Greenpeace carried out a protest against Shell at yesterday’s Belgian Grand Prix. They wanted to bring attention to Shell’s drilling and exploration for oil in the arctic region. A number of banners and signs were placed around the circuit, including the use of two remote controlled signs that were activated in front of the podium (video below).
The appearance of these signs, or perhaps the removal of them, was responsible for the jeering and booing that could be heard during the post-race interview held on the podium with David Coulthard.
Vanessa Hall, protesting with a banner on the pit straight grandstand, said: “This sport is all about cutting edge developments in engineering and safety, but Shell’s Arctic drilling programme relies on technology and equipment that was developed before today’s drivers were even born. And of course the only reason Shell can drill there at all is because climate change is melting the Arctic ice cap, and they’re going in to drill for more of the stuff that caused the melt in the first place—it’s madness.â€
Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International Executive Director, said: “I was a fan of Grand Prix racing when I was growing up, but I am not a fan of what Shell is doing in the Arctic. Right now we are in the race of our lives against Shell, a company that sees the melting of the Arctic as a business opportunity, rather than a warning. Every driver and F1 fan knows that oil on the tracks spells disaster; an oil spill in the Arctic would be catastrophic. We hope that when they’ve heard about what Shell is up to they’ll join the almost four-million-strong movement to save the Arctic.â€
You can read more at Greenpeace.
UPDATE: New images added below courtesy of Greenpeace.
All pics © Greenpeace.
4 replies on “Greenpeace protests against Shell at Belgian GP”
Anyone else notice that Greenpeace used a awful lot of fuel for this stupid stunt. That is a great waste of fuel and energy. Pathological hypocrites.
I’d be pretty worried about the security at F1 events if two remote control devices can be placed that close to the podium and activated during the anthems. Lucky they were just banners and not something more sinister!
The truth is security can’t stop sh@#$ anywhere. Remember how close the Chasers got to the US President without even trying.
Most people just can’t be bothered creating havoc. The ones that can bothered are just too stupid to succeed anyway.
Security on any level are just humans like everyone else. They can be outsmarted just like everyone else. It’s not as high tech and high budget as people might be led to believe.
Anyway I thought it was as funny as hell what they did at the GP. It also is true that Shell and BP don’t give two stuffs about the environment. All they are interested in is greed, bonuses and shareholders. Nothing more.
[…] what we know now about the Greenpeace protest, it’s also interesting to see the evidence of the signs being installed as the cars were […]