Greenpeace Save the Arctic in Doha

I’ve just been reading a blog by my colleague Anne Allmeling, who’s currently at the conference in Doha. She’s working on a story about ngos at the conference, which I hope we’ll be able to read tomorrow.

Amongst the activists braving the Arctic chill of the air-conditioned conference centre, Anne came across Swati Jangle from Greenpeace’s Save the Arctic campaign.

Ice blog regulars, DW fans and Living Planet listeners in particular may remember I visited one of their events in Bonn earlier in the year. It’s a very active campaign. Think global act local in practice here.They are campaigning to stop oil drilling and industrial fishing in the Arctic and are aiming to collect 3 million signatures and are currently at  2,217,626. Long way from Doha to the Arctic? It is in fact a very small world.

Greenpeace Save the Arctic campaigners in Bonn earlier this year

My friend asked me on the phone last night how our climate conference coverage was going. I was not surprised – but somehow disappointed – when she said “from what I hear in the media, it’s a waste of time anyway”. More power to all the volunteers from organisations all round the world who brave the crowds and bureaucracies of these mega-events and the pessimism that so easily takes hold in a lot of mass media to keep drawing attention to what we CAN do.