Greenpeace is leveraging public support for its anti deep sea oil drilling exploration movement by comparing the Rena and Gulf of Mexico disasters.

It is running a petition, now with more than 100,000 signatures on it, including those of actor Lucy Lawless and climate scientist Jim Salinger, calling for a stop to government's oil exploration plans.

It also calls for a halt to government plans to expand the coal industry.

'I'd urge anyone who wants to protect our coasts from an even worse oil spill than that which we saw in Tauranga to sign this petition,” says Lucy.

'By doing so, they'll also be doing something positive about the climate crisis that this planet is facing.”

Climate scientist Jim Salinger agrees.

'Opening up the final, extreme frontiers of the oil industry, whether they are in New Zealand or the Arctic, is only going to make global warming worse now and in the future.

'Decisions we make today will determine the severity of climate change that our children and grandchildren will have to deal with.

'I urge all New Zealanders who care about the future of humanity on this planet to sign this petition.”

Greenpeace NZ climate change campaigner Steve Abel says the petition is needed to get government to take notice.

'People simply aren't buying John Key's line that the Rena spill has no relation to the risks of deep sea oil drilling,” says Steve.

'What the Rena demonstrated was that even a small oil spill, in shallow waters near one of New Zealand's biggest ports, can't be controlled, and will have devastating impacts.

'Yet the Rena spill was not even 0.1 per cent the size of the Deepwater Horizon deep sea oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year,” says Steve.

The Rena has spilt about 350 tonnes of oil into the sea, but BP's Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico last year spilt 650,000 tonnes of oil.

BP alone has set aside more than US $40 billion to cover its share of the cost of the disaster.

'Given that international oil giants like Shell, Andarko and Petrobras are planning to drill in New Zealand waters at depths even greater than the 1500 metres the Deepwater Horizon was operating in, the risk of a catastrophic spill happening here is very real.

'Imagine waiting helplessly for hundreds or thousands of times more oil than that which came from the Rena to wash ashore – we must never expose ourselves to that sort of risk.

'The economic impact of deep sea oil drilling on New Zealand's clean green reputation needs to be properly evaluated.

'To understand the extent of the risks posed by deep sea oil drilling, the government needs to extrapolate the economic, ecological and cultural impacts of Rena.

'But as long as they maintain that there is no relation between the two, then they are burying their heads in the sand.”