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?
These people are said to be experienced cold-weather travelers, yet they seem surprisingly poorly-prepared. For example I find it odd that their re-supply didn’t include dry sleeping bags, They have broadcast to the world that their bags are uncomfortably sodden. Sleeping in wet sleeping bags under the described conditions could be disfiguring or fatal. Yet no warm bags have been provided. In America the post-expedition litigation would go on for years.
Every religion has it’s flock of devout believers. The ruling elite have had the religous leaders lead their flock into wars for thousands of years, be it it Wars on the Philistines In Canaan, Wars on Islam in the Crusades, Wars between Catholics and Protestants, etc. and today it is a war on climate change, which is actually a war on man, who is a threat to the Goddess Gaia.
The Catlin Explorers faith might be shaken after this venture.
” Robert A Cook PE (19:33:00) :
My religion finds it MANDATory to love them as people with souls, but equally, as an engineer and realist who refuses to fall for their propaganda and their “hatred” of the western world, its civilization and the real science of climate – they are – bluntly – fools.
Let us hope they do not become polar bear bait, or that our money is not wasted recusing them from this folly.”
That didn’t take long. Congratulations.
The US Navy isn’t the only one under that ice. The big question is, will the Russians share their latest information after the Catlin results are made public?
The Catlin team will have earned whatever publicity they get, and I wish them a safe return with increased knowledge, wisdom, and no permanent bodily damage.
But for some reason I find myself constantly thinking about those “celebrity challenges,” where one team of famous twits take on a second team of stupid celebrities to see which team will win. After all events have been run, the film is edited and the event order reshuffled to produce the most dramatic possible outcome, when (usually) the Stupids appear to come from behind at the “last minute” to defeat the Twits.
None of which has anything to do with the Catlin Expedition. Let us all pray for their safe return, and meditate on scripture. Perhaps 2 Corinthians 11:19…
“jakers:
This expedition can create a baseline measurement of the cross section, can it not, to compare to in future years?”
And how can this be accomplished given the near constant shift in ice, which seems to be dependent upon a large number of other factors such as AMO/PDO/ENSO, and who knows that else?
By their own admission, for nearly the first 2wks on the ice, they would trudge forward, camp, and awake the next morning to find the ice they were on had drifted south, or southeast, or southwest by more distance than they had covered the day before.
The point is that the thickness at point ww:xx:yy:zz on Mar 24th this year has absolutely nothing to do with the thickness at those same coordinates next year, because it MOVES. CONSTANTLY.
“I see their science partners are the US Naval Postgraduate School, Cambridge, and JPL.”
Now there’s a bit of cherry picking, no?
And as for death threat posts…I’m sorry, I just don’t see that many people saying “I hope they DIE!” I see people saying I’d rather they die than the people who will undoubtedly have to go rescue them, like the 12 rescuers that died trying to get the mountain climbers off the slopes.
Would you disagree with that?…Your call. Hypothetical situation: There are three people on the ice who will die without being rescued, and there are rescue teams that if dispatched, will loose 12 people.
Who do you pick? Who gets to live?
The point is…they didn’t need to do this.
It’s a moral question…and not one to be dismissed lightly, at least not by me.
JimB
Have they measured any ice yet?
So for a hypothetical jump of little significance,
What is the punishment for those who have advocated for and pilfered away Trillions of dollars to fight global warming as deep freeze winters, high energy costs and death occurs for the next 50 years?
Is it gee whiz they meant well, and are kinda sorry so never mind?
Hey I think the picture of the polar bears on top of that strangely melted ice cube is awesome.
It is strange the way people can actually make money off of something that seems profitless, such as global warming. Though gore did make that movie which grossed or shall I pun Gored alot in the box offices.
All they have to do is check the data and see Arctic ice is in a growing trend.
But which do I admire more? If i must choose it would be the 3–obviously.
Well JimB, of course they wouldn’t measure the same ice next year or next decade!!! duh. They would look at the average thickness, which apparently is a rather sparse measurement normally.
Smokey (20:24:54) :There’s something about martyrs: they will die to be right.
Rachelle Young (20:52:54) :I would be content to see all three of them freeze to death or be eaten by ‘endangered’ polar bears. That would teach the world something.
ThomasK (23:23:21) :sounds like they are candidates for the Darwin award
Pierre Gosselin (02:15:41) :Nature has a a way of eliminating stupid genes.
Paul (05:10:02) :When they freeze to death on the ice can we count their frozen corpses as additional ice thickness??
George E. Smith (10:41:23) :I can only hope that Mother Nature deals with their foolhardiness; in her usual appropriate fashion.
This is OT, but since the discussion has been mostly on the foolhardy publicty seeking adventurers making symbolic gestures to appease the AGW Gods, what about the lights out on Earth Day proposition?
If everyone turned their power off, and not just their lights for one minute, and then all turned them on at the same time, the cold-start current drawn by refrigerators and other motor-drivern devices, and the cold filaments of incandescent bulbs would put an almost instaneous crushing starting load on the power grid. I would guess it would trip a few transformers and power-switching devices before it got sorted out.
It reminds me of one of the interminable pranks we did about 60 years ago while students at a northeastern college. On a signal from the campus radio staion, everyone flushed the toilets and urinals in the various johns at the same time. The resulting pressure drop produced reverberations that lasted for more than a few seconds.
It’ll be interesting to see how this one pans out.
Sure would like to hear about ONE of those alternatives, but with, you know, actual figures, values, numbers showing the overall economics, payback period (we know it’s +10 yrs for wind …), etc.
Consider wind; wind generation *still* requires baseload (coal or other) plants be operational (EVEN when wind is turning the turbines since it takes days tp bring up or take down a large baseload boiler facility!) since there is no universal, cheap, easy, economical means to store any excess energy, and there is still be considered the means of transmission of this power from parts remote.
Solar? Same considerations, and even more so (considering that period we deem to be NIGHTTIME.)
Solar water heaters? Been around since ex-President Carter’s time (that makes this technology sorta pre-AGW).
Sooo … what does that leave us?
My priest told me that the requirement of Christian love is to pray all souls will be led to heaven, especially those most in need of mercy. Don’t need to like ’em though. And why should I ?
John Keegan writes about the mountaineering exploits of certain elite military units of a certain mid-European power of the 30’s and 40’s. Their casualty rate messing around in snow and ice was about the same as it was later on while they were oppressing other Europeans, very high. I am sure that they were uncomfortable at many times, even unto death, while they mountaineered; should I care. Then too, they were some mothers son, they were certainly courageous, AND really, really believed in what they were doing. Ask a Pole if he cares.
I don’t particularly care about their fate, or that of the Arctic ice-measurers. It is I trust, a failure of imagination on my part. But it does take more than the fact that they believe in what they are doing or that they engage in extraordinary feats to make a difference. I have, like most people claims on my compassion too numerous to leave much for people who put themselves in danger to no purpose or to a bad purpose.
“len (20:48:10) : 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.”
If they were smart they’d log on to the internet from their home and look up the data that shows Arctic ice in a growing trend.
“..designing a life-vest for displaced polar bears struggling to stay afloat as their homes sink into the sea.”
This perfectly epitomizes the baby boomer/ hippie generation that now controls American culture. They are anti-normal : anti-family, anti-heterosexuality, anti-school, anti-industry, anti-police, anti-military, anti-authority, i.e., everything that a pubescent, angst ridden teen could demand has permeated all of American culture. Everything normal is abnormal. They can’t even let us feel that the climate is normal. No. We must feel guilt.
I think they call this being “progressive”.
The baby boomer hippie has brought us high school kids walking down the street smoking pot, and a lax legal system that leaves violent men on the street who kill four policemen–because after all, we can’t exercise the discipline that “the man” was trying to put on us, we can’t be hard on those criminals and put them in jail, man.
And now, life jackets for polar bears–sounds normal to me. I’ll take two.
Peace, love, dope!
“Bob Wood (20:55:05) :
Looking at his poor, frozen lips, its hard for me to think he really believes things are warming up!!!”
Nooo, Bob, man, come on, don’t look at reality. That’s what the 60’s taught us–question everything!
“Aron (01:32:07) : Next they’ll have crash helmets for chimps to save the planet.”
No, the helmets are for AGWers who are getting hit in the head from falling sky acorns!
” Steven Goddard (04:59:54) : “…for various reasons the team chose not to take vapour barrier liners for their sleeping bags,..”
OMG how stupid these people are.
“JM (18:23:56) :
Well JimB, of course they wouldn’t measure the same ice next year or next decade!!! duh. They would look at the average thickness, which apparently is a rather sparse measurement normally.”
Average thickness? And exactly what would the “average” be based on? And please, please explain what proxies would be used to obtain this average, since their measurements likely cover about .000001% of the Arctic ice?
Surely you’re not proposing that this is a good way to monitor ice thickness?
JimB
[snip – just a note to other posters, a valid email address is required to post here anonymous@spamhole.com won’t cut it]
[snip]
“_Jim (19:55:00) :
Consider wind; wind generation *still* requires baseload (coal or other) plants be operational (EVEN when wind is turning the turbines since it takes days tp bring up or take down a large baseload boiler facility!) since there is no universal, cheap, easy, economical means to store any excess energy, and there is still be considered the means of transmission of this power from parts remote.”
Please look up your facts (I suppose the USA could be different).
In UK there is a 1.3GW generator that can provide 0 to 2GW in 12 seconds, another 1GW that is fractionally slower. There are gas turbines that can be cycled in less than an hour. There are stations running but not producing power that can be brought on line in minutes (not using much fuel) There are mothballed stations that will take months to bring on line, there are cold stations capable of being brought on line in days.
Every watt/hour of power generated is nearly a watt/hour preserved for future generations. It does not matter that it is intermittent. It is still saved.
Interestingly the only recent large scale outage was caused when a nuclear generator shut down unexpectedly.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/may/28/britishenergygroupbusiness
The pumped storage systems at Dinorwig and Ffestiniog can respond within 15 seconds and is about 60% (cannot find the figure) for complete cycle
Wind energy is possible.
This increasingly seems to be the effort of well meaning but strangely naive participants. I would not think that they have a very long life as a wind direction indicator. 🙂
Lacy underwear secret tool of polar expedition
Arctic explorer Pen Hadow and his team are relying on a pair of lady’s knickers to navigate their way to the North Pole after compasses failed
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Last Updated: 7:25AM GMT 28 Mar 2009
Catlin Arctic Expedition: When it is cloudy they rely on following the direction of the wind helpfully indicated by a pair of lacy knickers shredded and stuck to the end of a ski pole.
Mr Hadow, who was the first person to trek solo to the North Pole, said the knickers were kindly donated by a supporter of the expedition. Photo: MARTIN HARTLEY
The Catlin Arctic Survey are trekking 700 miles to the North Pole to measure the thickness of the shrinking Arctic icecap.
However due to the proximity to magnetic north the compasses are “going haywire”. The freezing conditions also mean the latest global positioning satellite or GPS equipment will not work.
Therefore the team have to rely on navigating using the position of the sun. When it is cloudy they rely on following the direction of the wind helpfully indicated by a pair of lacy knickers shredded and stuck to the end of a ski pole.
More at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/5061498/Lacy-underwear-secret-tool-of-polar-expedition.html
Bill and Jim
When I’ve done what I can to help the climate science back on track (eg the constantly updating Primer – click my name) I want to explore alternative energies further – not the conventional sun and wind. Harvest Illinois coal for nuclear fuel. Jetstream kites economically feasible: power available is proportional to wind velocity to the 4th power. Patents have been pouring in all last year at a record rate: an indicator of economic growth. Tidal energy: where I live there is enough to cover London twice a day, there are a few ways of harvesting it already on line and more in the pipeline, but I think there’s a lot more to be developed, right under our noses. Brunel’s iron ship was not supposed to float. Now if I could control the body energy of hot flushes I’d never have to worry about heating – the Tibetan lamas can (could) do it 🙂 And more.
JM (18:23:56) :
all those comments you quote, not very nice perhaps. Yet I suspect that these folk might be the first to volunteer to rescue those three if they were on hand for a rescue call. Stanley Milgram showed the folk we need to worry about are the nice touchy-feelie folk who want to be liked, who defer to authority and do not think for themselves.