By the way, the iceberg shown in the background of the photo from his video is a fake – done by CGI. That’s not a good way to start in my opinion. The man is Alex Bellini, a “professional adventurer and motivational speaker” who plans to live alone on a melting iceberg off the coast of Greenland for one year, to emphasize the urgent need for climate change action. Apparently, he thinks melting icebergs is a recent phenomena.
According to Treehugger:
This bold one-man campaign comes at a time when a chorus of scientists, organizations and policymakers continue to warn about the accelerating loss of Arctic ice.
Thus, extreme circumstances seem to call for extreme measures, but for this former finance student from northern Italy who has already run 23,000 kilometres (14,291 miles) of marathons, rowed solo across the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Pacific oceans, this new project seems even more extreme.
Watch Bellini explain his actions himself:
Starting in spring of 2015, Bellini plans to find a suitable iceberg in the northwest region of Greenland, where he will remain for up to a year as it slowly melts. Provisioned with with 300 kilograms (661 pounds) of dried food, Bellini will shelter in a survival capsule, the Kevlar-reinforced kind used for ocean oil rigs, until it becomes too risky — at which point he will take to the sea in the capsule, floating adrift until he is rescued.
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Place your bets now, I don’t think he will make it past about six months. Most every time we’ve seen people go to the Arctic to “emphasize the urgent need for climate change action” they find that the Arctic isn’t as warm and tolerable as they think it must be, and they come woefully underprepared. Just ask the Catlin Expedition, the Polar Defense Project, and the “Row to the Pole” folks, all of whom failed miserably. They tended to view the Arctic like this BBC story did:
i first saw this story on the website “treehugger” where you would expect a deluge of support.
It was an onslaught of ridicule. How times change.
actually it was linked to Drudge. So I think that’s why.
Motivational speaker?? Wouldn’t he be better off living in a van… down by the river?
+1
His ultimate goal apparently is to live in a van down in the river.
I would add him as a potential candidate for climate prat of the year but a brief look into his background reveals him to be a professional “motivational” speaker. ie It’s all about parasiting onto the green propaganda machine to raise his future earnings.
[snip. OTT – mod]
Pointman
Pointman: one of the concerned journalist-activists visiting him next summer will probably be your prime candidate for Climate Prat of the Year. Of course he’ll arrive there w/o using any fossil fuels.
Good luck taking a bath in ice-water. Or does he plan to stink for a year?
Presumably he chose a Spring start, so he could report ‘melting’ whilst his stunt is still newsworthy, and before everyone forgets about him.
As long as nobody gets hurt when they have to go rescue him…
Sitting on an iceberg off the coast of Greenland for 12 months….. is this even possible? Won’t the berg float away into the Atlantic, flip over, melt? Then what, live in your survival pod for the next X months just floating on the currents? Boredom will kill him if the cold doesn’t.
I’d like to know who funded, is funding, this guy since he clearly doesn’t actually work for a living. Is he independently wealthy? Book deal? Movie deal? It’s always about the money …… well, maybe a little about notoriety.
Mentally illness is a sad and terrible thing ……….
It is very important to pick an iceberg that will move south and melt. According to PIOMAS, the ice is becoming thicker, more multi-year and locked in place!
“This bold one-man campaign comes at a time when a chorus of scientists, organizations and policymakers continue to warn about the accelerating loss of Arctic ice.”
Note the way the treehugger text links to an out of date post from 2012 and a ref. Wingnut Wadhams claiming ice-free Arctic by 2016.
Since icebergs are broken off bits of glaciers that break off and melt in the perfectly normal cycle of events this has nothing to do with “highlighting” global warming and all to do with not understanding ice cover and glaciers.
If we look at Artic sea ice area from the generally alarmist Cryo Today team, we see that it is settling down at around 2006 levels.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
Perhaps someone ought to tell this fool to refresh his browser page before wasting a year of his life freezing his nuts off. Instead he could do something really useful like be the first man to walk single handed to the south pole.
Or perhaps they’ve already faked the film of his year in the wilderness using CGI and he’s going to spend the year under a false name in one of Al Gore’s tropical island hide-outs
Watch out for grandpa bear!
“Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.” – Robert A. Heinlein.
Sooner or later one of these stunts is going to demonstrate the truth of this quote.
A snip from the treehugger intro: “My objective is reporting and investigating, by means of scientific methods, the entire lifetime of an iceberg. ”
Fails as step one with the science since he will not be reporting the “entire lifetime” unless he is there at the birth: the calving event when it breaks of the glacier.
He does not appear to know the difference between and ice floe and an iceberg. So much for the science content of the project.
“We’ll also play the symbolic card: the adventure of a man floating adrift on an iceberg will come to represent the condition of the whole humankind going adrift on an endangered planet. ”
More symbolic of the whole world floating in an ocean of scientific ignorance and disinformation with the last remands of logic and reason fast melting away.
I have to think the accumulation, compaction, and flow of the glacier have a lot to do with the outlook for the iceberg that evenually calves off of it.
So… I’d say he failed even worse.
And what happens if the d*** iceberg he chooses doesn’t bother to “melt.” What a maroon.
I find it very difficult to accept that there are actually people so brainwashed by this nonsense that they are unable to make the logical conclusion of how bad earth would be for all life if it was cold enough so that icebergs did not melt.
However, excessive melting can cause sea level rise. This could turn out to be a serious problem in the future.
You know, I don’t want to get too political, but it seems to me the USA government is wasting a lot of money trying to build dikes around New Orleans. That city was already destroyed because they built way below sea level. So if the government is convinced sea level will rise then why insist on putting up walls around a destroyed portion of the city? It makes a lot more sense to let it flood and build a high speed train service to Mandeville. Just a thought.
Fernando – DEFINE the word “excessive”? First of all, no matter how fast an iceberg melts, it does not affect sea level rise at all. If glacial ice melts faster – OR- flows faster it will increase sea level. So it can be from warmer conditions – OR – from more snow or other conditions to cause a faster/bigger glacier.
Either way sea level rises the instant the melted water OR the ice (new icebergs) enters the ocean. It doesn’t matter if it was melted water or if it is an iceberg that melts later. If it is an iceberg it does not matter how fast or slow it melts.
As for New Orleans, some federal funds that were supposed to be used to bolster the dikes prior to Katrina were squandered for things like parks and beautification projects. Who knows, maybe some of the money circuitously also ended up in Senator William Jefferson’s freezer? (He is serving 13 years in Beaumont TX.)
Why federal money was wasted on rebuilding the flooded sunken part of the city is beyond me; IMO it ought to be filled with silt and turned into a big marsh again as nature intended.
For New Orleans they should have dug out every other street in the 9th ward and used the earth to raise the new builds above hurricane surge sea level. The network of canals would slow and dissipate a hurricane surge and the houses would be safely above normal sea levels. Then sell the houses as with direct canal and road access. Hugely, increases the value of the houses, produces slower moving water at the mouth of the Mississippi helping the barrier islands regrow with silt. But no – rebuild at below sea level again. No imagination.
Ian W
Now that would have been a world class solution! (better than my idea for a building code to require pontoons under all new foundations.)
Yeah, polar bears also live on ice bergs. What could possibly go wrong? lol
Actually they don’t. They are smart enough to stay on the sea ice where there are seals to eat.
Seals and the occasional loony with 600lbs of food. Lol.
Even Polar Bears need to eat their greens.
I hope this catches on with the main stream news media and they all try the same thing.
So this guy’s a “motivational speaker”, is he? How about that. I’m guessing he’d be about as motivational as a gypsy camped on the front drive explaining why he should be there for the next 6 months, with his mates.
I rather suspect he’s a bone lazy sod and finds this method of avoiding work to his liking while expecting other rattle-brains to feed and support him. What a bore. What an incurious time-waster.
Let’s hope he settles on a night roller with every chance of putting him in low earth orbit at 2am.
Italian motivational speaker?
Duce, Duce, Duce…
Here in the UK we used to have a gifted comedian called Kenny Everett (sadly no longer with us) who, in one of his many sketches on tv, created himself as a character called Cupid Stunt…
Seems to fit, somehow…
Ah Kenny, sadly missed. “Round ’em up, put ’em in a field, and…”.
Oh they are coming way too fast!
“Do you play golf?”
“I’m a country member”
“Yea. I’ll remember.”
“Carla: Why do you have bandages around your ankles?”
“It said to open can and stand in boiling water for 5 minutes.”
Sorely missed.
Well, he’ll get the Darwin Award if he dies (assuming he has no children – a good bet). And as someone who wishes the human race were a lot cleverer, then I can’t seeing it being a bad thing if he does.
Seems he has daughters. But it’s a case of: “Not now, dear, daddy is saving the planet.”
A motivational speaker…Is that like a community organiser?
No, it’s worse. He the sort that persuades people to become community organisers
I wonder if this stunt will suffer the Al Gore effect? Having to be rescued as the Iceberg increases in mass until it re-joins the Greenland ice……
It’s worse than we thought. Man replaces polar bear on iceberg escalating polar bear extinction.
Little polar bear to its mother:
‘Ooh, look, Mummy – LUNCH….’
Nah, he’ll just start lecturing the PB on CAGW and send it to sleep.
Wouldn’t it be poetic justice if this guy were to be eaten by a polar bear?
On the subject of what constitutes “suitable” when scoping out the iceberg:
– will he (and/or his team) attempt to find one which might suffer a spectacular end (by the end of the summer melt season), thus enhancing the suspense?
– or will he attempt to find one which will be large and stable enough to possible enable him to make it for an entire year?
That decision will greatly affect what he packs for the trip.
In any case: extra warm & dry clothing, a great radio and transmitter, plenty of food, plenty of fuel and a rescue team standing by.
Transportation provided by wind & solar power, of course.
Hmmm. Does he have to register the iceberg as an inhabited vessel under international maritime law?
If he did, I’m guessing that any reasonable body would declare the iceberg to not be seaworthy and forcibly remove him to safety.
Bob Tisdale:
Probably a good idea to register his iceberg. It will help collect insurance for him and his Mastodon crew when attacked by a marauding pirate ship captained by a Baboon.
If he can make it past this…
The iceberg doesn’t have to be registered.
Apparently he wants to use an escape capsule. He would have to be in compliance with Danish requirements. This expedition of his will require proper disposal of his human waste and black water into suitable containers which can be tied with one inch ropes to the escape capsule. 4 each 200 liter drums should do it for a six month stay. The drums should be fillable from inside the capsule and have a way to capture methane emissions, which can be used to cook in a special stove. The smell can be handled with a Xmas tree shaped air freshener.
Power will have to be delivered by two small wind turbines and two solar panels attached to the roof. An Exercycle with a small generator built inside the capsule would come in handy.
To keep entertained he will need reading and knitting material. Somebody from the opposite sex would be a huge plus.
Once the iceberg starts melting it may turn over. This could lead to capsule launch and subsequent catastrophic deformation as the ice berg falls on top. The solution is to attach a three ton anchor with a very heavy chain to the capsule. This will ensure fast submergence once the capsule hits the ocean. The capsule will require a set of high pressure air bottles to equalize pressure as it sinks underneath the iceberg. Once it reaches 200 meters a special release mechanism can detach the anchor and the capsule will rise towards the surface.
With a bit of luck it will avoid hitting the iceberg and pop up safely. At that point the crew can proceed to call for help. When help arrives a ship’s crane can pick up the capsule and the fecal drums and the surviving gear.