Greenpeace has been campaigning to stop Shell drilling in the Alaskan Arctic, alongside a coalition of other organisations and a movement of more than 7 million people all around the world who have stood up to demand Arctic protection. On 28 Sept, Shell announced that it will “cease further exploration activity” in the Alaskan Arctic “for the foreseeable future.” Shell blamed three factors for the decision to walk away from Alaska: poor results from the Burger well, high costs of drilling in the Arctic and “the challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in the USA.” However, sources inside Shell say the company was ‘taken aback’ by public protest and that this threat to their reputation was also a key factor. Shell felt the pressure of millions of people around the world who joined the movement to Save the Arctic. Shell’s defeat shows which way the wind is blowing. Extreme energy projects like this have no place in a world that is responding to the most urgent threat of our time: climate change.