From radio 666 ABC in Canberra, Australia, full audio follows.
Tony Fleming, director of the Australian Antarctic Division tells Louise Maher the AAD wasn’t linked to the Australasian Antarctic Expedition despite an implication by the expedition head that he had an “official stamp of approval”.
The expedition was brought to a halt when its ship became trapped in ice, stranding the 52 tourists and scientists on board.
A Chinese ice-breaker which went to its rescue of the Russian ship also became stuck in the ice. The ship’s passengers were airlifted to an Australian ice breaker Aurora Australis – which is due to reach Hobart in about a fortnight.
Tony Fleming says the AAD will make efforts to recover the cost of the rescue which set back their own missions.
Listen to the audio:
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UPDATE: Reader “flawed argument” writes:
A minor point Anthony,
Professor Turney “implied” approval in his Nature article but he absolutely said it in his Guardian article available at the University of New South Wales newsroom (http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science/chris-turney-responds-critics-antarctic-science-expedition)
“We worked on our research programme with the Australian Antarctic Division and other bodies and the expedition was considered significant enough to be given the official stamp of approval.”
Not much chance he simply misconstrued an environmental impact permit from AAD – he certainly is being deceptive in that article.
Moreover, the University of New South Wales kept tweeting the article as late as yesterday in Professor Turney’s defence, hours after Dr. Fleming’s radio interview. Presumably they hadn’t got the memo from Dr. Fleming yet. Amazing that Professor Turney was still self-promoting from Aurora australis last night with a puff piece from the BBC but hadn’t let his employer know that his (now) hosts the AAD were not amused.
I want to know who’s paying for the milk shake machine!
The Christmas Present that keeps on giving.
The AAD is repudiating this expedition? Things are getting interesting. I wonder how secure Turney is feeling at this point.
Not that it changes anything but all I ever see in these articles is ” 52 scientists and tourists”. Does anyone know the actual breakdown between these two groups?
Like an Albatross will this expedition weigh on Professor Turney, wrapped around his neck as his reward for his lack of vision.
We all paying for this global warming hysteria. You and I will pay at the end of the day.
One might imagine Prof. Turney will pay a price too but he will now just be a hero in the climate science community getting invited to all the great global warming parties from now on. He will actually benefit financially from this disaster. Such is this dismal science
Thrown under the
bus…ice breaker.I think Prof. Chris(tmas) Turkey just got thrown under the bus.
It remains to be seen what happens to his position at UNSW. Perhaps a Salby? with frosh recitation classes only?
The Party Boat got busted, ha ha ha. Science wasn’t sanctioned, and a glacier slid off the the continent due to man-made global warming and ate their homework.
I wonder if they’re still partying ?
I would hazard a guess that their insurers aren’t.
A minor point Anthony,
Professor Turney “implied” approval in his Nature article but he absolutely said it in his Guardian article available at the University of New South Wales newsroom (http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science/chris-turney-responds-critics-antarctic-science-expedition)
“We worked on our research programme with the Australian Antarctic Division and other bodies and the expedition was considered significant enough to be given the official stamp of approval.”
Not much chance he simply misconstrued an environmental impact permit from AAD – he certainly is being deceptive in that article.
Moreover, the University of New South Wales kept tweeting the article as late as yesterday in Professor Turney’s defence, hours after Dr. Fleming’s radio interview. Presumably they hadn’t got the memo from Dr. Fleming yet. Amazing that Professor turney was still self-promoting from Aurora australis last night with a puff piece from the BBC but hadn’t let his employer know that his (now) hosts the AAD were not amused.
In the unlikely event of career difficulties Professor Turney can rely on an impressive resume – in reverse chronological order:
1. Leader of “Ship of Fools” expedition
2. One of the “et als” on the disgraced and withdrawn Gergis et al paper
etc.
@ur momisugly David in Michigan
The numbers vary (even the 52 becomes 54 at times). But from all I’ve read, the nearest breakdown is:
9 scientists
18 PhD students (helpers)
25 or 26 “scientifically minded” tourists (who helped as well but spent much of the time falling off Argos or through cracks in the sea ice).
Tony Fleming says the rescue operation became necessary because the Russian captain reported his ship in distress. Apparently that takes priority over such things as resupplying the scientific operations. Had he just accepted Anthony’s estimate that the weather would break around the 8th of January, perhaps the whole thing could have been avoided. But then we would have missed all that fun!
@ur momisugly Scute
Into which of those categories would you fit Prof Turney’s wife and two kids? If “tourists” I wonder whether they ponied up the 15K that the other tourists did.
The “tourists” included the two Guardian journalists the BBC journalist and Janet Rice, the Australian Green Party senator elect who were all teeing up for a Global Warming propaganda fest and then went conspicuously quiet after they got stuck.
Janet Rice blogged about Global Warming in the Antartic while neglecting to mention the ship had to turn back almost 180 degrees when 80 miles off the coast when beaten by solid pack ice. That was days before they arrived anywhere near Commonwealth Bay and they had already been ploughing through 80-90% pack ice for a day before admitting defeat.
They eventually found another route. All the info above is corroborated by the Guardian video of 14th December on their Antartica blog and by the ship location map on the SpiritofMawsaon web site. The map has annotations saying they turned back due to pack ice.
“given the official stamp of approval”
You can but them at office supply stores. Along with a built in ink pad. The word “Approved” in backward letters.
Stamp. Stamp. Stamp.
@ur momisugly Lance
Hi, we crossed posts. Turney’s wife is a scientist so she may be counted as one of the 9, I’m not sure. The children are definitely part of the tourist portion, and yes, others have asked about who funded their passage as well.
One interesting thing was that I was watching the SpiritofMawson blog from the 26th to 30th December and there was nothing posted on the 27th, 28th and 29th. I know that because I checked every day until I read Turney’s 30th December post (now post-dated to keep it as a sticky- it’s the one with the two satellite images). I remarked on the sudden silence in a comment here at WUWT. A few hours later there were several posts from various members of the tourist contingent, dated 27th, 28th 29th and saying what a great time they were having.
Climate Scientists @ClimateSystem 4 Jan
The Australian Antarctic Division and other bodies gave the official stamp of approval for AAE. #spiritofmawson http://www.theguardian.com/science/antarctica-live/2014/jan/04/antarctic-expedition-was-worth-it-chris-turney …
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UNSW, mmmm, where have I heard that institution before?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-12/trials-of-skin-cancer-drug-dz13-suspended-amid-misconduct-claims/4881622
Gee he could always try kickstarter or similar, what was the last total?
Oh yeah around $500?
This unauthorised use of official organisations is not new to the labgeen brigade – shades of our late and not-so-lamented PM?
UNSW is living up to its snide nickname “Kensington High School” with such stunts as this debacle.
Chris Turney will face near excommunication from his colleagues among “Climate Change Scientists”. It isn’t that his whole effort was BS, that’s all any of them have to offer- it’s that he drew so much attention to the BS that a lot of it spilled over onto the whole team, like a toilet overflowing down the hall and into the kitchen.
9 Jan: Australian: Anthony Bergin: Saga of Shokalskiy breaks ice on much-needed polar conversation
(Anthony Bergin is deputy director, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and honorary fellow, Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre)
The head of the French Polar Institute has called the Russian ship’s cruise, with its assortment of tourists and Australian scientists, a “pseudo-scientific expedition”. It’s interesting that the voyage isn’t part of the official Australian Antarctic Science Program, and was taking paying passengers. The cruise is badged by its operators as the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, appropriating the name of the Australasian scientific team that explored part of the cold continent between 1911 and 1914, led by Douglas Mawson. It’s a bit like stealing the term Anzac for a tourist visit to Gallipoli…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/saga-of-shokalskiy-breaks-ice-on-muchneeded-polar-conversation/story-e6frgd0x-1226797645337#
Some useful idiots trying to put lipstick on a pig as a propaganda exercise, shoot themselves in the foot. The turkey in charge inconveniences hundreds of people at great cost and puffs up his wonderful achievements. All parties put upon by this ship of fools should demand full compensation. No ifs or buts, time to pay the piper, the era of protected species of inane scientists is coming to an end. Maybe we in OZ can lead the charge.
ouch. Writer, David Roberts is the author of an account of the 1913 expedition called Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration (W. W. Norton & Co., 2013):
8 Jan: National Geographic: David Roberts: Opinion: Rescued Antarctic Group Aren’t Heroes
The passengers aboard the stranded ship felt oddly entitled, writer argues
The 52 scientists, journalists, and tourists on the ship acted entitled instead of being embarrassed by their entirely avoidable predicament.
The members of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013-2014 (AAE)—who intended to re-create a very small part of Sir Douglas Mawson’s original monumental expedition of 1911-14—seemed strangely blasé—even giddily upbeat—during their ten days stranded in the ice…
They even seemed to relish their crisis. The BBC quoted Tracy Rogers, the team’s marine ecologist, as saying, “It’s fantastic—I love it when the ice wins and we don’t. It reminds you that as humans, we don’t control everything …
For many seasoned adventurers, the team’s attitude was hard to swallow. It seemed to betoken a new kind of entitlement, in which folks who get into serious trouble take it for granted that other people will risk their lives to save them…
Perversely, for the general public, the hapless passengers seemed to emerge as the heroes of the story, even though they did nothing but twiddle their thumbs and wait for the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long to come to their rescue, which ended by trapping the much bigger vessel in the ice. The U.S. sent another icebreaker, the U.S. Polar Star, to rescue Xue Long and Shokalskiy, but that mission was recently called off when the ships were able to break free from the ice.
The real heroes of the story were the 101 members of the Xue Long, the 22 crew members of the Shokalskiy who stayed with their ship, the crew of the Polar Star, and that of the Australian ship Aurora Australis that powered south to receive the airlifted refugees…
Still unreckoned is that gigantic financial cost and who will pay for it.
***It seems unlikely that the dilettantes who signed up for AAE 2013-14 would soon fork over the funds to pay for their perilous and expensive rescue. They’re still too busy congratulating themselves.
As expedition leader Chris Turney blogged on January 3, safe and snug aboard the Aurora Australis, “The AAE team have been fantastic. ETC ETC
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140108-antarctica-ship-ice-trapped-rescue-history-science/
Poor old Chris Turkey.
One could (almost) feel sorry for him… but then again, perhaps not!
I wonder how it feels to be single-handedly responsible for far and away the worst PR disaster for the AGW brigade since Climategate…
who would have known? Expedition spokesman Alvin Stone, (who also put out the “4 degrees” media release during the AAE fiasco), was only a VOLUNTEER!
And who can explain how “climate change” could cause the simultaneous disappearance and build-up of sea ice? Alvin Stone, media manager for AAE and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, gave it his best shot, blaming global warming for the incident…
http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2014/01/warmisms-titanic/
LinkedIn: Alvin Stone
Current:
Media and Communications Manager at UNSW ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science
(The Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science is a major initiative funded by the Australian Research Council)
Past:
Media and Communications Manager at Australasian Antarctic Expedition
November 2013 – January 2014 (3 months) Sydney
I volunteered to assist University of NSW’s academics Prof Chris Turney and Dr Chris Fogwill with media as they led an Antarctic expedition made up of researchers and members of the public in the footsteps of Sir Douglas Mawson.
This work included producing media releases, developing lead-up stories with interested media and looking after a range of communication aspects around the voyage. It rapidly escalated into 12 days of non-stop crisis communication after the voyage ran into trouble on Christmas Eve.
The team were repeating and extending Mawson’s scientific work in Antarctica when the Expedition’s ship, the Akademik Shokalskiy, was trapped in the ice.
For 13 days, I looked after all media communications for the expedition by myself in a story that went around the world and persisted at an extremely high level of activity for 10 days. This included more than 1000 media requests for interviews and images.
Until they were rescued by the Aurora Australis, I looked after all media running on around five hours sleep a night, at best. I arranged interviews, kept abreast of social media and suggested certain video uploads. I communicated with the leaders using SMS, Skype messages, email and satellite phones when the weather was good but communications were intermittent and delays in response could be as much as 12 hours.
I also acted as spokesman for the Expedition when it was out of contact with the rest of the world and was interviewed by major news organisations in the US, UK, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the Middle East. Because communications were, at best, intermittent, interview blocks with crew members regularly blew out and often had to be rescheduled.
This level of intensity only eased two or three days after the rescue.
On January 5, a University of NSW team took over media communications, 2-3 days after the rescue, so I could resume my full time position with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science…
Media and Communications at WWF-Australia
I played a major role in the communications of WWF-Australia’s climate change media.
Editor, Assistant Editor, Features Editor, Sub Editor at Fairfax Community Newspapers
http://au.linkedin.com/pub/alvin-stone/41/146/625