See you on the flip side!
Lauren
Publish Post
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
I'm off!
I'm about to board the ship and set sail for Antarctica. This will be my final post on this blog until December 1st, but you can follow me from now on at http://expedition.2041.com. I will get comments if you write them on the message board, so please do!
See you on the flip side!
Lauren
See you on the flip side!
Lauren
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Preparing for departure...
I am blown away by the passion of the people on this expedition…and we haven’t even set foot on the boat. There are about 50 people from all over the world here – Vietnam, India, Australia, New Zealand, Serbia, Turkey, Germany, Netherlands, Finland, United Arab Emirates, Canada, US, UK, Columbia, China, and more - all about to embark on an experience that will change their lives. It’s really amazing to observe their excitement, as I remember the same eager anticipation that I had the night before departing for Antarctica the first time.
Just as with my first expedition, my future shipmates each have amazing stories about what led them to this place at the bottom of the world, and goals that they want to achieve while here. We will be learning about climate change and energy from an expert from Shell, and about the Antarctic Treaty from one of the foremost experts from the British Antarctic Survey, and about the concept of carbon offsets from an advisor from Native Energy. My job on the ship is to help define the ultimate mission for the team’s post-expedition work and to launch the Alumni Program that will give the team the tools to stay connected and inspired. I introduced the program earlier tonight and already have been approached by enthusiastic team members who already have plans for actions when they return home.
We had a fantastic hike up the Martial Glacier today. It was quite a different hike than last year because of the snow, and it was certainly better coming down…we practically floated down the glacier on all the fresh powder! I’m about to have a big traditional Argentinean dinner a good night’s sleep…’cause I’m leaving for Antarctica tomorrow!
Photo taken by Tony Piedade on the way up Martial Glacier early this morning.
Just as with my first expedition, my future shipmates each have amazing stories about what led them to this place at the bottom of the world, and goals that they want to achieve while here. We will be learning about climate change and energy from an expert from Shell, and about the Antarctic Treaty from one of the foremost experts from the British Antarctic Survey, and about the concept of carbon offsets from an advisor from Native Energy. My job on the ship is to help define the ultimate mission for the team’s post-expedition work and to launch the Alumni Program that will give the team the tools to stay connected and inspired. I introduced the program earlier tonight and already have been approached by enthusiastic team members who already have plans for actions when they return home.
We had a fantastic hike up the Martial Glacier today. It was quite a different hike than last year because of the snow, and it was certainly better coming down…we practically floated down the glacier on all the fresh powder! I’m about to have a big traditional Argentinean dinner a good night’s sleep…’cause I’m leaving for Antarctica tomorrow!
Photo taken by Tony Piedade on the way up Martial Glacier early this morning.
Looking down on Ushuaia...
Monday, November 16, 2009
A different look at Ushuaia
When I was last in Ushuaia, it was the middle of March at the end of the summer, and the snow had melted off of most of the Patagonian mountains surrounding the town. In November, the spring snow is still covering the range and tomorrow we'll be hiking in it up to our knees when we climb up towards what is left of the Martial Glacier. Another difference at this time of year is the sunlight. Dawn breaks around 5am, and the sun doesn't go down until about 10:30pm. In Antarctica, the daylight will be even longer.
It's been a pretty relaxing couple of days, and until the expedition members began arriving this afternoon, I spent most of my time hanging out with the other team leaders, discussing the agenda for the leadership program I'll be helping to facilitate on the boat.
Now that everyone is here, it's hit me that this is actually happening. It's also presenting me with moments of déjà vu, and I fondly remember this time only a year and a half ago when I was the one arriving with that look of excitement on my face and meeting strangers that would become my close friends. I still have that excitement, and undoubtedly have already said hello to people today that I will know for the rest of my life.
It's 8:45 and I'm off to dinner…considering whether or not to put on sunscreen.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Travelling
My mom worked for Pan Am and my dad regularly had business overseas, which meant that I grew up travelling. Since we would travel on my mom’s free passes in “space available”, it usually resulted in us sitting in First Class. In fact, as a little girl, I had to go to the airport dressed in a pretty dress and stockings so that I would be deemed acceptable to sit up front. Oh my, how times have changed.
My flight from JFK to Buenos Aires was relatively tolerable, thanks to my Ambien-induced 8 hour slumber (someone I know once referred to Ambien as “Business Class in a bottle”). The plane was bizarrely small for that long of a flight and I felt like a sardine. I actually had to get acrobatic at one point to launch out of my seat since the guy next to me wouldn’t wake up.
I am not sure why I feel so intrigued by the concept of travel as I write this. Maybe it is because I have spent much of the past year and a half studying climate change, or maybe it’s simply because I’ve just completed a 25-hour travel day. It never ceases to amaze me that I can leave the bustle of Manhattan on a Friday in rush hour, take off on a plane in an early winter Nor-Easter storm at night and land on a warm, Spring morning in another hemisphere, speed in a taxi through Buenos Aires to another airport and another plane, only to then again find myself in the freezing cold dark night 8 hours later, looking at the faint outline of mountains covered in snow in the southernmost city in the world. This planet is truly an amazing creation, and to think how humankind has found a way to jump all over it in contraptions that fly 35,000 feet in the air is nothing short of mind-boggling…if you really think about it.
So, I can’t help but think, as I embark on this journey to deepen my understanding of the urgent need to change how we use the planet’s resources, “why can’t humankind figure out a way to move our technology forward in a way that preserves this planet and enables future generations to live a comfortable life? Are we so spoiled, like little girls in First Class, that we can’t imagine doing things differently or making investments for the sake of those who will come after us?”
Wait, does that last paragraph sound like Carrie Bradshaw opening a “green” episode of “Sex and The City?”
Changing humankind’s behavior will not be easy, but as I reflect on the last year and a half since returning from my first trip to Antarctica, the signs that we may be on the road and travelling in the right direction seem to be present all around me. I live in New York City, and there is not a day that goes by that a bus with an advertisement with the word “green” doesn’t pass me. The trashcans in the subway now have stickers that explain that everything is recycled so that commuters won’t feel guilty disposing of their morning newspapers. My local farmers market not only provides me with everything I need to eat for the week (locally grown); I can also give any unwanted clothes to them to recycle, and there is someone sitting there every week signing up New Yorkers to “switch to wind energy”. This means that I pay a couple of extra dollars per month on my electric bill, but it’s creating a market and subsidizing more wind farms.
Now, I realize this is New York City, where you don’t need a car, apartments are small, and it is very easy to have a small carbon footprint. Even with its millions of inhabitants, New York City is becoming one of the “greenest” big cities in the world. However, the signs I see in my community are also appearing on national magazine covers bearing the words “Green Issue”, on national TV sitcoms that have “green” episodes, and most notably, a presidential campaign last year where both candidates acknowledged the importance of the issue of climate change.
While all of this is encouraging to me, it must seem odd to my European friends who have been recycling since they were born. I’m afraid the United States has a lot of work to do to catch up. I went to a debate the other night at the Japan Society near the U.N., to listen to several authorities from Japan, China and the U.S. share news of the negotiations leading up to December’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December. All had been active in the Kyoto negotiations and some even further back to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1989. It was made very clear that the world is waiting for the U.S. government to decide what they are willing to commit to. One gentleman from Japan described it as “holding the rest of the world hostage”. That same man, however, was encouraged by the Obama administration’s progress. The Ambassador from China was very quick to point out that while China recently surpassed the U.S. as the top carbon emitting country, they also have 21% of the world’s population while the U.S. has only 5%, leaving their per capita carbon emissions much lower than ours. It is also very obvious that they are already positioning themselves for the future green economy, particularly global solar panel production. I love my country and feel fortunate to have been born here (it is, after all, totally random where we end up finding ourselves as new lives on earth), but we share our atmosphere with the rest of the world and we need to take the lead in cleaning it up. Even if the thousands of scientists who have agreed that anthropogenic climate change is happening were all of a sudden found to be wrong, so what? The world is wasting time arguing. It is still happening! It doesn’t matter whose “fault” it is. When I asked the debate panel a question about leadership at Copenhagen, mentioned that hours before the President of the Maldives and leaders of ten other nations had pledged to go carbon neutral, and asked about grass roots activism happening all over the world, and what effect, if any, it was having on the negotiations, I didn’t really get a straight answer. It’s a very complicated negotiation process, maybe the most complicated treaty that world leaders have ever had to face, but they need to stop playing politics, come up with solutions, and get this planet on the road to recovery…quickly.
So, as I wind down this marathon day of travel and get ready to start my longer journey south to the white continent (yes, my entire trip is offset…a complicated notion and I am sure the subject of a future blog entry), I am focused on the power of people and what they can accomplish: they can invent an airplane and change the world, they can study science in school and grow up to invent a wind turbine or solar panel, they can use the internet to spawn a grass roots movement that results in a coordinated International Day of Climate Action in over 180 countries, they can be ambitious and pledge to make their climate-vulnerable countries carbon neutral as a statement to the rest of the world, and they can be leaders who travel to Copenhagen and put politics aside and the future of the planet first by signing a fair and ambitious treaty. The first four have happened…I pray the fifth will too. That would be a trip worth taking. Anyone have an extra plane ticket to Copenhagen?
Lauren Wylie
Ushuaia, Argentina
My flight from JFK to Buenos Aires was relatively tolerable, thanks to my Ambien-induced 8 hour slumber (someone I know once referred to Ambien as “Business Class in a bottle”). The plane was bizarrely small for that long of a flight and I felt like a sardine. I actually had to get acrobatic at one point to launch out of my seat since the guy next to me wouldn’t wake up.
I am not sure why I feel so intrigued by the concept of travel as I write this. Maybe it is because I have spent much of the past year and a half studying climate change, or maybe it’s simply because I’ve just completed a 25-hour travel day. It never ceases to amaze me that I can leave the bustle of Manhattan on a Friday in rush hour, take off on a plane in an early winter Nor-Easter storm at night and land on a warm, Spring morning in another hemisphere, speed in a taxi through Buenos Aires to another airport and another plane, only to then again find myself in the freezing cold dark night 8 hours later, looking at the faint outline of mountains covered in snow in the southernmost city in the world. This planet is truly an amazing creation, and to think how humankind has found a way to jump all over it in contraptions that fly 35,000 feet in the air is nothing short of mind-boggling…if you really think about it.
So, I can’t help but think, as I embark on this journey to deepen my understanding of the urgent need to change how we use the planet’s resources, “why can’t humankind figure out a way to move our technology forward in a way that preserves this planet and enables future generations to live a comfortable life? Are we so spoiled, like little girls in First Class, that we can’t imagine doing things differently or making investments for the sake of those who will come after us?”
Wait, does that last paragraph sound like Carrie Bradshaw opening a “green” episode of “Sex and The City?”
Changing humankind’s behavior will not be easy, but as I reflect on the last year and a half since returning from my first trip to Antarctica, the signs that we may be on the road and travelling in the right direction seem to be present all around me. I live in New York City, and there is not a day that goes by that a bus with an advertisement with the word “green” doesn’t pass me. The trashcans in the subway now have stickers that explain that everything is recycled so that commuters won’t feel guilty disposing of their morning newspapers. My local farmers market not only provides me with everything I need to eat for the week (locally grown); I can also give any unwanted clothes to them to recycle, and there is someone sitting there every week signing up New Yorkers to “switch to wind energy”. This means that I pay a couple of extra dollars per month on my electric bill, but it’s creating a market and subsidizing more wind farms.
Now, I realize this is New York City, where you don’t need a car, apartments are small, and it is very easy to have a small carbon footprint. Even with its millions of inhabitants, New York City is becoming one of the “greenest” big cities in the world. However, the signs I see in my community are also appearing on national magazine covers bearing the words “Green Issue”, on national TV sitcoms that have “green” episodes, and most notably, a presidential campaign last year where both candidates acknowledged the importance of the issue of climate change.
While all of this is encouraging to me, it must seem odd to my European friends who have been recycling since they were born. I’m afraid the United States has a lot of work to do to catch up. I went to a debate the other night at the Japan Society near the U.N., to listen to several authorities from Japan, China and the U.S. share news of the negotiations leading up to December’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December. All had been active in the Kyoto negotiations and some even further back to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1989. It was made very clear that the world is waiting for the U.S. government to decide what they are willing to commit to. One gentleman from Japan described it as “holding the rest of the world hostage”. That same man, however, was encouraged by the Obama administration’s progress. The Ambassador from China was very quick to point out that while China recently surpassed the U.S. as the top carbon emitting country, they also have 21% of the world’s population while the U.S. has only 5%, leaving their per capita carbon emissions much lower than ours. It is also very obvious that they are already positioning themselves for the future green economy, particularly global solar panel production. I love my country and feel fortunate to have been born here (it is, after all, totally random where we end up finding ourselves as new lives on earth), but we share our atmosphere with the rest of the world and we need to take the lead in cleaning it up. Even if the thousands of scientists who have agreed that anthropogenic climate change is happening were all of a sudden found to be wrong, so what? The world is wasting time arguing. It is still happening! It doesn’t matter whose “fault” it is. When I asked the debate panel a question about leadership at Copenhagen, mentioned that hours before the President of the Maldives and leaders of ten other nations had pledged to go carbon neutral, and asked about grass roots activism happening all over the world, and what effect, if any, it was having on the negotiations, I didn’t really get a straight answer. It’s a very complicated negotiation process, maybe the most complicated treaty that world leaders have ever had to face, but they need to stop playing politics, come up with solutions, and get this planet on the road to recovery…quickly.
So, as I wind down this marathon day of travel and get ready to start my longer journey south to the white continent (yes, my entire trip is offset…a complicated notion and I am sure the subject of a future blog entry), I am focused on the power of people and what they can accomplish: they can invent an airplane and change the world, they can study science in school and grow up to invent a wind turbine or solar panel, they can use the internet to spawn a grass roots movement that results in a coordinated International Day of Climate Action in over 180 countries, they can be ambitious and pledge to make their climate-vulnerable countries carbon neutral as a statement to the rest of the world, and they can be leaders who travel to Copenhagen and put politics aside and the future of the planet first by signing a fair and ambitious treaty. The first four have happened…I pray the fifth will too. That would be a trip worth taking. Anyone have an extra plane ticket to Copenhagen?
Lauren Wylie
Ushuaia, Argentina
Friday, November 13, 2009
And so it begins...
I'm off! Next stop, Buenos Aires...
Thank you to everyone for all of your support and well wishes!
I'll post again as soon as I can.
Lauren
Thank you to everyone for all of your support and well wishes!
I'll post again as soon as I can.
Lauren
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
48 hours to go...
I'm packing frantically, and even packed a can of yams to open on Thanksgiving. Hopefully Argentina's customs officers will go easy on me...it's a big can. It's been a crazy week, but hopefully I'll have some time on Friday to write about the debate I attended last night called "Copenhagen & Beyond: A Multilateral Debate about Climate Change Policy" at the Japan Society. Really interesting...
In the meantime, be sure to bookmark, follow or subscribe to this blog!
In the meantime, be sure to bookmark, follow or subscribe to this blog!
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Jeans vs. The Planet
As the news comes in that a firm global treaty is less and less likely to be signed at Copenhagen in December, I'm reminded of this video that was featured at "The Age of Stupid" premiere in September. If only the world leaders could be bold enough and brave enough to actually lead. It still shocks me that people are so passionately opposed to the government investing in alternative energy and individuals spending a little too...like $150 a year per US household (just one of the many similar figures thrown out there - some are more, some are less). That's a pair of designer jeans!! And studies from all over the world (example: a recent TD Bank-funded study in Canada called "Climate Leadership, Economic Prosperity") detail how investing now can offer a better standard of living and create more jobs for the future. Not to mention how more renewable energy solutions would reduce our dependence on foreign oil. How can the world's leaders be so short-sighted...and so afraid to acknowledge that climate change is THE global issue of our time?
Personally, I'd rather buy a long and comfortable future for my generation's grand-kids than a few new pairs of jeans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FVYUTr61rc
Personally, I'd rather buy a long and comfortable future for my generation's grand-kids than a few new pairs of jeans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FVYUTr61rc
My Formidable Opponent
Stephen Colbert vs. Stephen Colbert in another hilarious debate.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/255173/november-04-2009/formidable-opponent---global-warming-with-al-gore
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/255173/november-04-2009/formidable-opponent---global-warming-with-al-gore
Friday, November 6, 2009
Heading south soon...too soon?
This one's for those of you who have asked how my ship will be able to reach Antarctica this early in the summer season. Here's your answer...warmer water = faster pack ice melt & more rapidly calving ice shelves.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/ice-loss-antarctic-peninsula-unprecendented-14000-years.php
Countdown....7 days!
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/ice-loss-antarctic-peninsula-unprecendented-14000-years.php
Countdown....7 days!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The Countdown Begins
TEN DAYS until I leave for Antarctica! With all of the 350.org excitement, combined with Robert's book launch (have you bought it yet?), I am only now getting my head around all the preparations for the journey south. This post will test my ability to sent blog entries via e-mail, so l can keep you all updated for as long as I can before disappearing off the edge of the world without any way to communicate.
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