The answer my friend is blowing in the wind

Although this song reminds me of dreamy hippies, here in Southern Thailand it is reality.

The Rainbow Warrior has arrived in Thailand and was greeted by traditional Thai dancers. My heart beat faster when the ship came into port. I still think it is such an amazing sight and a symbol of hope. Slowly it made its way into the berth (actually slowly because we figured out when low tide came, that the berth is not deep enough and the Rainbow Warrior is sitting in the mud, rather than floating.)

In the afternoon the University of Songhkla gave a workshop about small scale, home made wind turbines as a tool for poverty alleviation for communities.

Did you know that Thailand has quite good feed in tariffs for renewable energy? So in theory communities can make a profit by selling their excess electricity back to the grid. The reality looks different as many bureaucratic barriers prevent people from taking up this opportunity. Furthermore the lack of a Renewable Energy law that prioritises green electricity over dirty electricity means that investors prefer building coal fired power plants and even nuclear has appeared on the agenda last year.

The Thai government forecasts an unrealistic increase in energy demand and instead of investing into energy efficiency and renewables, it gives out big contracts for coal fired power stations and thinks about going nuclear. Despite the fact that they say themselves that there is 1600MW wind potential in Southern Thailand.

Coming from a country where the wind capacity has reached now 22GW (that is Thailand’s overall electricity demand) due to a good Renewable Energy law, it is hard to believe that this cannot be repeated in countries blessed with more coast. If you have ever stood under a big 5MW wind turbine, you might share my feeling of being struck with awe and filled with hope for our future.

So it was more than impressive to see yesterday how passionate people started designing their own low cost, small scale wind turbines and push for a renewable energy revolution from the ground until the government gets its act together.

However Thailand is full of these grassroots movements. The movement against coal has grown so powerful that many coal fired power plants had to be canceled. We will visit one of those communities tomorrow and I will tell you more soon.

Have a look here for more pictures of the Rainbow Warrior's arrival in Thailand.

- Mareike Britten

In the eye of the storm – or the effects of burning coal

What an end to our Quit Coal ship tour in the Philippines… After talking about the effects of Climate Change on the Philippines for several weeks, I experienced them first hand with “Frank” or internationally better known as Typhoon Fengshen. The Rainbow Warrior left just in time from the island of Boracay where we had launched the “Save the Climate, save Boracay” initiative with local resorts. Just hours later the typhoon struck the island.

I have never seen such torrential rainfall, flooding and strong gales for 3 days. Stuck on the paradise island of Boracay – it seemed more like hell with no way to escape; no electricity, water or any kinds of communication with the outside world.
The locals assured me that this was nothing compared to a super typhoon.
Although typhoons hit the Philippines on a regular basis, they have changed their pathway due to climate change hitting the islands more frequently and intensely. Here you can get a glimpse of the impacts.
I can tell you, that I am more than relieved that the storm is over. The sad irony is that the island of Panay with the City of Iloilo, where we have been protesting against the new coal fired power plant and pointing at the impacts of Climate Change, has been hit hardest. Greenpeace Southeast Asia is now looking if we can help with the rescue operations.
Climate Change often seems so far away to me, reduced to scientific numbers – this experience has definitely showed me that we cannot waste any more time until we act.

- Mareike Britten

Metrobank: Save the Climate!

Click here to know more

Day3: Hurray the navy has arrived!

Do you still remember those war movies with scenes that have the protagonists surrounded by their enemies and then all of a sudden the cavalry arrives and then the tables are turned and the heroes are now on the winning side of the battle?

In a way that’s what we felt now that the Rainbow Warrior has arrived.

The day was greeted with hope that what has been so far accomplished since the ship’s arrival here in the Philippines for our Quit Coal Tour will be replicated in this leg of the tour.

Below is a slideshow of the wonderful images taken by Vinai Dithajohn





the Greenpeace site also has an interesting story on the arrival be sure to check it out on this link


-chuck baclagon

Day 1: Fire & Rain

"The poor will be hardest hit by weather-related disasters and by soaring price inflation for staple foods, but even the richest nations face the prospect of economic recession and a world in conflict over diminishing resources. Mitigating climate change, eradicating poverty and promoting economic and political stability all demand the same solution: we must kick the carbon habit!"
-Ban Ki Moon, United Nations Secretary General

Today’s world Environment Day and what better way to celebrate it than to open a ‘Climate Defenders Camp’.

Under the clear blue skies we’ve set up camp right outside the Jaro Metropolitan Cathedral, we’re here because there’s an ongoing struggle between some business groups and government officials on one hand, and the Roman Catholic Church & environmental groups on the other, over a proposal to build a “clean coal” 165MW coal-fired power plant in the province. The location of the coal plant is beside an existing diesel plant located within the city itself, and within 300 meters from densely populated low-income residential neighborhoods.

The NGO Germanwatch, has ranked the Philippines as the top nation to be hit by climate-related disasters in 2006. Yet despite being ravaged by some of the most powerful storms, floods and mudslides in recent years, yet the Philippine government is embarking on one of the most aggressive coal expansion plans in Asia.

It is in response to this myopic perspective of development that we’ve set camp in one of the city’s busiest areas we want to engage people into looking at the long-term benefits of opposing the plant and while at the same time pushing for a dramatic shift of our energy dependence from coal to renewable energy.

As we set camp youth members of Solar Generation launched a solar café that runs on solar energy derived from the solar panels that we’ve also installed on site, we’re hoping that the people of Iloilo would share our vision of a greener future that’s no longer dependent on fossil fuels, echoing the sentiments stated by UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon on his World Environment Day Speech.

A few hours after we’ve put up the entire camp along with the exhibit, rain suddenly gushed and what seemed like an afternoon drizzle suddenly became a relentless downpour that flooded the entire camp area and we were forced to take down all the stuff that might get damaged from the water that's speedily engulfing our camp.

By the time the rain has stopped it was almost dusk and we were forced to regroup and rebuild. Hopefully tomorrow's another day...

This is a video taken by our volunteer Albert on his camera during the rain

The whole experience candidly reminded me of James Taylor’s, Fire & Rain where there’s a line that goes: “I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain…” and that best explains how we all felt we put up camp under the scorching heat of the sun up until noontime when suddenly the rain poured. On hindsight, our experience during the first day of the camp best illustrates the sudden unpredictability of weather patterns that we are all experiencing now, due to climate change. All over the world there’s a debate on whether or not we should kick the carbon habit.

Hopefully this camp will in its own little way help turn the tide in the debate.

• you can also read the web story on the Greenpeace website

- chuck baclagon

So we wait again....

I wanted to write for this blog last night but our night turned into dawn because of developments near the port of the Pagbilao Coal Plant where the Rainbow Warrior is anchored.

Company representatives came onboard and asked to talk to us about their operations. As we were ending the discussion, the plant manager (who said his name was irrelevant to the conversation when I asked his name) told the Captain something like, "A wise man understands the law" but the Captain retorted with a one-two punch (figuratively) and with a smile said, "And an ignorant man hides behind them". Applause!!!!! As we know not all laws are fair that is why we are advocates. We find something wrong in the law, that's why we work to change them. We thought that was the end of it for the day.

Then, at 10 PM last night, the Coast Guards arrived asking the Captain to receive a letter saying the Warrior was violating Philippine laws by anchoring near the port and that we could be removed and arrested if we don't move the ship.

We are still here and we are now on our second day in Pagbilao. This morning, we were able to paint a ship on anchor outside the Pagbilao port carrying coal with the message "Quit Coal". It's late afternoon and we're still waiting... Waiting for government to respond to our demands that (1) there should be no more construction or expansion of coal plants in the country; (2) increase investments in renewable energy; and (3) inclusion of CO2 emissions in the EIA system.

So we wait again....

-Beau Baconguis

Coal = Climate Change

Quit Coal - Save the Climate

Hello. My name is Beau and I'm the campaigner on board the Rainbow Warrior for the Philippine leg of the Quit Coal, Save the Climate Tour. Our first day on the Rainbow Warrior began with the crew waking up really early to prepare to dock at the Legaspi port from anchorage in the Albay Gulf. For someone who does not know much about ships, it looked like a complex maneuver in order to squeeze in between two boats was needed because the port was quite small. But Captain Mike and his crew made it look so easy and we had landed in no time.

We kicked off the tour with a press conference onboard. Captain Mike charmed the press with stories of how we work with the Rainbow Warrior and other Greenpeace ships. He spoke of SAILING into Philippine waters all the way from New Zealand. Our Executive Director, Von and Climate Campaigner Jasper talked animatedly about our campaign to push for renewable energy while phasing out coal.

The highlight for the day was the declaration of Vice Governor Brando Sael of Albay Province (on behalf of Governor Joey Salceda) that Albay Province would be a Coal-Free Zone. We were very pleased because this meant, zero toxics from coal facilities for the people of Albay, less CO2 emissions going out into the atmosphere. Equally important is the signal that they send to the national government that the environmental, economic and social costs with coal is just too high that investing in coal is just not worth it. The people of Albay feel strongly about this because they know what it is like to be hammered by typhoons year in, year out.

Mabuhay to the people of Albay for this courageous deed!!!

-Beau