Tag Archives: WWF

COP15: Following in their footsteps

General, , ,
During the December climate negotiations, a team from WWF will have an ‘Arctic Tent’ on a main Copenhagen square and we have invited lots of people to help tell the stories of arctic climate change.
In front of the tent, we have a life sized polar bear carved from ice, created by renowned wildlife sculptor, Mark Coreth, and we have a stunning outdoor exhibit by some of the top photographers working in the Arctic today.

By Clive Tesar
We have heard a lot this week from the peoples of the Arctic, those who live with climate change effects as a daily event. Today we heard from people who go even where the peoples of the Arctic do not, people who have been drawn to the unpopulated areas of the Arctic. As one of these people remarked today, there are no more blank spaces on the map to explore, but there are places seldom visited, and things unknown and unmeasured. In that sense, those who travel in the seldom visited areas of the Arctic can still be considered explorers.
Without the voyage of Sweden’s Ola Skinnarmo through the Northeast Passage above Arctic Russia we may not have known about the trampled walrus that he saw scattered across remote Chukotkan beaches.
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COP15: Poles apart, poles together

General,
During the December climate negotiations, a team from WWF will have an ‘Arctic Tent’ on a main Copenhagen square and we have invited lots of people to help tell the stories of arctic climate change.
In front of the tent, we have a life sized polar bear carved from ice, created by renowned wildlife sculptor, Mark Coreth, and we have a stunning outdoor exhibit by some of the top photographers working in the Arctic today.

By Clive Tesar

Continue reading →

COP15: Young COP

General, , ,

During the December climate negotiations, a team from WWF will have an ‘Arctic Tent’ on a main Copenhagen square and we have invited lots of people to help tell the stories of arctic climate change.
In front of the tent, we have a life sized polar bear carved from ice, created by renowned wildlife sculptor, Mark Coreth, and we have a stunning outdoor exhibit by some of the top photographers working in the Arctic today.

By Clive Tesar

Today was turn of the youth voices to dominate the Arctic Tent. They were not the first youth in the tent, but this was their day, entirely given over to young people from the Arctic, or inspired by the Arctic.
What was amazing was the how the Arctic has become a magnet for young people intent on making a difference in the world. No fewer than three groups, the Cape Farewell Group, the Students on Ice, and the WWF Voyage for the Future have within the past two years taken people from as far afield as Japan and Chile on expeditions to the Arctic, so they could experience the imprint of climate change first-hand. Although they were all impressed by the receding ice and the slumping ground that are the hallmarks of arctic warming, what shone through in the presentations was their contact with northerners.
It was hearing the personal stories of the people who live with climate change in an intimate way that really brought home the impacts to the visitors. And once those impacts were brought home, they were transformative. In some cases, the transformation was more personal, starting a commitment to eat less meat, use local products, cycle more, turn off unnecessary power sources. In other cases, the witnessing of arctic change gave birth to movements, like Green Finger, a youth-driven movement that has pulled in thousands of people, resulting in pictures that now adorn the outside of the Arctic Tent.
Today, visitors to the tent did not have to travel thousands of kilometres to hear people from the Arctic: the people of the Arctic came to them. They came from a university class from Alaska, where one presenter talked of his home town of Shishmareff, a place that is being eaten away by increasingly violent storms, as the frozen ground which once held together its sandy bluffs melts away. They came from Canada’s Northwest Territories, where another presenter spoke of the increasing desperation of people whose ability to survive on local foods is being taken away from them.
We can only hope that the audience today, having heard these voices from the young people of the north, leave feeling as inspired as today’s young presenters from the south.

COP15: Brains on ice

General, , ,

During the December climate negotiations, a team from WWF will have an ‘Arctic Tent’ on a main Copenhagen square and we have invited lots of people to help tell the stories of arctic climate change.
In front of the tent, we have a life sized polar bear carved from ice, created by renowned wildlife sculptor, Mark Coreth, and we have a stunning outdoor exhibit by some of the top photographers working in the Arctic today.
By Clive Tesar

The speakers list for today read like a who’s who of arctic climate science – which I guess is understandable since it was Science Day in the Arctic Tent. Still, it was impressive that all these big names were assembled in a tent on a chilly Copenhagen Sunday afternoon because of their passion to bring their messages to the world. Continue reading →

COP15: The grand opening

General, , ,

During the December climate negotiations, a team from WWF will have an ‘Arctic Tent’ on a main Copenhagen square and we have invited lots of people to help tell the stories of arctic climate change.
In front of the tent, we have a life sized polar bear carved from ice, created by renowned wildlife sculptor, Mark Coreth, and we have a stunning outdoor exhibit by some of the top photographers working in the Arctic today.
By Clive Tesar
It seemed grand to me anyway – the culmination of more than a year of planning, the WWF Arctic Tent opened today. The audience, a mixture of the curious and the committed, heard stirring words from the speakers today – starting with Kim Carstensen, WWF’s climate spokesperson, who told the audience that the states gathered here must step up their pledges to cut emissions if they hope to keep world temperatures at levels considered reasonably safe. Continue reading →

COP15: Meet some of the Arctic Tent team!

General, , ,

During the December climate negotiations, a team from WWF will have an ‘Arctic Tent’ on a main Copenhagen square and we have invited lots of people to help tell the stories of arctic climate change.
In front of the tent, we have a life sized polar bear carved from ice, created by renowned wildlife sculptor, Mark Coreth, and we have a stunning outdoor exhibit by some of the top photographers working in the Arctic today.
Meet the exhibit team from outdoor exhibition specialists weCommunic8, who helped to create the beautiful outdoor photographic exhibition at the Arctic Tent on Nytorv Square, Copenhagen. With them are members of the WWF Arctic Programme and some of the Arctic Tent team. Continue reading →

Northwest Passage: A successful mission

General,

This summer, WWF is helping support two expeditions that will take on some of the world’s most difficult waters, to see first-hand the effects of Arctic climate change. One expedition is sailing across the top of Russia, a journey of 6000 nautical miles through the Northeast Passage, while another is attempting a west to east transit of the Northwest Passage, also by sailing boat, a journey of about 7,000 nautical miles.
Tom Arnbom of Sweden was on the ‘Explorer of Sweden’ though the Northeast Passage, as was WWF Arctic Programme Director Neil Hamilton for much of the trip, replaced near the end by WWF polar bear coordinator Geoff York. On the ‘Silent Sound’ Cameron Dueck of the Open Passage Expedition is filing regular stories from the Northwest passage. Come back for photos and stories throughout the summer, and follow the progress of the boats as they follow in the wake of some of history’s most intrepid explorers.
By Cameron Dueck
Silent Sound completed her epic voyage through the Canadian Arctic on October 10, four months and four days after slipping her moorings in Victoria, BC. It was a cold day with pouring rain when she pulled into Halifax Harbour, but there was still a crowd of family and friends waiting to welcome us ashore, reminding us of the community that has formed around the Open Passage Expedition.
We sailed 8,100 nautical miles, or about 15,000km, and spent two of our four months above the Arctic Circle. We spent on average more than four days a week at sea throughout the entire summer. We ran into ice, storms and days without wind that left us frustrated and behind schedule. But numbers and facts and logbook entries will never be able to tell the real story of this voyage of discovery.
Continue reading →

Northwest Passage: No more warm and fuzzy ideals

General, ,

This summer, WWF is helping support two expeditions that will take on some of the world’s most difficult waters, to see first-hand the effects of Arctic climate change. One expedition is sailing across the top of Russia, a journey of 6000 nautical miles through the Northeast Passage, while another is attempting a west to east transit of the Northwest Passage, also by sailing boat, a journey of about 7,000 nautical miles.
Tom Arnbom of Sweden was on the ‘Explorer of Sweden’ though the Northeast Passage, as was WWF Arctic Programme Director Neil Hamilton for much of the trip, replaced near the end by WWF polar bear coordinator Geoff York. On the ‘Silent Sound’ Cameron Dueck of the Open Passage Expedition is filing regular stories from the Northwest passage. Come back for photos and stories throughout the summer, and follow the progress of the boats as they follow in the wake of some of history’s most intrepid explorers.
Continue reading →

Northwest Passage update: Sea ice report

General,

This summer, WWF is helping support two expeditions that will take on some of the world’s most difficult waters, to see first-hand the effects of Arctic climate change. One expedition is sailing across the top of Russia, a journey of 6000 nautical miles through the Northeast Passage, while another is attempting a west to east transit of the Northwest Passage, also by sailing boat, a journey of about 7,000 nautical miles.
Tom Arnbom of Sweden was on the ‘Explorer of Sweden’ though the Northeast Passage, as was WWF Arctic Programme Director Neil Hamilton for much of the trip, replaced near the end by WWF polar bear coordinator Geoff York. On the ‘Silent Sound’ Cameron Dueck of the Open Passage Expedition is filing regular stories from the Northwest passage. Come back for photos and stories throughout the summer, and follow the progress of the boats as they follow in the wake of some of history’s most intrepid explorers.
By Cameron Dueck
There was more sea ice in the Arctic this summer than in the past two years, contrary to early spring ice forecasts and the longer term trend of melting sea ice.
“Arctic ice is holding in there, with about 20 percent more than in 2007,” Dr Humfrey Melling, a research scientist with Canada’s Institute of Ocean Sciences, told me.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center, a US body, said ice extended just shy of 2 million square miles (5 million sq. kilometres). That is 620,000 square miles (1.6 million sq. kilometres) less than the 30-year average. But there was more ice this September than the record low set in 2007 – about one-third of a million square miles more (2.6 million square kilometres). Last year ranked No. 2.
Ice forecasts early in the year had pointed to conditions that could match those of 2007 and 2008 when vast areas of sea ice melted, leaving the Northwest Passage open.
“Last winter there was an El Nino effect, which meant a colder winter for much of Canada, and the Arctic was very cold. This created thick ice which took longer to melt,” said Bruno Barrette, an ice expert aboard the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Sir Wilfred Laurier. He added that temperatures have remained below average during spring and summer. The Coast Guard invited us onboard for a lovely Sunday lunch while we were in Gjoa Haven, and the visit included an ice briefing.
A report from the Nansen Centre said that in the first half of August ice melted more slowly than during the same period in 2007 and 2008 due to a atmospheric conditions that transported ice toward the Siberian coast and discouraged the southward drift of ice from the Arctic Ocean.
“Therefore there will be no new record minimum in September 2009, but the minimum summer ice extent in 2009 will still be much lower than the 1979 to 2000 average,” the report said.
The Canadian Coast Guard was called upon to assist the sailing yacht Fiona in Peel Sound after the ice closed in on her and raised the boat clear out of the water. The German-flagged Perithia, surrounded by ice, had a polar bear walk up to the boat and try to enter the cockpit. Other boats were pushed onto the beach or had to wait for days for the ice to clear out of their way. Silent Sound was lucky … we had to change our sailing plans , port calls and time schedule to allow for the ice, but we escaped unharmed and completed the passage as planned.