Guest post by Steve Goddard
It is easy to become cynical about the motivations of some prominent figures in the global warming movement, but there are a few people who feel passionately enough about their beliefs to put their own life on the line. The Catlin explorers Pen Hadow, Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley are among the most dedicated. They have endured consistent minus 40 degree weather, frostbite, polar bear encounters, frozen sleeping bags, sleepless nights and general misery in their quest to prove that the polar ice caps are warming and melting.
Over the past 24 days they have traveled 84km of their 950km journey to the North Pole, averaging 3.5km per day. Every inch is hard fought across drifting and cracking ice. If their average travel rate were to continue, it would take another 250 days to reach the pole – stretching into the next Arctic winter.
Below are the titles of their most recent blog posts, which hint at the unimaginable difficulties they are facing.
# Mind games
# Like being in a milk bottle
# Frostbite (N.B Graphic Images)
# Spring in our step
# Stabbing pain
# Muscle Immobilisation
# Perran on Power Supplies for the expedition
# The difficulties of filming in such extreme environments
# Chivalry on the ice
# The Quitter
Compare their dedication and grit to Al Gore, who lives in a 20,000 square foot house, has a 150 foot yacht, jet sets around the world, and has made tens of millions of dollars promoting global warming.
No doubt Al is very appreciative of the foot soldiers in his infantry, willing to put their lives on the line for his Nobel cause.
Below is a headline from my personal favorite newspaper the UK Guardian, highlighting the brilliant thought process of AGW entrepreneurs.
Life vests for polar bears on melting ice
To raise awareness for the endangered species, a design company has come up with a life-vest for displaced polar bears.
Read about Polar Bear Life Vests at The Guardian (No, they aren’t made of Gore-tex – Anthony)
So whom do you admire? The entrepreneurs making millions off AGW, or those risking everything to help out the first group (and save the planet.) I know which group I would prefer to belong to.
One more question. If the Arctic really resembled the tropical paradise presented by The Guardian et Al, wouldn’t the explorers have a tough time walking across the (non-existent) ice?
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The Catlin Artic Survey is simply a PR stunt not a scientific study.
Here is their remit; “How long will the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice cover remain a permanent feature of our planet?”
One study along a straight line cannot possibly provide an answer to the question asked.
CAS members know that, we know that, the world is beginning to know that. So the intent of this survey is clear: it is to misinform, to be dramatic, to reinforce the AGW message and to gain maximum publicity in the process.
CAS is simply a holy pilgrimage by the more strident AGW faithful, one that carries a deliberate political message.
The fact that the Artic is not playing ball highlights the utter stupidity of it all.
I thought it was a spoof…like that antarctic trek.
Am I expected to now feel sympathy for a trio of activists too stupid to assessed what they’ve gotten themselves into?
Nature has a a way of eliminating stupid genes. This could turn out to be the case here.
Global Warming Working For You-
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/133445
On a lighter note….
(there is no less than a whole minute’s worth of warning about the impending profanity at the beginning of this documentary out-take about deep-sea ichthyologists complaining of the cold but I fully understand if it doesn’t get past moderation even if it is very funny in this, currently shivering, persons opinion)
Building up to April 1st…..
I’m sorry. I don’t admire fools.
These hardships are not unimaginable; they are quite predictable.
But then, I live in Canada.
We are all doomed
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
Sea ice is not melting, my model tells me that at at the current rate of growth One Million Sq Kilometre will be added by May and Six million kilometres by October of this year.
About the model she’s 38 26 38.
I think these guys probably just believed all the propaganda about the melting arctic and expected it to be sunny, mild and ice free when they got there. They’ll learn.
OT. I’m not sure if anyone else has mentioned Earth Hour is this weekend but last year I purposely turned all our lights on during that hour as a protest against the AGW scam. Looks like this year someone is trying to make it official.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25245689-5009760,00.html
Anthony, perhaps WUWT could support the protest?
I suppose I might admire them if I thought that they were doing it for science*; it looks more to me that they are punching their tickets for a long ride on the crowded AGW gravy train.
*Seems a rather pointless pity party to me.
Couldn’t they just reverse course and take new measurements on the return trip? Surely they could take measurements at the same places with the help of the GPS and show the ice has already gotten thinner . After all, they, Global Warming Enthusiasts, aleady have been using that ‘funny math’ that allows them to make adjustments to actual temperature readings. They set out to prove a theory, not do pure research – this is a publicity stunt. The new headlines: ” Scientists Determine Arctic Ice Is Thinning Rapidly – Had To Cut Expedition Short Due To Dangerous Conditions”
Here’s a picture of Al Gore when he’s not in the public eye
Picture of Al
Best part is they have first hand exposure to the misery a colder climate poses for humanity. (I can just imagine their private jokes about wishing AGW was a fact.)
Perhaps they can now imagine accidentally setting off a very cold spell by tampering with climate. If man can warm the earth, man could possibly OVER COOL the earth. I believe neither, but they should.
The sheer futility and total ignorance of their “research” is shown by these excerpts from the Alaska Science Forum: “Experts on Ice”, January 23, 1991
Article #1014
“For example, to underline the importance of being patient in assessing sea ice, he told of the misadventures of scientists trying to site a major research camp well out on the pack. He explained that the ideal site for such a camp would combine two kinds of ice: thick and stable multi-year ice, marked by substantial hummocks on its surface, should lie adjacent to flat annual ice of size and thickness adequate to serve as a landing field for C-130 supply aircraft.
Pushed by deadlines set in Washington, D.C., where knowledge of sea ice is not very great, the scientists decided to site their camp on ice with low hummocks–too low, in Tuvak’s judgment. It meant the ice was thinner, more likely to come apart if winds and current changed.
They did and it did. A big lead opened right through the camp, separating the
living quarters from the mess hall. The stranded scientists could only watch
their out-of-reach food drift away.
He told of going with a companion on a seal hunt over apparently stable ice, when “far to the north we could hear the ice grinding, grinding together.” He bagged his seal, then realized the ice had fallen silent. The current had changed, and that changed the safety of the ice on which they stood. The hunters escaped back to shore in the nick of time, as the entire raft of ice headed out to sea.”
“Finding the Heartbeat of the Arctic Ocean”, Alaska Science Forum January 28, 1998 Article #1373
“The Arctic Ocean is an ice-covered pool the size of Australia. With its center
near the North Pole, the ocean touches the northern limits of Alaska, Russia,
Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Greenland and Canada. Ice floes–huge hunks of sea ice that bump into one another for years before currents spit them to lower latitudes–cover the ocean like a layer of plastic film on a tub of water.”
How did they identify which bits of ice they were measuring, when did they measure them before and when will they measure them again and how will they know where they are next time? Hopefully there is no next time..
Please feel sorry for Canadians too … it’s bloody cold here!
The term ‘useful idiots’ certainly springs to mind. I’m not sure if they’re useful. But they’re certainly idiots.
Any more of this global warming and we’re all going to freeze to death….
Chris
This is nothing but a PR stunt, and I have absolutely no empathy for any pain that those jokers encounter. It would be different if they were collecting useful scientific data, but they are not. If they die, they should share the Darwin Award for 2009.
This is Pen Hadow’s fourth trip to the Arctic. He loves it there. He is on vacation. What is there to admire?
They have endured consistent minus 40 degree weather, frostbite, polar bear encounters, frozen sleeping bags, sleepless nights and general misery in their quest to prove that the polar ice caps are warming and melting.
I would admire them if they weren’t so stubborn in their beliefs. Any reasonable person would have realized, within a few days of the expedition, that nothing was warming or melting and that the entire expedition was a dangerous waste of time and resources. That they have pressed on, insisting they are right despite the obvious cold and ice all around them, proves they are not rational or reasonable people.
AGW is a faith based cult, not a scientific theory. This expedition demonstrates the futility of even trying to argue with cult members. We have to hope that cooler, more rational heads prevail in this fight. The cult members are a lost cause.
Da poLer beaRz iz gonna dyE. I no diS coz Al Gore toLds me in His mooFie
“Codetech:
So when I hear them mentioning that the ice is noisily cracking around them, I’m glad they’re in a safe area… because when it melts it does so quite quietly. However, typical of these types of endeavors, they seem either completely oblivious to this fact or are using to dramatize for their own ends.”
They are experienced arctic explorers. Little doubt in my mind which of the above scenarios applies.
“And Steve, I understand the intent behind this post, but I still think they’re idiots.”
X2. and X2 to Racheal’s post as well.
The only thing mildly interesting about this is the psychological aspect of how far someone will go in search of that 15 minutes….or trying to stretch the 15 to 30.
The whole thing is just plain silly. If someone wants to walk to the North Pole?…good on ’em. I have no issue with that. No different than mountain climbing. It’s when you wrap the whole thing in a cause that it gets inexcusable, because now you’re impacting other lives, perhaps significantly, AND under false pretenses. And I’m not talking about the science of AGW, I’m talking about the fact that they know that with no comparison, and with drifting ice, their measurements are meaningless in a scientific context.
JimB
More reasons to admire these brave and unselfish souls – from their blog
When they freeze to death on the ice can we count their frozen corpses as additional ice thickness?? The human body is mostly water….
I agree with several above posts, I do not admire crooks nor do I admire fools. The members of this expedition seem to me fools trying to pull a publicity stunt. Not much to admire there either. While I would admit they are not the hypocrit that Al Gore is, that doesn’t make them admirable. What is the “Carbon Footprint” of flying them and their supplies in and out of there? almost certainly greater than mine will be this year.
In a choice between the two, I admire the cleverness of the entrepreneurial shysters over the mindless idiocy of the ice-trekkers. Both have surrendered logic to ideology and while there’s a bit more nobility shown by the explorers, it’s pretty close to Don Quixote’s tilting at windmills.
I have been following this Catlin group with great enthusiasim hoping beyond hope that, at some point during their “mission”, they might come to the conclusion that, yah, it’s bloody cold and extremely icy up here! Indeed that seems to be the case. What I am most curious about though is the fact that they must have gone to great lengths to include their “biotelemetry” on their website and an ice thickness indicator and yet not one of them has been functional to date! What’s up with that?
No admiration, just scorn and contempt. They are in it for fame and glory, wrapped in the cause of “saving the planet”, with the (very thin) veneer of science. I don’t really wish them ill, I guess. That would make them martyrs.
Regarding the soggy sleeping bags, I would think they’d want to swap those out at the next re-supply. With days getting longer, and a bit warmer, it would be much easier to keep them dry.
I’m guessing they probably will actually make it to the NP now, having made it through some of the toughest conditions, and with improving conditions ahead. But, anything can happen.