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.