By Michael Grey*
The doorbell rang just as I had taken a huge bite of my lunchtime sandwich. I opened the door to find a young man festooned in lanyards and wearing a T-shirt revealing himself to be an environmental activist. “Hi-how are you?” – he enquired, oblivious to a large sign adjacent to the door designed to discourage cold-callers from our premises. Those soliciting financial donations consider themselves to be superior to your average caller wanting to tarmac your drive, or fix the roof. I don’t usually exchange more than a few curt words with folk from this well-known organisation, other than pointing out that as a former professional mariner, I consider the “direct action” which is their trademark, is just one step removed from piracy or terrorism.
He revealed himself to be a former MN cadet, who had decided that seafaring was not for him, so I was interested to learn more about his transfer into the ranks of environmental activism. His particular compulsion was the degradation of corals though bottom trawling and he seemed well informed on the subject, which is not something anyone should take lightly. For my part, I told him about an incident which had occurred to an old shipmate, when he was master of a very large laden bulk carrier, manoeuvring off a lock on a narrow tidal window. The pilot had asked for the starboard anchor to be lowered to the bottom to arrest the swing, when the Chief Officer transmitted the alarming news that there were some idiots in a rubber boat under the bow and a maniac in a high-viz jacket had attached himself to the cable.
My visitor’s brief cadetship was sufficient to permit him to agree that a stunt of this kind, with the ship at risk of grounding and causing massive pollution, was one reason why shipmasters strongly disapprove of his organisation, to put it mildly. My old shipmate said that it had aged him ten years in half an hour, while the police dragged the ecoterrorist to safety.
But you never really convince people so subsumed with their own virtue that reason and common sense are completely absent. Such protests, which risk life and limb, serious accident, vast chaos and confusion are now so frequent that they rarely are more than a nuisance. You can’t argue with someone bawling “just stop oil!” through a loud hailer, just where you want to cross the road. However, extrapolating this noisy zeal to risking the wreck of an 80,000dwt coal carrier is something else, but all seems to have the same miserable equivalence in their warped mindset. If you object to their cause, which has been instilled into their minds from infancy by Leftist teachers, you are undoubtedly evil.
You might say that protest is a sacred right in any democratic country, although such a declaration is probably wearing a bit thin through overuse. Goodness, they have just made a film about the Peasants’ Revolt, when the protesters butchered the Archbishop of Canterbury to reinforce their claims. But circa 2026, there seem to be an awful lot of them, with scarcely a weekend when London is not blocked up with “hatemarches”, farmers’ tractors and thousands protesting about gender causes.
Where are the marchers supporting injured, killed or stranded seafarers?
Even during the working week, there are sufficient numbers of activists able to shriek about “carbon” outside the IMO offices in Lambeth, enthused by the attractive notion that 60,000 merchant vessels can be switched over to some innocuous and sweet-smelling no-carbon fuel, at the touch of a button.
Reason seems often in short supply, and it is not an original thought to point out that activists of every stripe are very selective about the causes for which they are willing to be active. It has been observed, for instance, that it is difficult to find a protester outside the IMO building, who will confess to be remotely activated by maritime safety, which was the purpose of the organisation in the first place.
Thousands are galvanised by Gaza and the actions of Israel, but remain unmoved by Sudan, or so many other horrors, all over the world, perpetrated by governments to which democracy is a dirty word. Nobody appeared to be marching in support of the 6000 seafarers who are still immured aboard vessels stuck behind the Strait of Hormuz, or to mourn the lives of those killed and badly injured by missiles and drones. But as it has frequently been pointed out, seafarers are on the waves, but don’t make them.
(Photos by Dreamstime)
*Michael Grey is former editor of Lloyd’s List. This column is published with the kind permission of Lloyd’s List.