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IN two days of action in New Zealand Greenpeace locked down a dirty dairy land conversiona and then the very next morning, as the sun rose over sleepy Helensville, unfurled a truckload of Ready-Lawn around the outside of National Party leader John Key’s electorate office. Then came some pine trees, some two-dimensional cows and a smattering of stumps. Finally a billboard went up saying: “Would John solve this climate crime?

It’s on the tube:

After a little hint on the Rainbow Warrior blog this morning Greenpeace activists have exposed the NZ fueling climate change again … this time with dairy expansion. More milk for the new Chinese markets maybe.

Greenpeace reveal Dairy expansion out of control

As part of the Great Whale Trail Greenpeace has been running a ‘name a whale competition’ followed by a ‘vote for your favourite whale name’ poll.”>vote for your favourite whale name‘ poll.

The results have been somewhat surprising - ‘Mr Splashy Pants’ is leading the field by an uncommonly large margin.

Both BoingBoing and Reddit are running the Mr Splashy Pants as a possible whale name story. There’s been around 42,000 votes for whale names so far and Mr Splashy Pants is well in the lead.

Let’s watch this thing ‘go viral’…

English posts that contain Mr Splashy Pants per day for the last 30 days.

Get your own chart!

For your enjoyment, here are some of the comments on the Mr Splashy Pants story on Reddit.

Well I’m an active member of Greenpeace and I voted for Mr Splashy Pants. Genius. It may seem like a piss-take, but imagine the negative publicity involved with murdering Mr Splash Pants. PR catastrophe.

I voted for ‘Mister Splashy Pants’, but I pronounce it ‘Stephen Colbert’. Hope that’s within the rules.

I can see the headlines now, “Whalers off the coasts of Japan have admitted last Tuesday to killing Internet star, ‘Mr. Splashy Pants’..”

Mr. SP is in the lead at 47%…and Greenpeace would be foolish to complain about the free publicity. How much media interest will they get for a whale named Aiko, and how much for Mr. Splashy?

The plot thickens though …

From the Greenpeace International blog:

What isn’t so well known is the identity of the unsung hero that made it all possible. We don’t know all the details but from what we have managed to piece together, it appears that someone found a way around our ‘one vote per person’ rule and began a clicking frenzy that was to change the face of the competition.

Want to help us keep our oceans safe for all the whales?

Become a Whale Defender.

Follow the migration of the humpback whales from the Pacific to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. You can help stop whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in the name of “scientific research” and fundraise to help Greenpeace make our oceans safe for all whales.

Its easy to get involved…

Great spoof from Greenpeace USA …

The corporate braumeisters of Anheuser-Busch have let genetically engineered rice contaminate their Budweiser beer, independent laboratory testing has revealed. Tests show rice used in Anheuser-Busch’s east coast US breweries is contaminated with genetically engineered rice varieties outlawed in most of the world.

Sign the petition

YouTube - Wassup with your beer?

This is not a drill! The directors of 20 major NZ greenhouse gas emitters have been warned of possible litigation if they don’t take action on climate change.

More on the Greenpeace website

Bottom trawling in the international waters of the South pacific will soon be a thing of the past - at least for NZ vessels and any from the 20 countries who recently signed a RFMO agreement in Chile last week. This is a surprisingly good result for the deep sea environment which as been systematically devastated by the practice. orange roughy stocks have almost collapsed and countless acres of ancient slow growing deep sea ecosystem has been literally wiped out.

What’s interesting is the apparent lack of response here in NZ. For years now Greenpeace has been asking for a moratorium on the practice and the industry’s response has at times been apoplectic but now, as an effective moratorium looms, the silence is deafening.

International media has picked up the story but in NZ there has been an almost complete blackout.

The outcomes are particularly relevant to New Zealand. Our fleet is responsible for 90% of the bottom trawling in the South Pacific region. New Zealand delegates told the meeting this week that such measures would severely constrain the ability of the New Zealand fishing industry to continue bottom trawling on the high seas around New Zealand and suggested that it may even have the effect of putting an end to bottom trawling. Well yeah … i think that’s the point isn’t it?