UPDATE: Perhaps the headline was premature, the latest SITREP from the rescue ship Aurora Australis indicates they are having some trouble getting into open water.
UPDATE2: It seems the cause of getting stuck was nothing more than dawdling while sightseeing.
Since the Guardian reporters shown above probably won’t do anything but complain about beds and lack of milkshakes (that video has now been “disappeared”) while writing glowing reports about the “adventure” of it all, it will be left to others to ask the tough questions. Now that they are on their way to Casey Station in Antarctica, Andrew Bolt starts off with these questions. I have a few of my own.
- Who paid for this expedition?
- How did the expedition team come to include Turney’s wife and two young children?
- How serious was this scientific endeavor?
- Was the choice of ship wise, given it is not an icebreaker?
- How did the ship, in these days of satellite imaging, high quality weather forecasts and radar, come to get stuck in ice?
- How much did the rescue cost?
- Who pays for this rescue?
- Why have the ABC and Fairfax media, so keen at first to announce this expedition was to measure the extent and effects of global warming, since omitted that fact from their reports after the expedition became ice-bound?
- Why have all those reports – and the expedition leader himself – neglected to mention that sea ice around Antarctica has increased over the past three decades – and is greater than the ice cover Douglas Mawson found a century ago?
I have these questions:
- Who pays for the trip back to Australia once they get let off at Casey Station?
- How much damage has this fiasco done to real science expeditions in Antarctica, not only from a delayed logistics standpoint, but also from PR standpoint?
- Why did the stranded ship reach out for weather forecasts and data when they should have been equipped for this in the first place?
- Who will be responsible if the ship ends up being stuck in ice permanently or gets its hull crushed and sinks?
- What will be the duties and fate of the crew left behind?
- Who funded the ARGO ATV’s after Turney’s Indiegogo crowdsourcing campaign failed miserably? Do those people get a refund?
- Why would Turney book this ship when it has only the barest of ratings for sea ice?
UL = Ice strengthening notation of the ship (independent navigation in the Arctic in summer and autumn in light ice conditions and in the non-arctic freezing seas all the year round) More on ratings here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/icebreakers-class.htm
8. Was Turney mislead about the intensity of the ice by his own beliefs that Antarctic sea ice was melting?
9. Did the sightseeing excursion to Mawson’s Huts on December 19th and again on Dec 23rd (apparently to Mertz Glacier, though their blog and “tracker” are unclear on this point) cause delays that caused the ship to be trapped in rapidly changing weather which closed the sea ice around them?
10. Apparently the crew of the Akademik Shokalskiy spoke next to zero English, did this communications barrier contribute to the situation? Was Turney warned that the weather and wind were changing while the second Mawson’s Huts sightseeing tour was in progress, and if he was were those warnings understood/heeded?
11. Why did the ship have a mix of tourists and media when it was pitched as a “scientific expedition”?
5 Nov: ABC Lateline: $1.5 million Australian expedition to Antarctica Professor Chris Turney from the University of NSW is mounting the largest Australian science expeditions to the Antarctic with an 85-person team to try to answer questions about how climate change in the frozen continent might be already shifting weather patterns in Australia.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3898858.htm
Related articles
- Expedition On The Cheap? Did Organizers Recklessly, Negligently Put Lives And Property At Risk? (notrickszone.com)
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The ship’s fools are safe for now, let’s not forget about the working stiffs and the vessel itself that are still in peril.
First question: Were any penguins harmed in this ‘production’?
I foresee lawyers crawling over this fiasco for years to come. It has just about everything.
Buy popcorn futures.
In this situation, should Turney have remained on the ship with the crew?
The headline is very misleading. It’s very important to remember the crew are still out there. I’m hoping for a quick thaw so they can get out soon.
The activists and media will be dead keen to divert you from the fact both the ship and crew are still stuck. I bet the rescue attempts decline now the celebs are off,
Question: Does Casey Station offer hotel points like Marriott? What about a breakfast buffet?
Why remove the passengers now? Why not wait a week to see if the expected winds will blow the whole mess out to sea and break up the ice?
That ship, the AKADEMIK SHOLKOWSKIY seems rather too small to be a decent ice breaker.
The real story for me is about the carefully scripted deceptive “reports” offered to us by the warmists fellow travelers, libmedia. Glo-Bull warming fanatics on a “propaganda expedition”get trapped by unexpectedly heavy antarctic polar ice – IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ANTARCTIC SUMMER NO LESS – And the heroic libmedia bravely and heroically dare to manicure away and flush down the memory hole all of the salient details like:
1) No mention that this is an expedition whose main purpose was to “discover” proof of their fanatically held belief in glo-bull warming, but (ironically?) got caught (literally) by their false, illogical assumptions.
2) That the expedition was poorly planned and even more poorly executed, so the warmist fanatic who attempted to do it “on the cheap” put the participants lives at risk.
3) That the trip was intended in part to comemorate an expedition that occured 100 years ago with the full expectation that the polar ice would be greatly diminished from that earlier event and could be used as proof positive that AGW glo-bull warming is real! More irony, or just ignorant fanaticism being unmasked?
Why bother to rewrite history when you can just invent the past you want as it is being made by manicuring, filtering and lying through your lib teeth? Thats our heroic libmedia!!!
If only they had invested as much in weather forecasting services (safety) and proper ship as they did in publicity, promotion and media.
I feel very sorry for the ship’s Master who I’m certain is a competent mariner.
Bet they’re all glad to be rid of the ‘scientists’, ‘journalists’, ‘tourists’ and especially the Green politician who is missing her chickens (chooks). Just as well the crew had limited English or some of the passengers might not have made it to safety.
They only have to wait a while, it seems, and the ice around Antarctica will disappear:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10546128/Worlds-climate-warming-faster-than-feared-scientists-say.html
Looks like lots of journalists are on that ship of fools.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if a good portion of the material they’ve posted at their various sites gets quietly removed.
Good big joke is the C. Turney´s Twitt that says: “A huge thanks to the Chinese & @AusAntarctic for all their hard work” … Remains to be seen whether if this climate-alarmist will remain on the same line thanks at the next COP … 🙂
I repeat this comment from Climate Etc
There are 18 PhD students on this expedition. Six (1/3) work on the Antarctic. The others (2/3) work on the North Atlantic, Australia’s coastal waters, brain injury, Iceland, New Zealand’s North Island, urban climates, pedagogy, the Equatorial Undercurrent, pharmaceuticals, time series statistics, microbiology, and Siberia.
My guess is that had this occurred on sovereign territory, there would be some form of legal enquiry, with powers of subpoena. As it is, it is doubtful that such an enquiry will take place. If the Chinese decide to try and recover some of the expenses they have incurred, and this goes to court (Russian and/or Australian) of some sort, we might find out something.
All in all, it is probably in the interests of The Team in furtherance of The Cause to have this whole affair wrapped up as quickly and silently as possible. It remains to be seen whether they will succeed. They have done so in the past.
The ‘milkshake global warming hiatus’ is the most critical crisis facing humanity.
Oh no it isn’t!
Oh yes it is!
Who said that?
Christmas Turkey! He’s behind you !
Gilligan’s Iceland? 😉
Dr T G Watkins. The Master’s responsibility was to ensure that he was competent: obviously he is not , otherwise he would not have been caught in the ice. This is 2014 not 1914 and we have adequate knowledge of the conditions . The Master has absolute authority to over ride any decision by anyone else which threatens the ship.
12. Did the ships Purser provision the ship with sufficient stores of coffee?
Ship of Fools.
Incidental but I like the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhDPgRvSaU
Were the journalists and tourists considered to part of the “…85 member team”?
Anybody else notice their rescue was enabled by “Carbon” fuels?
They might have eaten each other? (given an additional week)
.
.
Seriously, it was probably important to get them off the ship before a serious change of heart re: the “global warming” et al meme faded, transfigured instead into a loathing of cold and ice …
.
Since some previously posted stuff has already been disappeared, it is worth archiving what remains for future reference. Apparently a lot of that is on or was via Twitter. Most significant so far is some of the posted comments over at P. Gosseleins No Tricks Zone. Apparently the captain tried to get everybody back on board when the weather was turning, but they didn’t. Dawdle, disobey, not understand… Anynway, tardy per expeditions own tweets. Captain waited rather than abandon the dawdlers, and the fiasco ensued.
10. Apparently the crew of the Akademik Shokalskiy spoke next to zero English, did this communications barrier contribute to the situation? Was Turney warned that the weather and wind was changing while the second Mawson’s Huts sightseeing tour was in progress, and if he was were those warnings understood/heeded?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I think there were probably at least a few among the crew who spoke a little English or French. Even if they did not speak English, a hand written message, translated from a book (or google translate) or even gestures would get the point across. I mean really, tug on a coat sleeve, point to the sky, point to the ice, point to a wrist watch/time piece and act frantic. How hard can that be?
However from my own experience it take two to communicate when there is a language obstacle to over come and arrogance was a more likely issue not language.