WITH THE TORCH COMES FREEDOM

Just a couple of weeks before I entered Tibet, a group of four Americans and one Tibetan-American had hiked to the base of mount Everest and unfurled a simple homemade sign. They were each almost immediately arrested by the Chinese authorities, but not before one of them managed to transmit a live feed of a video recording of their activities. The five individuals were detained for several days and then permanently expelled from China. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that they were arrested for "carrying out illegal activities aimed at splitting China," and that they had been expelled according to Chinese law. Shortly thereafter the Chinese announced a new policy of travel restrictions for foreigners in Tibet. To travel out of the capital city of Lhasa now required a costly "Alien Travel Permit" and the hiring of an official Chinese guide that would accompany foreign groups at all times. There were a lot of pissed of foreigners complaining about their spoiled travel plans when I arrived. I found the whole thing fascinating.

How five people with a sign and a video camera were able to create such a disturbance and incite such a swift and drastic reaction from the Chinese Government is an indication of both the potential strength of this form of protest in the modern technical age, as well as the weakness of the moral ground of the Chinese position on Tibet. The sign read: "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008," a strategic play on the slogan of the Beijing Olympic Games. Within hours of the incident, news of the protester's arrest was on the Internet along with a downloadable version of the footage through YouTube.

Timing was everything.

Organizers of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics were just about to announce the much anticipated Olympic torch route. What they had planned was the most ambitious in Olympic history, including the longest torch relay ever — an 85,000-mile, 130-day route that would cross five continents. The highlight of this remarkable route would be when a team of Chinese, bearing the Olympic torch, scaled the 29,028 feet to the top of Mount Everest.

At the time of the protest a Chinese team was already at Everest Base Camp looking into the practical aspects of bringing a lit torch to the top of the highest mountain in the world, as well as the logistics of broadcasting their progress to the world live. There have been some unconventional methods used in the past to transport the Olympic torch - it has traveled by elephant in India; camel at the Pyramids in Egypt; and by tram in Rio de Janeiro. In the 2000 Olympics the Australians designed a torch that could stay ignited under water as it was brought down to the Great Barrier Reef by scuba divers. The carrying of the torch has become an integral part of the Olympic tradition and perhaps the most widely viewed event of the Olympic ceremonies. The torch that the Chinese intend to bring to Everest will be outfitted with a special oxygen tank to keep it burning in the thin air and an igniter to re-light the flame when gusting winds blow it out. It will also be the first ever live-broadcast of an attempted summit of Everest. One thing is for sure - the whole world will be watching. So, the implications of the actions of the small band of protesters was not lost on the Chinese Government - if they are not careful, rather than seeing the glory of China on their carefully choreographed day, the world might instead be watching segments that highlight China's highly controversial occupation of Tibet.


Tibet isn't the only controversial stop on the torch's path either. China is also using the torch's route to make political statements about the status of Taiwan. Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade state and has claimed sovereignty over the self-ruled democratic island since the losing nationalists fled there at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. China has repeatedly threatened to bring the island back into the fold, by force if necessary. When discussing the Olympic torch route, the executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic organising committee, has repeatedly referred to Taipei (Taiwan's capital) as an "overseas Chinese city". Then it came out that the Taiwan leg of the Olympic torch relay has been designated a part of the "domestic route," thereby creating the misimpression that Taiwan is a region under China's control. Officials in Taiwan are furious.

But maybe some good can come from this in the end.


The very first Olympic Games were held in 776 B.C. at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, Greece. From its start the Olympics marked the beginning of a period of peace for the often warring Greeks. At the start of the Games, torch bearers would be sent out to travel throughout Greece, declaring a "sacred truce" to all wars between rival city-states. The truce would remain in place for the duration of the games, so that spectators could safely travel to the Olympics.

Perhaps the progress of the torch through the controversial regions of China's politics during this period of intense international attention will force issues to the surface that have until now had very little opportunity for public discussion within China. One can only hope.

A Curiosity in China

This man sort of sidled up to me with a great grin and tagged along for a while as I walked down the street in Shanghai. I could tell he just wanted a good look. This kind of curiosity regarding foreigners is still very much a part of China. It's very common to catch someone taking a sneaky picture of you with their cell phone, or sometimes they have their friend take a picture for them as they get in next to you. You have to wonder who's scrap book you have made it into after spending any time in China. But, when it really sunk in that I was a physical anomaly here, was when I woke up on the train to find a girl tugging on my arm hair and making monkey gestures to her friends. I forgave her - it was probably her first close look at a hairy albino like me.

A big part of this curiosity is likely due to the tiny ratio of foreigners in China today relative to the enormous Chinese population. It is very easy to feel like the the odd drop in a sea of over a billion. But it's also due to the fact that up until pretty recently China was practically closed off to foreigners. I remember that when my next door neighbors visited China in the late eighties it was a very big deal to go to China then. They had to have a government minder with them at all times and their interaction with local Chinese were very restricted.

Historically the Chinese have a right to be a little suspicious of foreign influence, particularly Westerners. There was a time when foreigners took parts of china by force and in many cities in China you can still see the remnants of these concessions in the foreign quarters. In light of this period, when China was carved up into different spheres of influence by the west, it's understandable, if not excusable, that the word for foreigner in Mandarin is yangguizi and in Cantonese it's gweilo. Both mean devil.

The Other Great Wall: Censorship in China

Late one night in an Internet cafe in Shanghai, as people were clearing out and only the owner and a couple of kids playing video games were left, I decided to give Chinese censorship a test. I took a look over my shoulder, typed in "Tiananmen square 1989", and clicked search. No Red Guard soldiers stormed the building, but the results were telling. Many of the sites that came up were of general tourist information, inviting me to visit the Great Hall of the People, the Monument to the People's Heroes, and Mao Zedong Memorial Hall. No mention of any protesters being mowed down by the Chinese military yet. A few sites with informative soundings titles did appear, but when I clicked on these, a window opened up telling me that the sites were unavailable. When I did a google search for images using "Tiananmen square 1989", I got nothing. Not one image!

The photo that is now ubiquitous everywhere else in the world, that of a lone man in a face-off with a row of Chinese tanks, has somehow been completely erased from Chinese cyberspace. I actually got the chills thinking about how a social event as significant as China's crackdown on demonstrations that took place in Beijing in the summer of 1989 could be so thoroughly removed from public awareness.


Just in case you forgot what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989, I'll give you the short version of it:

For several months in 1989, a crowd of several thousand pro-democracy students gathered in Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, and staged a massive protest. Foreign journalists brought the protester's story to the rest of the world and people everywhere watched to see the result of the pro-democracy movement's stand-off with the Chinese government. Most memorable for Americans perhaps was when students built an effigy of the statue of liberty. When the protesters defied government calls to disperse, a split emerged within the Communist Party of China on how to respond to the protesters. Out of the party turmoil, a hardliner faction emerged and the decision was made to quell the protests. Army tanks and infantry were sent into Tiananmen Square to disperse the protesters.

Estimates of the resulting civilian deaths vary - 23 according to the Communist Party of China. 400–800 according to the CIA. 2600 according to the Chinese Red Cross.

Following the violence the government conducted widespread arrests to suppress the remaining supporters of the movement. They banned the foreign press and strictly controlled coverage of the event inside China (evidently to this day).

So, how does a government control information about an event like this? Relatively easily in a country with one political party that has control of all newspapers, television and radio. But how does China manage to maintain this control of information in the "information age"? What about the Internet?

Well, Access to the Internet is strictly regulated in China. Internet cafes, called Wangba, are required to keep detailed logs of their customers' online activity on file for 60 days. If a user tries to access forbidden Web sites, the Internet cafe must disconnect the user and file a report with state agencies. Penalties for violations include fines and even imprisonment. Also, every Chinese person who signs up for Internet service at home must register with his or her local police department within 30 days.

Once on line, personal e-mail is also filtered through a screening system. Text and subject lines are scanned and blocked if anything objectionable is found. So, if I were to send an e-mail with the subject "Free Tibet" from inside China, to someone in china, it most likely would simply not arrive. As a result it is very difficult for people in China to exchange information about certain topics.

What about trying to search the web for information from inside China? The companies like Yahoo and Google, have cut a deal in order to operate in China. In order for search engine companies to work in China they have to agree to censor certain topics. As a result the top 10 Google results using the key words "Tibet," "Taiwan China" and "equality" were all blocked, as were eight of the top 10 results using "democracy China" and "dissident China." Also, sites like Wikipedia, which allow people to contribute to them freely and are difficult to monitor, are simply banned all together in China. The result is a very effective control of information.

When it comes to politics, China has a media completely without dissenting opinions or any critical debate on subjects of real importance. Chinese people trying to find an independent source of information about Taiwanese and Tibetan independence, the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square, SARS, the Falun Gong movement, opposition political parties, and anti-Communist movements, won't find anything easily on the Internet.

When I cautiously spoke to Chinese people about some of these same subjects, they either had no knowledge of them, had a very different knowledge of them than my own, or I couldn't tell because they refused to talk. More than one person told me plainly that they were fully aware that the government censored their information. However, the most widespread reaction I got was that they just weren't really interested in politics or the news. Of course, why would they be? Any topic that is even slightly controversial isn't covered.

The Explorers - stories from the Australian frontier

While traveling over and through Australia by plane, train and bus, I chose to carry along a copy of Tim Flannery's "The Explorers: Stories of Discovery and Adventure from the Australian Frontier". It was the perfect companion to staring out the window at the often barren and alien landscape that passed by. Flannery, the director of the South Australia Museum, has compiled 67 fascinating excerpts from the pages of explorer's journals, each one offering the experience of being a fly on the wall during remarkable moments in the history of European attempts to circumnavigate, traverse, and settle the harsh environments of Australia. It is perhaps the best look into these explorer's experiences, penned by their own hands and under some of the most extreme conditions imaginable.

Their words contain all the adventure and insight of the famous mission of discovery embarked upon by Louis and Clarke in North America. The most telling difference however, is that unlike their American counterparts, the explorers of Australia have a tendency to get killed. They die off in tragic accidents, in skirmishes with Aboriginals, but most often from their inability to extract the bare necessities of food and water from the strange and inhospitable land they encounter. Many of the stories in Flannery's anthology are wrenched from the accounts of sole survivors or found among the remains of failed expeditions. Together they paint a picture of a harsh and unforgiving continent, capable of destroying even the most thoroughly prepared team of explorers.

There is the story Charles Sturt, who's journal reveals his obsession with finding a mythological lake in the center of Australia. We learn of the daily misery of dragging a boat through a landscape so hot and dry that it bursts the party's thermometer. nearly his entire party falls to an extreme case of scurvy. Perhaps the most astonishing demise is that of John Ainsworth Horrocks, who is killed by his own camel, which apparently turned on him for having been dragged into such inhospitable a terrain. The most famous expedition however, is that of Burke and Wills who set out to be the first to cross the center of Australia from South to North. Despite being well funded, the team is soon divided and reduced to near starvation. It's leader made the fateful decision of attempting to mimic the modes of subsistence he observed among the aboriginals he had encountered. Unbeknownst to him however, the ngardu seeds he sees them eat must first undergo a complex process, without which they contain thiaminase which depletes the body of Vitamin B1. The mistake costs him his life.

This and other stories in the collection hint at a far more difficult story to tell - that of how the thriving indigenous communities that these adventurous explorers run into managed to survive for entire lifetimes in these landscapes that make such short work of even the most well provisioned expeditions. Indeed the various ways of life that aboriginal Australians developed in order to live in Australia's harshest environments is staggering. Gaining nutrients from unlikely plants, tiny grass seeds, stems of small flowers, sap and even the bark of certain trees, digging up hidden roots and even eating grubs and other insects - their diets reflect an extraordinary adaptation to the land. Some of these foods involve such complex processes to remove poisons and extract nutrients that one wonders how they were ever recognizes as foods at all. Burrawang seeds for example, are extremely poisonous, but because they are one of the only sources of starch in some areas of Australia, indigenous people pounded and soaked the seeds in water for a week, changed the water daily, then turned the pulp into a cake which is roasted over hot embers. Any mistake in this method could cost you your life.

Some of these recipes came to mind when I was visiting an exhibit in a Sydney Museum which stated that aboriginals "lacked agriculture". I suppose another way to look at it is that they were doing remarkably well without it.

For a really unique look at the Australian environment and a detailed explanation of what it can offer to sustain human life, check out the book "Bush Food" by Jennifer Isaacs.

Writing on the Wall

I made it to the trendy city of Melbourne, in southern Australia, just in time to catch up with an old friend of mine who was having a gallery opening on that night. I hadn't seen my friend Sudeep in close to ten years. His exhibit was packed and it was good to find him doing so well. His photography was mainly of urban scenes and graffiti from around Melbourne. The gallery was full of artsy types who were talking about the values of graffiti as a public art form. One of Sudeep's shots was of a construction wall that ran along a street where someone had spray-painted "White Australia has a Black History". It was in the colors of the aboriginal flag. I was telling sudeep about how I was interested in studying the history of indigenous people's struggles in Australia, and he suggested I come along with him for a tour of some of the murals painted around Melbourne and its suburbs which he thought might interest me.

We spent the following day criss-crossing the city, photographing some of the art that has been put up to highlight issues and commemorate events in Australia's aboriginal history. Some of it was on the sides of buildings, in school playgrounds or at bus stops. It was interesting for me to see references to the things that I had been reading about displayed so prominently in these public spaces.

I took some pictures of my own and considered what an interesting historical source murals and other public art could be to a social studies classroom. Being created by community members and occupying such communal spaces, they have the potential to reveal the concepts and events a community wishes to remain a part of their shared public consciousness.

The Great Barrier Reef

As I made my descent into the city of Cairns, in Queensland, northern Australia, like everyone else on the plane, I craned my neck to get a view of the Great Barrier Reef. It’s a pretty remarkable sight even from this perspective.

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest structure on earth created by living things. It stretches over 1,200 miles, and supposedly, even if I had been looking out the window of the space shuttle it would have been visible from space.

Of course the best way to experience the reef is from underwater, but a trip out on one of the many livaboard boats that operate here does not come cheap. After a few days walking the docks and asking around, I managed get a standby fare when someone cancelled aboard the ship Taka. I only had a couple of hours to pack before the ship set out for a five-day trip to the outer sections of the coral sea. I had just enough time to throw my things together and rent an underwater housing for my camera.

As the boat pulled out and I started to assemble some of my dive equipment, despite stormy weather and ten foot swells, I was happy as a pig in muck. I learned to SCUBA dive in Burlington VT, in the cold of winter. It was often so cold that we would rent a UHAUL truck, park it on shore with a space heater in the back, and bolt strait into it after each dive. On some days we would have to waddle out along the ice with our tanks and fins, just to reach the slightly less frozen, frigged waters. Visibility ranged from five feet, to five inches in front of our faces, depending on how much silt got kicked up by divers loosing control of their buoyancy and churning up the murky floor. As far as things to see, Lake Champlain, where we did the majority of our dives, boasts such underwater wonders as several discarded dinner plates from the dinning service of the old Plattsburg ferry, a surprising number of shopping carts, and at least one toilet. Despite the lack of life down there, I came to love the experience. Even during our pool training I enjoyed the sensation of being underwater for prolonged periods of time. I remember the excitement of my first dive, when I turned upside-down and saw the light refracting on the surface. I watched as my bubbles floated up towards the light and I realized for the first time that I didn't have to make a dash up there for air. Just the feeling of weightlessness, being able to hover suspended in space, rising and falling slightly with each breath - it is one of those truly amazing experiences. Then of course there is the underwater world to explore.

The first time you descend into the alien world of a coral reef, teeming with life and bursting with color, some people find it reminiscent of the closest environment on land, a tropical rainforest. Flowing coral fans and the jagged branches of staghorn conjure up a vibrant jungle canopy. Instead of flowers, soft corals and anemones with their bright tentacles sway with every surge. Urchins, starfish, sea cucumbers, tiny crabs and tinier shrimp, crawl and pick over everything.Then of course there is the kaleidoscope of fish, they seem to take the place of tropical birds, and dart in and out of every crevice, or swarm together in massive schools. In fact coral reefs outdo rain forests in terms of biodiversity, and hold the world's record for densest and most complex concentration of life on earth.

On board Taka, we did twelve dives, diving around the clock. Even at night the reef is crawling with life. We did several night dives where only the beam of our torches penetrated a pitch black sea to reveal a whole different range of creatures. The highlight for me was when doing an early morning dive, right at dawn I found where a hawksbill turtle had slept, wedging its body under an overhang of coral outcrop. It slowly emerged and I followed it up as it glided to the surface for its first breath of the new day.

When not diving I sat in the ships lounge reading “Coral Reefs: Cities Under the Sea” by Richard C. Murphy. It’s a bit of a strange book - part marine science, part science fiction. The author draws insight from the relationship between different organisms within the reef and the way they collectively create an efficient system. In the “coral city” that the author describes there is no waste. The by-product of each organism is the resource for the next. Taking the reef's example, he considers how our own cities might better manage things like energy, resource management and waste removal. He also gives an interesting explanation of what the reef itself is.

What we call the reef is really a symbiosis of two organisms, one a plant and the other an animal. The animal is called a polyp, and the plant is an algae called zooxanthellae. The polyps actually evolved from a common ancestor of modern jelly fish. Its physical structure is basically that of a jelly fish that has rejected the strategy of floating with currents and capturing prey in the open ocean, and has anchored itself upside-down waiting for prey to come to it instead. These polyps have managed to form a unique relationship with algae cells, which is mutually beneficial to both species. The zooxanthelae use sunlight to produce food which they share with the colony of polyps. In return the polyps form a structure which provides the algae with shelter and access to more sunlight. Many polyps are also capable of preying on other drifting animals called plankton. The by-product of this type of feeding is shared with the algae giving it the nutrients it needs to grow.

The giant reefs systems we see today are a result of countless generations of these coral colonies piling up layer upon layer of calcium carbonate over millions of years. The hard part of the reef is really the shared skeletons of large colonies of polyps. The living part of coral is only on the surface. Many reef species specialize in feeding off this thin layer, like this parrot fish which uses its beak like teeth to break pieces of the reef off and extracts the algae cells inside. Although this destroys small portions of the reef, it is actually a necessary process in reef growth, as new coral colonies can only get their start on these bare patches.

Individual coral colonies can grow in size and number through cell division, and each polyp in a colony is an exact clone of other members. However, new coral colonies only form once a year, on a single night, usually two to seven days after the full moon of mid-summer, when a simultaneous mass spawning fills the reef with a sea of coral larva.



When you look at a large patch of coral you can see the separate species living on top of one another and guess where the founding polyp landed to form each individual colony.

For our final dive we motored into a section of reef closer to Cairns, and civilization. We usually had a dive briefing before each dive, where the layout of the reef was described as well as the types of life we could expect to see. On this last one, the ship’s dive master said it was just a “free dive” and that we should just explore it on our own.

After four days of basking in the explosion of life and color surrounding the outer sections of pristine reef, we descended into a coral graveyard. There are few sights in this world as depressing as a devastated section of coral reef. The bombed-out look of this sick section of coral was a complete shock. Some coral was bare and a ghastly bone white. Other sections were covered with a kind of brownish scum. Without the constant filtration that a healthy reef performs, the water had turned thick and murky, adding to the gloom. A few fish clung on, hiding in the shadows of the rubble of broken coral. It was quiet and lonely down there and difficult to have a full tank’s worth of air to consider what we were seeing.

When I surfaced and pulled myself up on deck it was quiet. After each dive over the last few days, the gear deck, where we took off our equipment and refilled our tanks, had been the scene of a festive and lively swap of accounts of the various creatures divers had spotted. It’s a time when the diver's excitement bursts out everywhere. After having been restricted to communicating through limited hand-signals, now they can finally tell their dive buddy how amazing that big shark was or find out if anyone else saw that tiny seahorse. After this dive however, it was as solemn as a funeral. When a couple of divers made some complaining remarks about the quality of the dive, the dive master made some appropriate comments about the importance of people getting to see this part of the reef too.

Nuclear Proliferation/Fun With Maps

My interest in the story of the Rainbow Warrior led me to compile some maps that will be useful for me to include in a unit on the proliferation of nuclear weapons:

This one shows how many and where nuclear tests have been conducted around the world.

This one shows which countries possess nuclear weapons and how many they are believed to have.


This one shows where nuclear power plants are currently producing energy within the United States.



This one shows the position of monitering facilites set up to detect nuclear tests world wide.

The Wreck of the Rainbow Warrior

On the night of July 10, 1985, the Rainbow Warrior, a 40 meter long, former fishing trawler, had been docked in Auckland harbour for three days while preparations for its next voyage were being made. The Ship belonged to the international organization Greenpeace, and its mission was simple -- sail straight into the blast zone of the French nuclear test site at Moruroa Atoll, disrupt the test, avoid being boarded by the French navy for as long as possible, and raise public awareness of the dangers of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.

The world’s oceans at this time, with their vast expanses and murky depths, had very little legal protection, and even less actual oversight. The Pacific Ocean in particular, its immensity a cloak for the unscrupulous, had become a dumping ground and testing site for the powerful nations of the world. The organization Greenpeace evolved out of the desire of private citizens to protect these waters and their inhabitants, wherever governments had failed to do so. Greenpeace describes itself as “an independent, campaigning organization which uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and to force solutions for a green and peaceful future.”

The first such “creative confrontation” that the Rainbow Warrior was assigned to, was the disruption of whale hunting, which its crew achieved quite successfully -- largely by deploying small inflatable crafts and getting directly in the line of fire between the whaling vessel’s harpoons and the whales themselves. Between 1978 and 1985, it had engaged in non-violent direct action against the ocean dumping of toxic and radioactive waste, seal hunting, and most recently nuclear testing in the Pacific. At this time the United States and France had made the testing of nuclear weapons in the South Pacific a regular occurrence despite international condemnation.

At 11:49pm, while the Rainbow warrior lay quietly birthed in Auckland harbor, there was what was described as “an electric blue flash” in the water beside the ship, which was instantly followed by a massive explosion. On board the Rainbow Warrior that night was Dutch freelance photographer Fernando Pereira, who was there to document the ship’s mission. After the first explosion, Fernando made his way down the stairs to his cabin with the aim of retrieving his cameras. It was a fatal decision. A second explosive had been attached to the hull. The goal of the first explosion was to sink the ship. This second larger explosion was to ensure that should the ship be raised it would be irreparable. By 4 am divers had recovered Fernando's body. He had drowned, trapped in his cabin, the straps of his camera bag tangled around one leg.

As it emerged that the bombing was a deliberate act of sabotage, there was little doubt in Greenpeace activist's minds who was responsible. Two days after the bombing the French Embassy in Wellington issued a statement echoing the flat denials emanating from Paris. "In no way is France involved," it declared. However, when two French agents posing as a traveling couple were apprehended by a local neighborhood watch, police soon assembled the neccessary evidence to solidify beyond a doubt French responsibility. The two captured French secret service agents eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter and willful damage in Auckland’s High Court. The bombing and the ensuing French scandal sparked an outrage internationally. In the wake of the bombing, a flotilla of privately owned New Zealand yachts sailed to Muroroa to protest against the French test. As a result, French nuclear tests in the Pacific were suspended.

In 1987 the French Government agreed to pay New Zealand compensation of NZ$13 million and formally apologised for the bombing. The French Government also paid 2.3 Million French Francs compensation to the family of Fernando Pereira, the killed photographer. An indirect consequence was to help transform New Zealand's "nuclear free" policy from an unpopular minority position to something of a national icon. New Zealand remains to this day an entirely 'nuclear free' nation, even forfeiting lucrative alliances with the United States for its refusal to allow American ships that carry or are powered by nuclear material to enter its waters.

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There are so many things that I like about this story. What event could better provide students with a faith in the influence that a small group of dedicated and concerned citizens can have for positive change in the world? Just the idea of a private organization outfitting a schooner the size of a battleship for the sole purpose of sailing it straight into the blast zone of a nuclear test site in a heroic attempt to save the environment, not to mention us, involves messages that are not often paralleled in our history curriculum. Then there is the outcome, which is a potent demonstration of the power of direct action when waged in a just cause. Even as the Rainbow Warrior sank, it created an outcry which raised public awareness to its cause in a way far more powerful than if the French had left it alone. The influence of this event on New Zealand’s notional psyche is well embedded to this day. The sinking of the rainbow warrior and the further efforts of organizations like Greenpeace were also instrumental in pushing forth the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which was eventually signed by 177 nations, and bans all nuclear explosions in all environments, for military or civilian purposes.

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The Rainbow Warrior was eventually raised and patched, although not operational any more, thanks to the second murderous blast. On 14th December 1987, she was towed north and sunk again, this time as an artificial reef in a sheltered position near Motutapere Island. Resting on the sand at 25 metres and encrusted with sea life, the Rainbow Warrior is now home to hundreds of fish, a beautiful site for visiting divers, and a reminder of the beauty that an unpolluted sea is capable of displaying.

If you think Greenpeace is cool, check out this offshoot that is taking some drastic measures to disrupt the Japanese whaling industry.

Article on Sea Shepherd Conservation Society