AMY GOODMAN: Now, what about the people who suspended themselves from the bridge? Can you talk about exactly what they did? I mean, the action called "Rappel Shell" is pretty astounding, the bravery of doing something like this. It was sort of like -- I thought of Bree Newsome, who climbed the flagpole to take the Confederate flag down, but this was going the other way: They were rappelling down.
ANNIE LEONARD: Right. So, they went up into the bridge in the middle of the night, secured themselves very safely -- they really are professionals at this; I mean, Greenpeace knows what it's doing on the technical front -- and then rappelled off the side of the bridge. They had hammocks, they had climbers' -- kind of like rock climbers use -- bags of equipment, and they stayed there for 40 hours. And I cannot explain to you what the conditions were like. Portland is having record heat. It was over 100 degrees during the day and then very cold at night. They stayed there, and up until the end, they were emotionally and physically strong, and said they wanted to stay, because their commitment to keep that Arctic oil in the ground was stronger than their human frailties at that moment. They absolutely wanted to stay.
AMY GOODMAN: Annie, I wanted to go to this point. This is not just incidental to the story, when you talked about this record heat. From AccuWeather.com this morning, "Record-Challenging Heat Wave Bakes Seattle and Portland, Oregon": "Temperatures will crack the century mark throughout Oregon's Willamette Valley and many of the valley locations of the interior Northwest." Can you talk about this record-breaking heat wave and why Greenpeace is doing what it's doing?
ANNIE LEONARD: It is so baking hot in Portland. I grew up in this region. This is just unprecedented. There were times that I was actually worried about the climbers' physical health. And I thought, how ironic that it is climate change that drove them up there, and at times I thought it might be climate change that would force them down. Absolutely so hot.
And the Arctic is connected to this, because scientists have said that we need to keep 80 percent of the known fossil fuel reserves underground if we're going to stay below that two-degree threshold over which climate scientists say will be absolute catastrophe. If we go up to two degrees, it's still going to be bad, but absolute catastrophe. Scientists have looked at what oil reserves around the world need to stay underground, and the Arctic is at the top of the list. It is really well documented at this point that extracting Arctic oil from the region and then putting it into market and then burning it will guarantee that we go over two degrees. So this is -- this is a situation where Shell is not just threatening an ecosystem that provides important habitat or threatening a beautiful forest or river that we're fond of. This is a situation where Shell's Arctic oil drilling is actually threatening everything and everyone that we love. And we want to do whatever we can to stand up and stop it.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, Annie Leonard, Shell can't do this on their own. So explain how the Obama administration is involved. I saw some of the banners yesterday of some of the people hanging from the bridge, and they had Obama's name on them.
ANNIE LEONARD: Well, that's because Shell still does not have the absolute final permit that it needs to drill. Even though they've spent about $4 billion so far invested in drilling this summer and have all their equipment up there or now on the way up there, they still need one final permit. And so, the future of the planet, in so many ways, is in Obama's hands. He still has time to deny that one final permit. And in a way, we were doing him a favor, by buying him a little extra time, holding that ship back and giving him time to stand up, be the real climate leader he keeps saying he wants to be, and deny that permit. It's crazy that they've granted it at all, because even the Department of the Interior's own scientists have said that if an oil company drills in this region where Shell wants to drill, that there is a 75 percent chance of a major oil spill. And I thought, my gosh, would you get on an airplane with a 75 percent chance of crashing? I mean, it is just crazy for this project to go forward.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, the judge said he was going to fine Greenpeace. But was everyone there involved with Greenpeace? Did people spontaneously get involved with these actions?
ANNIE LEONARD: That's a very good point. The people on the bridge were Greenpeace. The people on the ground and in the water, which really grew to hundreds and hundreds of people, were not Greenpeace. They were Mosquito Fleet, 350, Rising Tide, and then just everyday citizens that were unaffiliated. People just came down by the scores to just fill the crowd. People were driving across the bridge, dropping off food and water for the climbers. We got emails of support from all around the world. There were a couple of news channels that were live doing this. I got messages from Argentina and Turkey, where people said that all around their offices and homes they were gathered around the TV watching this. I have never, in my 30 years of work as an environmental activist, seen this level of support coming in from locally and all around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, but the ship made it out, so what is Greenpeace doing next?
ANNIE LEONARD: We are doubling down on this campaign. I feel like the climbers came down, but really what they did was pass the baton to the rest of us, that we need to now pick it up and run with this. Greenpeace everywhere has made this a global priority, and we are just doubling down to protect the Arctic and stop that drilling.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you, Annie Leonard, for joining us, executive director of Greenpeace USA, speaking to us from Portland, Oregon.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, the controversy around Planned Parenthood. Will Congress defund it? Stay with us.
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