Visiting the Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise Ship in Penn’s Landing

This past Saturday, I toured Greenpeace‘s 50-meter Arctic Sunrise at Penn’s Landing for their Coal Free Future Tour. This month-long tour, also hitting up Wilmington, NC, NYC & Boston, is teaching the Northeast about the major impacts the coal industry has on the environment.

Regardless of the campaign & political jargon, “Clean Coal” in an oxymoron.  Coal is dirty by production, the single largest source of carbon dioxide pollution in the US & the largest source of mercury emissions in the country.  Pollution from coal-powered plants is responsibly for 13,200 deaths per year, (Treehugger) (1359 from PA alone), 20,000 heart attacks, 217,600 asthma attacks, and more than 1.6 million lost work days per year.  “Clean coal” is a technology that will cost billions to test and wouldn’t be ready for decades.

In PA alone, coal plants emitted 101,690,275 TONS of Carbon Dioxide… along with mercury, arsenic, and lead in coal ash, right in your backyard.  Instead, if we switched to renewable energy sources like wind, solar and efficiency improvements (way better alternatives than coal), it could create 1.1 million jobs by 2030.

Touring the ship was pretty impressive – all the Greenpeace staff and volunteers are clearly well informed and truly passionate for the cause.  With around 30 people traveling on the ship, they definitely keep each other motivated (I approved of the disco ball in the one room). The crowd touring was very interested, asking questions about Greenpeace’s journey and research.

The Arctic Sunrise is an icebreaker (meaning it can sail through the Arctic) having researched climate impact and the post-oil spill Gulf this past fall.  Ironically, the ship was a destructive fishing ship at one point.  It was acquired by Greenpeace in 1995, and other tasks have included peacefully protests against whaling and studying the Petermann Glacier in Greenland.

Greenpeace is trying to build awareness by its campaigns for global warming, oceans, forests, anti-nukes, eliminate toxic chemicals, sustainable agriculture & change for a green future.  They also target companies & individuals who fund “climate denying” scientists, such as the Koch brothers.  Their peaceful protests are often tongue-in-cheek: for example, they used oil from the Gulf Spill to put up the phrase “Arctic next” on a Shell Oil Ship in the Gulf.

If you have a chance to check them out before 6 PM tonight, I highly recommend it!  Best of luck to the Greenpeace crew on the rest of your journey!

Posted by Julie

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Julie Hancher is Editor-in-Chief of Green Philly, sharing her expertise of all things sustainable in the city of brotherly love. She enjoys long walks in the park with local beer and greening her travels, cooking & cat, Sir Floofus Drake. View all posts by Julie Hancher