(photo by Valerie Costa)
Well, we knew that kayaks vs. the machine wasn’t a fair fight, but nonetheless, it was very hard to watch the Noble Discoverer head up to Alaska this morning.
Twenty kayaktivists–from 350 Seattle, Backbone Campaign, and other groups–paddled into the rig’s path, and five were detained and fined by the Coast Guard.
But the fight is by no means over: it’s time now to put pressure on our political leaders to stand up to Shell, and make sure the company knows it’s not welcome in Washington State.
Just this morning, the Department of the Interior gave Shell its “letter of authorization” to “take” polar bears and walruses…like Arctic mammals don’t have enough to worry about. Thanks to the good work of Earthjustice, Shell is, at least, restricted to a single well at a time, and not the two that they’d been planning on: that’s something.
Stay tuned, and stay fired up!