Shell to Sea encourages people to enter Statoil competition

international | rights and freedoms | news report Monday February 28, 2011 19:48 by AC - Shell to Sea

Tell Statoil what you think of the Corrib Gas Project - in public

Norwegian energy giant Statoil, with New Scientist Magazine, has launched a competition to ‘win a trip to the high Arctic and the deep sea’. Specifically, the lucky winner will have the opportunity to fly to the 472-metre-high Troll gas platform in the North Sea.

All you have to do to enter, is to tell Statoil ‘which engineering project you think will have the greatest impact on human life in the next 30 years, and why,’ in no more than 100 words.

Shell to Sea believes that the engineering project which will have the greatest impact on human life in the Rossport area, and on the national life of Ireland, for decades to come is Corrib Gas Project. Not only has community life been irreversibly damaged, but the damage done to the body politic of the state by bribery, collusion, moral cowardice, and silence, at so many levels in Official Ireland, is as yet incalculable.

Nevertheless, Shell to Sea is always keen to encourage people to make their views known to Shell and Statoil, the main partners in the Corrib Gas Project, and with that in mind, encourages everyone to enter this competition. To make it easier, we have offered two sample entries, weighing in at exactly 100 words each. But enter soon, the competition closes at midnight on Tuesday 1st March 2011! Entries can be submitted at http://www.newscientist.com/engineeringgreats/competition. If you make it to Troll, we can supply you with a Shell to Sea banner to unfurl from its 472-metre summit! They publish all entries, at least until the moderator catches up with them. We got a few entries up which stayed up over the weekend, although the vigilant moderators have taken them down since! So put 'em up in the evening! There are entries coming in from all over the world, throughout the day and night.

In no more that 100 words tell us which engineering project you think will have the greatest impact on human life in the next 30 years, and why?

1. The Corrib Gas Project in the West of Ireland, of which Statoil is a 37% shareholder. Why? Because bullying, intimidation, and bribery from Shell and Statoil has already altered the lives of local residents irreversibly. Politicians, bribed to give the gas away, also subverted the planning process at the behest of Statoil and Shell. Now it’s revealed that the huge refinery is a ‘bridge-head’ for landing the €540,000,000,000 in oil and gas beyond Corrib over the coming decades. Due to a law change by a corrupted politician, Statoil and Shell own 100% of this gas while Ireland faces poverty.

2. Shell and Statoil’s Corrib Gas Project. For the following reasons: Theft of public resources; unquantifiable safety and health risks; corrupting of planning process, politics, courts and police; environmental degradation; trauma to protestors; physical injury; long-term judicial punishment of protestors and their families; panic attacks, sleeplessness, shattered assumptions, difficulty concentrating, headaches, backaches, irritability, endless tasks to be done, unprecedented stress, overwhelming exhaustion, endless waiting, shock, depression, nightmares, burnout, lack of appetite, stomach pain, nausea, rage, regret, helplessness, hopelessness, feeling numb, inner pain, muscle tension, flashbacks, fatigue, fear, self doubt, loss of trust in institutions, lack of faith in the future...