It´s late and I am in Madrid airport waiting for a flight to Buenos Aires. From there I fly down to Ushuaia, the southern most city in the world. Then on Monday evening I board the MV Akademik Ioffe to cross Drakes passage for Antarctica.
I have joined the Inspire Antarctic Expedition 2009, run by polar explorer Robert Swan and his organisation “2041”. Robert has dedicated his life to the preservation of the Antarctic and the organisation has been established to raise awareness with young people of the importance of the Antarctic, with a view to ensuring the continuation of the Environmental Protocol of the Antarctic Treaty when it is reviewed in 2041.
Through a somewhat tenuous connection via the Cambridge Programme for Industry (a guy from BP who heard me speak at one of the CPI events), Robert approached me last year to be the climate change speaker on the 2009 expedition. This presented a tremendous opportunity and with support from Shell, here I am. I am going to try and use this blog, via my colleagues in the Shell media office, to keep a journal of the trip. I have never really done anything like this before, so I only hope I can keep it interesting. At least the pictures should be good, but you may not see them until I am back – it all depends on the satellite bandwidth.
I will be using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, with one of EF 24-105, 100-400 or 16-35 mm lenses. I also have a small Lumix G1 with me as well.
The people on IAE 2009 are from all parts of the world, some with corporate groups, some sponsored, some just doing it for themselves.
As for the speaking bit, I have been asked to give four talks, each of about an hour. I decided to cover the science, the energy challenge, policies and technologies and finally adaptation.
The slides for the first three talks are available on Slideshare, so feel free to browse.
[…] are two great ambitions that Shell is proud to be part of. So am I. Back in 2009 Robert invited me to speak about climate change to participants on his annual 2041 Expedition to […]