July 30, 2015

Watch Activists Dangle Off a Portland Bridge to Block Shell’s Arctic-Bound Ship

Greenpeace activists watch Shell's MSV Fennica return to dock after apparently impeding it from returning to the Arctic Thursday morning. Courtesy of Greenpeace USA

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Update 7/31/15: Thursday evening, Shell’s MSV Fennica made another attempt to pass through protestors on Portland’s Willamette River. This time, the icebreaker was successful; the Fennica is now on its way back up to the Arctic. The video below shows the dramatic confrontation between the ship and the environmental activists:

Environmental activists have taken to kayak, chain, and even rocking chair to slow down Royal Dutch Shell’s plans to drill for oil in the Arctic this summer. For the past two days, they took their protest to a new extreme. Early Wednesday morning, around a dozen Greenpeace activists rappelled off a bridge over the Willamette River in Portland, Ore. to stop a Shell ship stationed there for repairs from returning to the Arctic. This morning, it appears they caused the ship to turn around after it tried to rejoin Shell’s fleet in the Arctic’s Chukchi Sea.

The ship, called the MSV Fennica, went all the way up to the Arctic only to find a 39-inch-long gash in its side. The damage was so serious, the ship had to travel all the way back to Portland for repairs. The Fennica is an icebreaker, but also carries Shell’s capping stack, needed to stop an underwater well leak; Shell can’t begin its exploring until the Fennica and its equipment is back and functioning in the Arctic.

In an effort to stop it from rejoining Shell’s fleet in the Chukchi Sea, and delay the oil giant’s drilling plans there, Greenpeace organized protestors to dangle from Portland’s St. John’s bridge and physically stop the ship from traveling down the Willamette River and back out to the Pacific. We reached out to Shell to confirm if the protestors have affected the Fennica’s schedule, but have not heard back.

Below, we collected some Twitter photos of the dramatic protest:

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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