Kayak trip for climate action includes a few long haul flights
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
An Australian grandfather has announced plans to Kayak from Canberra, Australia’s landlocked capital city, to Paris, to deliver a message about climate change to the upcoming COP21 Paris climate conference.
According to the Canberra Times;
“He intends to drag and paddle his wheeled kayak halfway around the world to deliver a message on behalf of all Australians who want action on climate change. The message: we are in this fight against global warming.”
Naturally, in the time honoured tradition of climate activism, activist Steve Posselt plans to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by our modern fossil fuel powered economy to achieve his goal. Not only does his kayak appear to be a modern plastic construction, lightweight and safe, rather than the kind of fire burned dugout effort you would expect from a truly committed eco-warrior, but Steve’s route to Paris includes a couple of long haul airline flights.
“From Canberra he drags his kayak to Port Kembla and then paddles up to Sydney. He will fly to the Gulf of Mexico, then paddle through North America to Canada. From there he will fly to Britain and will paddle through England and across the English Channel to Paris. There he will deliver his message at the United Nations Climate Summit in November 2015.”
Nevertheless, you have to admire Steve Posselt’s audacious hypocrisy, given that he is employing all this fossil fuel sourced goodness to achieve his goal;
“It is not a big deal to go to a zero carbon economy. It’s about political will.”
You first mate.
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This is no more than a Mileage Run
I wonder if I could get sponsorship to haul my ukulele to various scenic cultural places in Oz to bring awareness expansion to that most natural of things, climate change. I will do so by singing the songs of my people, buskering my way about the land. If benefactors are interested in funding this I’d like to bring my wife along, too as it would help get the message out and she plays a mean kazoo. I anticipate no more than 4 weeks expenses paid should do it. Please help soon as it is very cold here in north central Washington state. I’ll need to retain any donation overages, proceeds from product placement, profits from my videos and iTunes sales, and donations to my traveling tip jar as compensation for my personal inconvenience, of course.
/sarc
If he’s going via Hudson’s Bay from New Orleans (against the current from there), he should have left some time ago.
[No. The Gulf of Mexico current is clockwise, as is the Gulf Stream. Not claiming he is wise, but at least he is traveling clockwise. if he doesn’t end up off Norway.]
If he’s traveling around Cape Horn, perhaps he should avoid Seal Island. His kayak probably has the outline of a seal, and he’ll face flying fish of a different kind–Carcharodon carcharias.
Well he can haul his kayak through the Channel Tunnel, but I think he will die of carbon monoxide fumes. English channel ain’t a quiet place to paddle through, and is subject to great storms. Not a very good publicity stunt, as the majority of Australians don’t swallow the global warming scam anyway.
carbon monoxide fumes ?????
From what ???
we gave up steam trains years ago, they use nuclear produced electricity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel#Power_supply
Don’t you Aussies know anything about Pom-land
Checkmate, dude.
This stuff is a prime example of what happens when business – here Mitsubishi – tries to get good publicity basing on CAGW scared people.
I hope someone counts their CO2 footprint.
Reblogged this on ajmarciniak.
Green “plans”
Christ. It’s like Leo Wanker does environmentalism. Odds on, his kayek bursts into flames and he gets eaten by a shark.
That’s ‘gonna confuse a lot of non-Aussies, and this is oddly coming from a Pom.
American Alligators can entertain him for a fair distance up the Mississippi River, but not that far north. Generally they shouldn’t give him a difficult time unless he likes to dangle his feet in the water; if he does then gators and snapping turtles will try feet, especially the turtles. Though snapping turtles do burrow deep into the mud for the winter. Poking either critters with paddles is a bad idea.
Well, the Mississippi has bull sharks for much of it’s length; yes, it is one of the problem people tasting sharks. Large Bull sharks have been documented tasting several people in succession.
Bull sharks along with pelagic sharks can keep him entertained crossing the channel and coasting south towards France.
I would expect the salt water crocs to be the most dangerous critters along that loons trip. Australia’s snakes are not a joking matter nor to be taken lightly and vie for the most dangerous animals along the trip. A large saltwater crocodile may just view that kayak as a larch beach toy with lunch aboard.
America’s water moccasins and other poisonous snakes are dangerous but definitely not of the danger class that taipans and tiger snakes are.
Though the stories about snakes in Louisiana dropping from overhead branches is true; I once knew a guy who’d sunk his boat twice trying to shoot a snake that landed on his boat. Though he couldn’t tell snakes apart and quite possibly sunk his boats trying kill completely harmless snakes.
Once following a circle of net drops collecting crawfish just north of New Orleans, I counted eleven snakes as we collected crawfish and re-baited the nets. The good news was that only one of them was a water moccasin. The bad news was the cottonmouth was the only snake that refused to scare out of where we were dropping the net. Every time we returned to that hole, we first had to find where the snake had moved to before we could safely collect the net.
Louisiana’s waterways and adjoining swamps are rife with snakes. Fortunately most of the snakes are relatively harmless, i.e. they bite, but not poisonous. Other American poisonous snakes he will be transiting that are not uncommon are rattlesnakes and copperheads, less common are coral snakes. The coral snakes and water moccasins dwindle in number as one heads northward.
I bet that if you put it to him he wouldn’t understand what you are talking about.
I also doubt that he will be able to cross the Channel in October/November.
Is there a python involved. Perhaps it might swallow this wanker.
(Or am I getting different publicity stunts confused.)
Sorry Hans,
Kennet and Avon canal water level is kept by fossil fueled ‘Electric pumps’.
In 1981, British Waterways installed two 75-horsepower (56 kW) electric pumps at Claverton and presented the old diesel pump to the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust for preservation. Back pumps also installed at Bradford, Crofton, Semington and Seend
“On the Kennet & Avon Canal near Bath, the Claverton pumps abstract up to 36 megalitres per day (36,000,000 litres or 8,000,000 gallons per day). A chain of backpumps recirculate lockage water, and transfer water from the River Avon up to the summit pound to meet canal demands.”
https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/about-us/water/water-management-faqs
The Crofton Steam Pump only works occasionally for tourists – http://www.croftonbeamengines.org/
Still relying on fossil fuel then, i was part of a “crafty craft” canal race team twice in 1993 and 1994 when i lived in newbury, the locks are a nightmare.
More Blog Quotes from the hypocritical ecowarrior – Steve Posselt + my observasions.
Day 3 – “What is Global Warming all about? It is about Strength of Character.” “The planet is warming, humans have caused it”
“decided I was way too tired to continue. Hid the kayak on a farm road and started hitching.”
(So he’s happy to ‘cause unnecessary damage to the earth’ when HIS ‘Strength of Character’ fails !! )
“Might have to buy another heat gun” (Lets hope it’s not fossil fueled – try solar & a magnifying glass, oh remind me Steve, what do you make epoxy from??)
Day 4 – “After a great drive listening to the mix from DJ Lea, I picked Klaas up at Sydney Airport” (approx 520km in a gas guzzler. What happened to “It is not a big deal to go to a zero carbon economy” Steve ??)
78km in first 4 days: at that rate will take ≈ 410 days
This guy is nuts.