In other Lisa news, work life balance was somewhat restored when she accompanied me to the office on Tuesday. She demonstrated her typing skills, attended the comms managers meeting, and made friends all over the office. My colleagues were wonderful - how many people do you know who keep cuddly toys on their desk - just in case?

"You come from England don't you?" said my four year old dutch niece

and laughed. Because people coming from England is hilarious. I think it's our natural comic timing.

"Where do you come from?" I said

"A normal country!" she replied.

It later transpired she didn't know what the normal country was called. But still, that was me told.

My better two thirds and I will be in Oxford this weekend for the wedding of glittertigger and zandev .

We were thinking of dinner at the Aziz on Friday, anyone feel like joining us?

This looks worth a go. Anyone want to come to Haarlem to try it out?

If two of your friends had been arrested and held without charge for weeks you'd be worried. If one of them had been chained to a chair and interrogated in eight hour stretches, for over a week, you'd be outraged. If the authorities had leaked details of the arrests to the press in advance you'd be furious. If a press conference held to present their side of the story was shut down by the authorities without legal basis or explanation you'd be angry.

If evidence essential to their trial was made available to the prosecution, but not the defence you'd pretty much abandon any hope of a fair trial.

Well that's what has happened to my friends. Junichi and Toru are colleagues of mine from Greenpeace Japan. I first met Junichi five years ago, he was giving a presentation about how our toxics campaign was going to get a bit samurai. There was a headband involved I think. Now he and Toru are looking at ten years in gaol for taking a cardboard box. A cardboard box which they gave to the authorities along with a complete description of how they obtained it because it contained evidence of a multi-million dollar fraud being perpetrated against the Japanese taxpayer by the whaling fleet.

And now they won't get even a semblance of a  fair trial. Unless the Japanese Supreme Court overturns a decision ruling that evidence relating to the fraud is inadmissable. You can write to them here.

Ten reasons why Battlestar Galactica was a TV triumph

1. One plot spread across four seasons, with a proper ending
2. Science fiction as serious social comment
3. The whole Pagan / Christian thing
4. Tricia Helfer as Caprica Six, a fatale femme to die for
5. If the good guys use torture are they still good guys?
6. If the good guys use suicide bombers are they still good guys?
7. Regular space battles
8. Mark Sheppard as Romo Lampkin (starts in season 3)
9. Gaeta's rebellion
10. Guessing all the way to the end

One reasons it wasn't

1. Gratuitous use of a Bob Dylan song - and a lousy cover version to boot

One reason to be unsure

1. The ending. Didn't see it coming. Still can't work out what I think about it.

Apparently Greenpeace published papers suggesting that the business of creating Mixed Oxide fuel from plutonium might lead to losing track of said plutonium 16 years ago.

And now they get round to dismantling the factory and it turns out we were right. There is absolutely no way of knowing now whether any plutonium was ever stolen from that facility, since it's clear that they never knew how much they had to begin with.

Favourite headline so far this year.

There's something wonderfully simple about the idea of just climbing onto Parliament to make your point. And I love that you can do this with wooden ladders. The fact that Parliament isn't covered in armed guards and barbed wire really is something to be proud of.

Those weekly updates took a bit of a knock. Principally because I've been too damn busy. So lets see...

Three weeks ago was climate week in New York, the G20 meetings in Pittsburgh and the UN General Assembly. All of which could cheerfully consume most of a working week in themselves. However what was really noteworthy was the fact that on the 21st we had the global premiere of the Age of Stupid.

The Age of Stupid is a documentary about climate change. Since not a lot of people see documentaries getting it out there was something of a challenge. And so the producer and director have concocted a succession of increasingly ambitious plans to do just that. I met them last December at a film festival in Amsterdam, dragged them half way across town to a party on the Rainbow Warrior and we agreed that Greenpeace would back their insanity as far as I could manage.

After a couple of false starts that turned out to be quite a long way. We had teams working on the premiere in 26 countries, we sent teams into the Indonesian Rainforest and up the Himalayas to provide live feeds into the premeire in New York, which were then relayed to hundreds of cinemas around the world. We're not quite sure yet if this was the largest film premiere in history, but if not, we're second - after The Phanton Menace which really isn't bad.The press around the global premiere has now seen the film pick up TV and cinema runs in dozens of countries - a fantastic result when you consider what normally happens to documentary films.

This was the first time I've ever really managed to find, develop, and deliver an entire global project through the Greenpeace machine, and it was a really remarkable experience. From candlelit green carpets in Spain to Slovakian celebrities and cool badges from Russia I've loved reading the reports back from my colleagues. As an added bonus GP India took the film director Shekar Kapur up the Himalayas for the aforementioned broadcast. Having done that they turned round and did a broadcast in to India's biggest daytime TV show - 11 million viewers.

Two weeks ago the campaigns focus swang back from the political process and up again to the Canadian Tar Sands.Our earlier activities had scored great media coverage, and really seemed to have hit a nerve with the industry. My favourite quote was this one

Pat Nelson called a Greenpeace stunt a moment of shame in an address to the Oil Sands Trade Show and Conference in Edmonton Wednesday. “Wake up, people! It's no wonder what we are getting [out are] the wrong messages,” said Ms. Nelson, who left office in 2004 and is now the vice-chairman of an industry group called the In Situ Oil Sands Alliance. “Every other country in the world would have stopped them at the gates, even if it meant using force. What a message to send.” (full story here)

Not quite sure how stopping us at the gates would have worked. The tar sands cover an area the size of England.
At the same time we wrapped up our Arctic Expedition in Svalbard. With the scientists dropped off the team went to draw attention to the cause of all this melting. The Arctic Tour has been a huge amount of fun to work on, and here are a couple of pieces of coverage to give you a flavour.

This is a short piece from CNN about life on the ship. It ran on their 'backstory' show.

and this is from an Indian channel we had on board. It's a bit, well, tabloid, but was a huge hit in India. The english special went into high rotation after it aired, getting eight plays in two days. The Hindi version was a three part series, and that too went big.

You can see the English version here. The first minute should give you a flavour.

And last week. Last week started well, with the conclusion of the Economist's online debate about fossil fuels. Writing on behalf of he motion was the outgoing head of Greenpeace, and on the other side was Amy Myers Jaffe, a fellow of the Baker Hamilton institute, and expert on oil.

All in all, quite good fun, Especially since a) we won and b) I got to write it.

You can see the whole thing here.

There was lots, lots more in those weeks. But I think those were the highlights.

Pipped at the post by the President of the United States. Sheesh, what's he done? In the last couple of weeks we've protected vast parts of the Amazon, and put a climate saving monkey wrench into the heart of UK energy policy.

All he's done is raise the prospect of taking 1000 nuclear weapons off the table, and reignite the concept of a geopolitics based on dialogue rather than force. I mean - how does that compare?

Actually I think it's kudos to the committee for this one. The question isn't (and never was) who was the most deserving - but what was the best use of the prize. This is one of the few things that can actually put pressure on Obama, and I think they've done it in a way that furthers their goals. It might turn out to backfire horribly, but the risks to the Nobel Committee are pretty low, while the potential rewards are great.

40-1 on for a 1/2000ths share in a Nobel Peace Prize.

So say Paddy Power