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As dawn broke over Seattle yesterday, dozens of kayakers paddled out to confront Shell’s vast Polar Pioneer drilling rig and tried to prevent it from leaving port.

If the oil giant Shell has learnt anything over the last few weeks, it is that it has few friends in its quest to drill in the Arctic.

The hard truths which Pickard and Shell refuse to accept is that there can be no “right” in the Arctic, there are only wrongs. It is wrong to drill due to the climate impact. It is wrong to drill due to the ecological and cultural impact. There is no way you can mitigate the risks.

As I write, Shell’s AGM is underway in the Dutch city of the Hague, where the company is facing intense criticism about its strategy to address climate change, its highly risky Arctic drilling and its carbon-intensive tar sands operations.

Twenty years ago, the oil giant Shell was plunged into a corporate crisis after it was internationally criticised for trying to dump the redundant Brent Spar oil platform in the North Sea and for being complicit in the murder of the acclaimed Nigerian activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa.

The Obama Administration seriously undermined its chances of a positive environmental legacy yesterday by giving approval to Shell’s highly controversial Arctic drilling program.

The groundswell of local opposition against Shell’s plans to drill in the Arctic continues to grow and will culminate this weekend in three days of protests and direct action.

The Obama administration’s inconsistent approach to climate change was laid bare again last night after the US Interior Department reconfirmed Shell’s controversial lease sale in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska.