Yet another global warming expedition gets trapped in icebound ideology
Guest opinion by Paul Driessen
Will global warming alarmists ever set aside their hypotheses, hyperbole, models and ideologies long enough to acknowledge what is actually happening in the real world outside their windows? Will they at least do so before setting off on another misguided adventure? Before persuading like-minded or naïve people to join them? Before forcing others to risk life and limb to transport – and rescue – them? If history is any guide, the answer is: Not likely.
The absurd misadventures of University of New South Wales climate professor Chris Turney is but the latest example. He and 51 co-believers set out on the (diesel-powered) Russian charter ship Akademik Shokalskiy to prove manmade global warming is destroying the East Antarctic ice sheet. Perhaps they’d been reading Dr. Turney’s website, which claims “an increasing body of evidence” shows “melting and collapse” across the area. (It is, after all, summer in Antarctica, albeit a rather cold, icy one thus far.)
Instead of finding open water, they wound up trapped in record volumes of unforgiving ice, from Christmas Eve until January 2 – ensnared by Mother Nature’s sense of humor and their own hubris. The 52 climate tourists were finally rescued by a helicopter sent from Chinese icebreaker Xue Long, which itself became locked in the ice. The misadventurers were transferred to Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis, but the Shokalskiy remains entombed, awaiting the arrival of US Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star. (Meanwhile, Tourney hopes to get more grants to study manmade global warming, to help him make more money from his Carbonscape company, which makes “green” products from CO2 recovered from the atmosphere.)
As to his expertise, Dr. Tourney couldn’t even gauge the ice conditions the 74 crewmen and passengers were about to sail into. And yet we are supposed to believe his alarmist forecasts about Earth’s climate.
NASA reports that Antarctic sea ice is now the largest expanse since scientists began measuring its extent in 1979: 19.5 million square kilometers (4,806,000,000 acres) – 2.1 times the size of the entire United States. Another report says ocean melting of western Antarctica’s huge Pine Island Glacier ice shelf is at the lowest level ever recorded, and less than half of what it was in 2010. Reminding us of Monty Python’s pet store clerk, Turney nonetheless insists that the sea ice is actually melting, and his communications director says the record sea ice is due to … global warming! (As they say, fiction has to make sense.)
Equally amazing, the Shokalskiy was apparently not equipped with adequate wind and weather monitoring and forecasting capabilities. The expedition had to contact climate realists John Coleman, Anthony Watts and Joe D’Aleo for information that would allow them to plan their helicopter rescue.
All of this raises serious questions that most media have ignored. How could Turney put so many lives and vessels at risk – people he persuaded to join this expedition, the ship and crew they hired, the ships and helicopter and crews that came to their rescue? How did he talk the Russian captain into sailing into these dangerous waters? Who will pay for the rescue ships and their fuel and crews? What if one of the ships sinks – or someone dies? What is Tourney’s personal liability?
This may be the most glaring example of climate foolishness. But it is hardly the first.
In 2007, Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen set off across the Arctic in the dead of winter, “to raise awareness about global warming,” by showcasing the wide expanses of open water they were certain they would encounter. Instead, temperatures inside their tent plummeted to -58 F (-50 C), while outside the nighttime air plunged to -103 F (-75 C). Facing frostbite, amputated fingers and toes or even death, the two were airlifted out a bare 18 miles into their 530-mile expedition.
The next winter it was British swimmer and ecologist Lewis Gordon Pugh, who planned to breast-stroke across open Arctic seas. Same story. Then fellow Brit Pen Hadow tried, and failed. In 2010 Aussie Tom Smitheringale set off to demonstrate “the effect that global warming is having on the polar ice caps.” He was rescued and flown out, after coming “very close to the grave,” he confessed.
Hopefully, all these rescue helicopters were solar-powered. Hardcore climate disaster adventurers should not be relegated to choppers fueled by evil fossil fuels. They may be guilty of believing their own alarmist press releases – but losing digits or ideological purity is a high price to pay.
All these intrepid explorers tried to put the best spin on their failures. “One of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability,” Bancroft-Arnesen expedition coordinator Anne Atwood insisted. “But global warming is real, and with it can come extreme unpredictable changes in temperature,” added Arnesen. “Global warming can mean colder. It can mean wetter. It can mean drier. That’s what we’re talking about,” Greenpeace activist Stephen Guilbeault chimed in.
It’s been said insanity is hitting your thumb repeatedly with a hammer, expecting it won’t hurt the next time. It’s also believing hype, models and delusions, instead of real world observations. Or thinking taxpayers are happy to pay for all the junk science behind claims that the world faces dangerous manmade global warming. Or that they are delighted that the EPA and IPCC are increasingly regulating our lives, livelihoods, liberties, living standards and life spans, in the name of preventing climate change.
The fact is, Antarctic ice shelves have broken up many times over the millennia. Arctic ice has rebounded since its latest low ebb around September 2007. Despite steadily rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, average global temperatures have been stable or declining since 1997. Seas are rising at barely seven inches per century. And periods of warmer or colder global and polar climates are nothing new.
Vikings built homes, grew crops and raised cattle in Greenland between 950 and 1300, before they were frozen out by the Little Ice Age and encroaching pack ice and glaciers. Many warm periods followed, marked by open seas and minimal southward extent of Arctic sea ice, as noted in ships’ logs and discussed in scientific papers by Torgny Vinje and other experts. But warm periods of 1690-1710, 1750-1780 and 1918-1940, for instance, were often preceded and followed by colder temperatures, severe ice conditions and maximum southward ice packs, as during 1630-1660 and 1790-1830.
“Not only in the summer, but in the winter the ocean [in the Bering Sea region] was free of ice, sometimes with a wide strip of water up to at least 200 miles away from the shore,” Swedish explorer Oscar Nordkvist reported in 1822, in a document rediscovered by astrophysicist Willie Soon.
“We were astonished by the total absence of ice in the Barrow Strait,” Francis McClintock, captain of the Fox, wrote in 1860. “I was here at this time in 1854 – still frozen up – and doubts were entertained as to the possibility of escape.”
In 1903, during the first year of his three-year crossing of the Northwest Passage, Roald Amundsen noted that his party “had made headway with ease,” because ice conditions had been “unusually favorable.”
The 1918-1940 warming also resulted in Atlantic cod increasing in population and expanding their range some 800 miles, to the Upernavik area of Greenland, fisheries biologist Ken Drinkwater has reported.
Climate change is certainly real. It’s been real throughout Earth and human history – including the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, Little Ice Age and Dust Bowl, and through countless other cycles of warming and cooling, flood and drought, storm and calm, open polar seas and impassable ice.
Humans clearly influence weather and climate on a local scale – through heat and emissions from cities and cars, our clearing of forests and grasslands, our diversion of rivers. But that is not the issue. Nor is it enough to say – as President Obama has – that the climate is changing and mankind is contributing to it.
The fundamental issue is this: Are humans causing imminent, unprecedented, global climate change disasters? And can we prevent those alleged disasters, by drastically curtailing hydrocarbon use, slashing living standards, and imposing government control over industries and people’s lives? If you look at actual evidence – instead of computer model forecasts and “scenarios” – the answer is clearly: No.
______________
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
Note: this post was updated on 1/10/14 7:30AM to fix a units error related to sea ice square kilometers as square MILES.
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Looks like Liv and Anne are on to solving a new crisis…(climate change is so…2007 🙂
“In October-November 2014, renowned polar explorers and educators Liv Arnesen and Ann Bancroft will lead a team of six women, from six continents, on an 2525 km (1,569 mile), 60-day long expedition following the River Ganges from Gaumukh to the Bay of Bengal. Each of the women will be representing the key water challenges on their continent. Their journey together will be the centerpiece of a global awareness and outreach program that will spur us all to join hands in solving our global water crisis.”
http://www.yourexpedition.com/
Didn’t a group do a failed booze run to the North Pole a couple of years ago.
I believe the ice (which was completely melted…not) got them stuck, too.
With the many Australians looking on this turkey person will be asked many questions, our new government is not about to waste money on a global warming junket. This useful idiot may soon find himself between a rock and a hard place. From what I hear the other departments at his university openly mock the climate change mob. Major funding comes from government, this episode may cause a few whispers from high places. Ain’t karma a bugger.
Frank K:
I looked at the link and sure enough, there it was: “pollution and climate change”.
If they had stuck to “pollution” I would have tended to agree with the aims, but now …. .
@negrum says: January 9, 2014 at 9:20 pm
“One of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability,” Bancroft-Arnesen expedition coordinator Anne Atwood insisted. “But global warming is real, and with it can come extreme unpredictable changes in temperature,” added Arnesen. “Global warming can mean colder. It can mean wetter. It can mean drier. That’s what we’re talking about,” Greenpeace activist Stephen Guilbeault chimed in.
—-l
They sound insane.
==========================================================
Global warming means anything they want it to mean. And they are insane. It’s mass hysteria. Odd it should have started to get really out of control around the Millennium…
“In October-November 2014, renowned polar explorers and educators Liv Arnesen and Ann Bancroft will lead a team of six women, from six continents, on an 2525 km (1,569 mile), 60-day long expedition following the River Ganges from Gaumukh to the Bay of Bengal”
Must have signed up for the long version. http://gaumukhtrek.com/
Did this “scientific” expedition take a moment to read about Shackleton? Reading this alone would have helped them prepare more thoroughly.
Fast forward to summer of 2013 and what did we get with modern ships, yatchts and navigation? Sixty per cent more ice in the NWP on the previous year. Stuck boats unable to make it through the famed North West Passage, rescue operations launched. Ohhhh arrrrrrr.
http://www.sail-world.com/USA/North-West-Passage-blocked-with-ice%E2%80%94yachts-caught/113788
Jet skiers stuck too. Ohhhhh rrrrrr Jim lad.
http://iceagenow.info/2013/09/jet-skiers-northwest-passage-cold-wet-stuck-ice/
There may yet be a much greater threat to life and limb caused by climate extremists should the predictions by some solar scientists of a coming long-term cooling period become reality. The efforts of the alarmists to influence policy makers has had the effect of closing many coal-fired generating plants and delaying or stopping the development of fossil-fuel resources in favor of less reliable “green” sources. During the recent cold outbreak, it was reported that the energy grid was being taxed to the brink and rolling blackouts were instituted in some areas. God help us should the climate become increasingly like the last couple weeks. These alarmists and current government policy-makers may cause the deaths and suffering of millions in the near future through inadequate energy to keep people from freezing. I pray their legacy is one of simple foolishness and not one of causing massive death and suffering.
It is the responsibility of the Captain to tell his passengers to get back onto the ship if he sees deteriorating conditions. 🙂 Always check your details sunshine.
Then they got stuck in ice! How did that happen???
@Jimbo. I am sure they are going to try to spin it to blame the Captain, but their own words are going to be hard to contradict.
The Spirit of Mawson.
In a wooden sailing boat without modern navigation equipment and satellites. They don’t make them like they used to.
Would you trust a climate scientist to be objective if he has helped start a carbon capture company? Would you trust a climate scientist whose company finances depend on continued global warming? They even have an investor’s page.
Here is Chris Turkey’s company which is motivate by something.
I don’t know the legal aspects of this, but if the Captain allowed the expedition onto the ice, and didn’t specify a return time, he would seem to be culpable for either, a) allowing it in the first place, or b) not setting a time to return.
However, if he did set a return time, and it was violated, then his options became: a) get underway while it was still possible, leaving the passengers behind, or b) wait for them and take his chances.
If that were the case, I would view everything after the missed return time to be a rescue mission. That is, he was no longer captaining a voyage, he was diverting to from that voyage to rescue errant passengers. He would do the same, for example, if someone went overboard at sea, even though it might cause other problems in doing so, such as ending up in worse weather at sea eventually.
In my view, assuming the passengers missed the return time, the captain got stuck in the ice for the same reason the icebreaker got stuck in the ice; he was trying to rescue someone regardless of the reason they needed rescuing in the first place. If the same thing had happened at a warm port, he likely would have just sailed instead, since no “rescue” would have been required.
Any idea why so many people whine over typos? Get a life and live with it. Use your imagination so that you understand what was meant “in spite of the typo.” If you want it correct to send to your friends, copy and paste it to a doc file and fix it yourself, and send the file on. Most of us realize that we aren’t perfect and don’t expect it of everyone else, either.
Just like to suggest a special division of the Darwin awards reserved for ‘Lemming-like behaviour in the face of Unexpected Ice’. Call it the ‘Darwin Warm Feeling Trophy’. Maybe each recipient (good starting list above) could be added to a ‘Great Global Frieze’ to hang in the UN HQ.
Stuart B
Well said, Tom O. If the designers of the modern typing keyboard would have taken the old piano keyboard as an example, it would not happen that I make in every word I type, at least one typo and have to repair my sentences word after word.
A few years ago, there was a scientific trip down to Antarctica from Australia to also retrace some of Mawson’s steps and visit Mawson’s hut. I recall it being screened on ABC Television in Australia. One of the experiments conducted on the trip was to measure sea temperatures at various depths at a precise location where Mawson had measured them about a century earlier. The ABC Television report I recall seeing mentioned very briefly that the modern ocean depths were cooler than what Mawson had measured. At the time, this was passed off as an anomaly but the fact was very definitely never again mentioned on the ABC. Would any readers of this blog know where I can access the readings taken by the modern expedition and the comparative reading of the Mawson expedition? Just interested.
bbc radio had luck-baker on an hour or so ago, laughing at sceptics laughing at shokalskiy getting stuck in ice. am sure he used the words “pseudo science” – now to try to find the item! meanwhile…
10 Jan: BBC: Antarctic rescue ship’s stop-off thwarted
By Andrew Luck-Baker BBC science producer, on board Aurora Australis
The Australian mercy mission icebreaker is being thwarted yet again in its attempt to unload cargo and fuel at Australia’s Antarctic base, Casey.
The only compensation for the crew and passengers is that the Aurora Australis is cruising up and down what looks like a graveyard of gigantic icebergs, in a holding pattern for when the weather allows…
The calving rate of icebergs from glaciers is predicted to increase as climate change proceeds in Antarctica.
Sights such as these may be more common in the frozen South in coming years and decades…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25681076
Luck-Baker three days ago:
7 Jan: BBC: Rescued Antarctic expedition arrives at Casey base
By Andrew Luck-Baker BBC science producer, on board Aurora Australis
The AAE is only making a short stop at Casey before heading for Hobart.
And the 52 scientists and tourists from the expedition will not even be going ashore…
Greg Mortimer: “[We had] an enormous area of very old ice (frozen sea ice of 10-15 years of age), which was to the east of where we were, and to the east of the famous Mertz Glacier.
“All of a sudden, the mass of ice was just spat out to the west, like a cough-ball if you like.
“It was a massive area of ice hundreds of square kilometres in size, and we just happened to be there at the time.”…
“Every time, I’ve been there, I don’t know what to expect of Antarctica. It doesn’t treat fools kindly. Whether or not we go into the basket of fools, history will tell. But [Antarctica] tends to jump on the back of your neck if you make a mistake.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25647689
SM says: January 9, 2014 at 9:53 pm
As to his expertise, Dr. Tourney couldn’t even gauge the ice conditions the 74 crewmen and passengers were about to sail into. And yet we are supposed to believe his alarmist forecasts about Earth’s climate.
==================================
That’s not his job. It was the responsibilty of the Captain of the AS to determine if it was safe to proceed into any area.
_________________________________
That is not how shipping or aviation works.
If Dr Tourney hired the ship, then the shipping company will tell the captain where he needs to go to earn that contracted price. The customer choses the tune the piper will play. Can a captain refuse? – sure, but it will be the last time they sail. You occasionally see these principled captains, who think safety is their responsibility, cleaning the streets or washing up in restaurants.
Same goes for aviation too. You don’t think that these new Low Standards airlines care a jot about safety do you? Don’t be so naive.
Prof Turney is quite fond of extravagant claims. Here is another one:
Bigger Than The Moon
Mac the Knife says:
January 9, 2014 at 9:41 pm
Indeed Mac, this is the gist of the problem.
A way must be found to sway Mainstream Media. to present at least some sceptical ideas
But can it be done? They have progressive keepers who would like to rule a lefty world.
WUWT is,to me, a bit of an echo chamber.
The readership is increasing though, given the hit count.
Maybe WUWT is becoming a Mainstream Media outlet.as well.
Everyone spread the word.
RobRoy –
are CAGW sceptics too individualistic to organise like CCL?
*** on ABC radio broadcast of the californian neo-hippie “New Dimensions” program recently, i heard CCL-connected Sam Daley-Harris claim that in the first 8 months of 2013, CCL has had 745 letters to the editor published on carbon tax plus 141 op-eds published, plus 602 meetings with members of Congress or their staff. CCL like to give the impression american conservatives are just as much in favour of a carbon tax as liberals:
May 2013: NYT Opinionator Blog: David Bornstein: Lobbying for the Greater Good
If you pose that question to the leading climate scientist James E. Hansen, he’ll tell you to connect with the Citizens Climate Lobby (C.C.L.). “They have the potential to be extremely effective,” he said. “That’s why I recommend them in my speeches. They’re doubling in size each year. And they’re pursuing the right policy.”
The C.C.L. is a relatively unknown organization that punches above its weight. Founded in 2007, the organization prepares citizens to be effective lobbyists, helping them build relationships with members of Congress and editorial page editors, showing them how to make persuasive arguments about policies to win bipartisan support. Currently, the group’s main focus is to build political will for a revenue-neutral carbon tax…
***With a staff of 9 and about 700 active volunteers, the C.C.L. reports that last year it conducted 534 meetings with members of Congress or the Canadian Parliament or their staffs; met with 24 newspaper editorial boards; published 537 letters to the editor; and directly prompted or placed 174 editorials, op-eds or articles, all focusing on this policy. This year, the group is on track to double or triple its outreach…
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/lobbying-for-the-greater-good/?_r=0
8 Jan: PennLive: Jon Clark: Here’s why a carbon tax is key to fighting global warming By Patriot-News Op-Ed The Patriot-News
(Jon Clark is Mid-Atlantic regional coordinator for Citizens Climate Lobby.)
The answer is there are many good reasons to pass a revenue-neutral carbon tax, one of the best being that by doing so we can put pressure on developing countries like China to clean up their act as well…
Here is the best part about a carbon tax. To protect American businesses from being undercut by foreign corporations (much like what happened to American solar manufacturer Solyndra when China dumped a large amount of heavily-subsidized solar panels on our market), we can tax imports from countries that do not a have a price on carbon emissions…
http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/01/heres_why_a_carbon_tax_is_key_to_fighting_global_warming.html
3 Jan: PennLive Letters to the Editor: Free dumping of carbon dioxide pollution may threaten civilization
from MICHAEL MARK, Derry Twp
Department of Energy figures show that we dump carbon dioxide into our atmosphere at nearly 40 times our rate of trash disposal — but we pay no charge to do so. We can’t see the gas and it is hard to picture the mess of problems to come from the accumulation of carbon dioxide…
http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/01/climate_change_co2_carbon_dioxide_pollution_fossil_fuel_subsidies_jerry_shenk.html
PennLive doesn’t indicate Michael Mark is CCL-connected (MSM usually doesn’t in such CCL cases), but this will do:
Sept 2013: Facebook: Citizens Climate Lobby: Great letter to the editor (pennlive) from Michael Mark of Derry Township on how we’re burning down the house!
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=371096079603267&story_fbid=578761868836686
pdf: CCL: (Yet another Michael Mark letter published by PennLive, The Patriot-News in January 2013 – titled: Replace energy subsidies with tax on carbon emissions)
One idea for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, now suggested by both liberals and conservatives…
http://citizensclimatelobby.org/files/images/2013%2001%2025%20Patriot%20News%20Mark%20LTE%20Replace%20energy%20subsidies%20with%20tax%20on%20carbon%20emissions.pdf
Sept 2013: PennLIve Letters to the Editor: Relying on fossil fuels leaves the world worse for our children
from MICHAEL MARK, Derry Twp
There is a solution. Engineers at Stanford University and the University of California have shown that solar and wind can replace fossil fuels over time. Work done at the University of Massachusetts showed that green jobs can more than replace fossil fuel jobs.
Many conservatives now advocate a revenue-neutral carbon tax, with the proceeds completely returned to American households, so that solar and wind can compete with fossil fuels, without subsidies, on a level playing field.
http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/09/fossil_fuels_dirty_switch_to_clean_alternatives.html
9 Jan: St. Cloud Times. Minnesota: Local group plans carbon tax presentation
Area residents can listen to a presentation by carbon tax proponent Adele Morris, policy director for the Climate and Energy Economics Project of the Brookings Institution, on Saturday at the Good Earth Food Co-op.
Morris is the featured speaker on the Citizens Climate Lobby conference call which begins at 11:45 a.m…
http://www.sctimes.com/article/20140109/NEWS01/301090069/Local-group-plans-carbon-tax-presentation?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1
The spin-change continues: http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/9599654/Morale-good-despite-chilling-wait
The naivety of Chris Turney concerns me. Why would a man take his wife Annette and children Cora and Robert on a trip by boat to the Antarctic coast? Mawson received a knighthood for what he bravely achieved for science. This turkey deserves a derisionhood!
This must be extremely embarrassing for his university. I just hope they are sent a very big bill for the rescue of him, his family and all the hangers on of this ill conceived escapade.
ralfellis says:
January 10, 2014 at 2:32 pm
SM says: January 9, 2014 at 9:53 pm
As to his expertise, Dr. Tourney couldn’t even gauge the ice conditions the 74 crewmen and passengers were about to sail into. And yet we are supposed to believe his alarmist forecasts about Earth’s climate.
==================================
That’s not his job. It was the responsibilty of the Captain of the AS to determine if it was safe to proceed into any area.
_________________________________
That is not how shipping or aviation work.
=========================================================================
Ralf,
have a look at this : http://expeditionsonline.com/tour-44/spirit-of-mawson-akademik-shokalskiy
It contains the schedule for the voyage, also note the comment at the very bottom of the page.
If you’re ever on a flight somewhere, don’t ask the captain to divert to your desired destination: that’s called hijacking.
Brent Walker says:
January 10, 2014 at 5:10 pm
The naivety of Chris Turney concerns me. Why would a man take his wife Annette and children Cora and Robert on a trip by boat to the Antarctic coast? Mawson received a knighthood for what he bravely achieved for science. This turkey deserves a derisionhood!
=========================================================================
Brent,
you’d better have a serious word to the parents of Jordan Romero, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Romero
and Jessica Watson, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Watson
I’m sure they’d appreciate your input.
Cheers