Commodities | Mon May 18, 2015 6:23pm BST
SEATTLE | BY VICTORIA CAVALIERE
About 200 protesters gathered at the Port of Seattle on Monday to block access to a Royal Dutch Shell drilling rig headed for the Arctic this summer to resume exploration for oil and gas reserves.
Holding signs reading “Shell No” and “Seattle Loves the Arctic,” protesters gathered early to prevent workers from reaching the rig, one of two that Shell will store in Seattle before sending to the Chukchi Sea off Alaska.
Environmental groups have planned days of demonstrations over Shell’s plans, saying drilling in the icy Arctic region, where weather changes rapidly, could lead to a catastrophic spill that would be next to impossible to clean up.
They also say drilling would threaten the Arctic’s vast layer of sea ice that helps regulate the global temperature and that they say has already been disappearing as a result of global warming.
“I’m joining in solidarity with the environmental community,” Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, who was among Monday’s protesters, told KIRO Radio. “Any drilling of oil in the Arctic represents grave danger to all humanity.”
Last week the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, gave conditional approval to Shell’s return to exploration in the Arctic, which was suspended after a mishap-filled 2012 season. Some Alaska lawmakers welcomed the decision because, they said, it would bring money and jobs to the state.
Representatives from Shell could not be immediately reached for comment on the protests.
On Saturday, hundreds of activists in kayaks and small boats fanned out around the port in Elliott Bay. [ID: nL1N0Y70I5]
Shell’s second drilling rig was due to dock at the Port of Seattle in coming days.
“People are so appalled to see this in Seattle,” said Emily Johnston, a spokeswoman for the environmental group 350 Seattle, about a city with a strong liberal reputation.
The city’s planning department ruled last week the port’s leasing of a terminal to Shell was in violation of its city permit.
Despite the opposition, Shell has said it was moving ahead with plans to keep the rigs in Seattle until mid-summer, when the drilling fleet and its crew plans to return to the Arctic.
(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Lisa Lambert)
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
