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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As repugnant as Al Gore is, you have to admire his success. He has made a fringe scientific theory into a massive global ideological debate, made an absolutely brilliant movie (totally flawed – but brilliant in terms of achieving its objectives), allegedly made a bundle of money and won himself a Nobel peace prize. The guy is a genius. Even if you disagree with him 100% you have to admire his success.
The 3 intrepid explorers are just stupid. I am sorry to say this, but they are.
If we want to defeat this flawed and ridiculous dogma, we have to understand something. We cannot beat it with ‘science’, we cannot beat it by being passionate and we cannot beat it with logic. All we can do is keep pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes on – in as simple language as possible. Just keep treating it as irrelevant …. because it isn’t happening.
“The day’s intense bright sunlight gave them an opportunity to walk with their now sodden sleeping bags on top of their sledges in order to dry them slightly – the bags currently weigh around 3 times their usual weight due to all the moisture they are holding and provide very miserable sleeping conditions.”
I took an Arctic survival course years ago and was told that to dry out your sleeping bag was to let it freeze and then beat out the frost. Sleeping in a damp bag in Arctic conditions could be suicide.
Would all your comments be so inhumanly despicable if GW was not one of the areas of investigation? Or if the humans were from USA? Or were amputees, Or ….
I’m sure that they wanted to go for the challenge and needed sponsorship. GW was a belief they all hold.
Many people die in mountains including those from USA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_on_eight-thousanders
Conditions change, mistakes are made. But why do they risk their lives – just for thrills. At least Catlin have an aim which is not just personal aggrandisement.
In UK potholers, climbers, walkers often require rescuing. The rescue parties main gripe is with idiots who venture into difficult conditions without adequate protection.
Clothing and equipment.
I assume that they have the best their finances can obtain. Natural “skins” hold no candle to modern insulation fabrics. Igloos take time to make – a tent and sleeping bag are quicker.
I am very saddened by your poisonous comments on this endeavour.
Bill
I’ll repeat my iron truism: you are entitled to any opinion/view point you desire. Just remember that reality doesn’t give a damn what you think.
I’ll take this [guest] post as an affirmation of that truism.
As to our ‘intrepid’ eco-truth seekers, I’ll repeat something said by an old veteran NCO many years ago [in my greener days, military-wise…]: ‘stupid will get you dead, son. Or worse, it’ll get your friends dead and leave you alive to remember it to your dying day.’
Some imparted wisdoms stick harder than others; that one stuck with me.
Hopefully they’ll survive this sterling example of cluelessness, and be the wiser for it.
But I somehow doubt it.
No, I find nothing admirable about putting your life and others in danger for what amounts to a stunt with little or no scientific value. If they get in real trouble someone is going to have to risk their life to get them out. Discovery Channel just had a documentary on a K2 expedition that cost almost a dozen people their lives. For what? This stunt ranks with the kayak trip of last year and all of the idiot sightseers who climb Everest.
Ignorance, arrogance, hubris – These are the words that come to my mind when the Catlin Expedition is mentioned.
Courage does not apply to what I see.
Imran says:
The problem here is that as always, people who have fallen for a scam do not want to admit that they were so foolish.
(life jacket story)
In much the same way that the expedition is having to swim to safety. The only crisis I see is the one in journalistic integrity.
Never mind its a sunny -38C out on the ice today and only another couple of months to go for the team.
Failing that they could just stand very still and arrive in a couple of weeks at a nice hotel nearby.
(beware of the extinct Polar Bears though chaps)
… Who on earth thought this expedition up? More importantly – does the Prudhoe Bay Hotel have any rooms available?
I would have been more more impressed if they had worked with the navy to get ice readings from the comfort of a heated nuclear submarine. The navy probably already has historical data. Of course, that might have resulted in some real science resulting in a dry science publication rather than a showboating expedition.
“Ice Station Zebra” 1963 by Alistair MacLean is a entertaining novel based in part on the real voyages of the USS Nautilus SSN571. Nice description of going under the arctic ice and measuring ice thickness. (the movie is a waste of time)
I just read a book about Alfred Wegener, who developed the theory of continental drift and spent his spare time crossing Greenland for meteorlogical data. This crew is not qualified to shine his mukluks.
Nothing but respect for them – anybody who takes on such a challenge and has the courage of their convictions is worthy of admiration. The reasons they are there are irrelevant (as are my personal feelings regarding their reasons).
I sincerely hope they make it home safe and sound.
Steven,
You seem to be saying that since the expedition is inherently difficult and dangerous, the team members MUST be selfless and brave, and are thus worthy of deep admiration. I’d be interested to know if you think the same of all the people who attempt to summit Mt. Everest, which remains a very difficult and dangerous undertaking.
The Polar Bear life Vests was an idea I advanced early in 2007 as purely a GAG!
I will see if the site is still up as it was in a forum. I also created a polar bear wearing water wings image…
I swear these people do not need to be made fun of anymore…. they do it themselves!
Next I fear this expedition was ill prepared for what they are facing, I am not sure but it seems to me that they were not trained to handle these conditions both physically and mentally. The arctic is a dangerous place, and really is inhospitable to humans.
I hope that the first picture is a frozen red scarf and not that man’s lips, or else I’m deeply disturbed.
Ien,
“If they were smart they would admit they didn’t prepare properly and didn’t know what they were doing … and come home and do it next year with better gear.”
But this year is already the “next year”.
Look for “Vanco Arctic Survey – Expedition” in google.
When that the poor have cried, Gore hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
Philip G. (07:27:57) :
I hope that the first picture is a frozen red scarf and not that man’s lips, or else I’m deeply disturbed.
MEDIC!
In the unlikely case they actually do make it to the pole. What logistics would be involved in picking them up?
At the pace they’re going it will be during a period that is 24 hours of darkness.
Would an aircraft picking them up be able to find a spot suitable for landing?
Well, this all seems particulary inept. I don’t suppose the Kool Aid crowd see the irony of -40degree temperatures … and I loved the polar bear tracks they found. There’s at least one left I guess. I wonder whether they realise how tasty explorers are?
Look, they are already commited ‘global warmers’ setting out with the presumption of disastrous ice melt (shouldn’t the conclusions post-date the observation bit)? With ‘instrumentation’ devised, as far as I can tell from the websites, by themselves, they plan to take one-time measurements and issue ‘results’ without third party verification. One time measurements are surely virtually useless – certainly in terms of trends.
This is yet another stunt, just the kind of teary-eyed stuff the BBC and the Guardian fawn over (as they are).
Arctic ice thickness is, by the way, continuously monitored by US buoys … duh.
Sigh…
From Costa Rica, where the floating (and indeed by empirical observation on a practically daily daily basis, thawing) ice is confined to my gin & tonic.
“Life vests for polar bears on melting ice”
Another Darwin incident in the planning stages?
There is great humor in their predictable discomfort.
Should I be surprised by all the mean-spirited comments posted here? Are most people posting here really that wound up in anti-AGW jihad that they wish evil on people who are out collecting useful data in dangerous conditions?
Philip G. (07:27:57) :
I hope that the first picture is a frozen red scarf and not that man’s lips, or else I’m deeply disturbed.
I thought it was Mick Jagger…
Jakers,
When you start criticizing James Hansen for demanding prison terms for business executives who operate a lawful, taxpaying enterprise, then I’ll believe you really mean what you say about “mean spirited” comments. In the mean time, give it a rest.
Coldplay,
How about a link to a graphic of your “model”.