ECOWATCH
Feeling the heat
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Each time Geoff Green returns to the poles, he knows that they are not as cool as they need to be. Climate change could be at play. TISHANI DOSHI profiles the Canadian explorer, who was in India and China recently.
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An awesome expanse in danger -- the Antarctic.
THE United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) met for its 10th session in Buenos Aires, Argentina, recently (December 6 to 17, 2004) to thrash out the hotly contested issue of climate change. Riding high on the forefront of the agenda was the Kyoto Protocol, poised to hit the world in February 2005, requiring participating nations (Russia, most recently) to reduce levels of greenhouse gas emissions to levels at least five per cent below their 1990 figures. Long-term success for this ambitious environmental treaty though, is far from assured. The world's single largest carbon emitter, the United States, has refused to get on board, and so have China and India — two of the fastest developing economies in the world, with equally escalating rates of carbon emissions.
Role for India and China
Geoff Green, a Canadian explorer, who has led 61 expeditions to the Antarctic and 25 expeditions to the Arctic, visited India and China for the first time last month with the idea of generating excitement about the poles among youth and bringing in corporate sponsorship for a future expedition. He believes it is imperative that future leadership and policymaking originate from these two countries.
Dwarfed by Nature -- the "Polar Star Paradise".
Green didn't attend the conference in Argentina, but he knows only too well the effects of climate change on the planet. Each time he returns to the poles he sees the ice behaving more and more like a bad dinner guest: arriving late and leaving early, creating changes in hunting patterns, birthing new breeds of insects for which the indigenous people — the Inuit — have no names for, and forcing more species onto the endangered list. He doesn't need to be stuck in melting permafrost to know that the poles are not as cool as they need to be and that everything — from the algae which grow on the underside of ice to the giant polar bear — will be threatened if carbon emissions are not kept in check.
He contends that the polar regions are the corner stones of our global system and maintaining their delicate balance is the key to the earth's survival. He has been organising expeditions to the poles since the early 1990s in order to give people the opportunity to gaze through what he calls the "windows of the world". Despite the fact that he suffered his first bout of polar fever over a decade ago, there's a magical quality about the place that still overwhelms him and sends goose-bumps down his arms when he talks about it. For Geoff personally, there's nothing better than being greeted by half a million fearless smelly penguins and burping elephant seals on a beach in Antarctica or communing in profound ways with killer whales in the Arctic Ocean.
The scale of the poles
For us hemmed-in urban types though, it's probably necessary to expand the scope of our imagination, to try and encompass the vast scale of these regions. So imagine if you will — icebergs bigger than Mumbai, wide expanses of tundra, places mired in five months of continual darkness, mountains blanketed in glaciers, sea tunnels and giant crevices, centuries-old air trapped between walls of ice crackling like a chorus of Rice Crispies.
Catching them young
The reason why the poles are such valuable platforms for education is that it is impossible to leave them unaffected. The absolute power of sheet upon sheet of endless resilient snow reflecting in the sun and the particular wonder of the Aurora Borealis which the Inuit describe as spirits playing in the sky with winter shadows, is enough to recalibrate anyone's sense of perspective. Early on, Green shifted his focus to teenagers, believing that if people had this kind of transformational experience early on in life, the world would have more environmental scientists, marine biologists, conservationists, and a higher ecological consciousness. It is precisely this shift in thought, this disconnect between urban contemporary life and nature that Green hopes to remedy. His primary message to students is this: do what you love to do, follow your passion, and good things will follow you.
Nature is his business -- Geoff Green with a trout.
When the delegates from 150 countries got together along with 6,000 representatives from government, industries and NGOs to debate in the corridors of Buenos Aires, their discussions meandered into the murky areas of carbon trading negotiations, mitigation and adaptation techniques, rather than any earth-shattering revelations for a shift in ecological lifestyle. Life in the poles is being threatened not only because of rising temperatures, but also because of water contamination, over fishing, increasing levels of ultraviolet rays and unrestrained extraction of resources. The Kyoto Protocol isn't going to provide one easy solution to an ecosystem whose every interdependent link is in jeopardy, which is why it's important that people like Green continue to offer a rare untainted vision of a future as an alternative to our current smog-filled city view.
For Green the journey lies not in seeing if there's anything new to discover, but in understanding what we already have. "We are constantly challenging children," he says, "because new discovery is about understanding our planet. If we don't do this then we're going to sleepwalk into the future."
For more information on Geoff Green and his polar expeditions visit: www.studentsonice.com
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