The Arctic 30: How Greenpeace Activists Risked All to Stop Oil Drilling
HAVANA TIMES – The Arctic is now the center of one of the world’s great environmental battles. As temperatures rise in the region, the world’s largest oil companies are eyeing vast new untapped reserves once covered year-round by ice. Environmentalists are pushing back in an attempt to save the pristine Arctic and keep the oil underground.
We look back at a 2013 protest that caught the world’s attention, when activists from Greenpeace attempted to board a Russian oil drilling rig owned by the Russian state oil company Gazprom. In total 28 Greenpeace activists and two journalists were arrested and brought to Russia where they were charged with piracy and held for two months. They had faced up to 15 years in prison. They became known as the Arctic 30.
We are joined by two guests: Peter Willcox, the captain of the Greenpeace ship involved in the action who spent two months in a Russian jail; and Ben Stewart, a longtime member of Greenpeace and author of the new book “Don’t Trust, Don’t Fear, Don’t Beg: The Extraordinary Story of the Arctic 30.”