Question Earthority!

“‘We’d never objected to anything in our whole lives,’ says Irish farmer Willie Corduff. But when Shell Oil proposed to put a high-pressure gas pipeline through his family farm, Corduff changed his quiet ways. He and a handful of his neighbors refused to allow Shell on their property — a stance that landed them in jail, and gained them international attention as the ‘Rossport Five.’ Shell has its sights set on the Corrib gas field, which lies off the northeastern coast of Ireland, more than a mile and a half below the seabed. After the field was discovered in 1996, the Irish government — eager to develop it and increase domestic energy supplies — turned over rights to Shell and its partners. Shell planned to bring raw gas ashore at Rossport, the small farming town where Corduff grew up, and send it through a six-mile pipeline to a proposed refinery. The government granted Shell permission to construct the pipeline, leaving only Corduff and his neighbors to stand in the way.” (04/24/07)