A team of eight expert Greenpeace activists managed to get onto the roof of the National Gallery by Trafalgar Square in the early evening of 21st Feb 2012 and spent the next two hours rigging a large banner across the famous collonaded front elevation of the building, which bore the slogan " It's no oil painting. #SaveTheArctic", referring to the oil company's exploration for oil in the pristine Arctic environment which, say campaigners, will inevitably destroy or seriously degrade it, killing wildlife and causing large-scale pollution which would have global consequences for this and future generations.
Of special ire to the activists was the National Gallery's hosting of a Royal-Dutch Shell-sponsored event which, they believe, is disingenuosly giving the oil giant a wholy undeserved veneer of respectability, especially in light of Shell's past well-documented environmental crimes in Turkey, Barbados and Nigeria (to name but a few), and have been accused of perpetrating human rights violations in the Niger Delta, and it is this deception which was the irritant that inspired this very public guerilla action.
Watched by many police officers, ambulance crews and very annoyed National Gallery staff and officials - all of them powerless to intervene - the slowly unfolding event drew a large, curious crowd below as the Greenpeace campaigners hung their rope rigging across the front of the building, prompting the police to initially cordon off most of the upper terrace. Later on the cordon was greatly reduced when it became obvious that Greenpeace's publicity stunt wasn't going to make the National Gallery fall over with massive loss of life!
Surprisingly there were no arrests made afterwards, which can only be attributed to the National Gallery striking a deal with the activists who later de-rigged the banner once all the publicity photos had been taken by the press.
