Churchville, VA—The
naïve advice of ardent activists can kill. Last spring, Paul Beckwith of Sierra Club Canada predicted that the
Arctic seas would be ice-free ice this summer. (So did Britain’s BBC
network.) This exciting adventure opportunity attracted a variety of
yachts, sailboats, rowboats, and kayaks owners to try sailing the
fabled Northwest Passage.
As a former
sailboat owner I can understand their excitement, but my heart aches for the
agonies they now face. The Arctic sea ice suddenly expanded 60% this fall,
after the coldest summer in the modern Alaska temperature record. The
passage is now impassable. More than a dozen of the boats are trapped,
apparently even including a group of tiny American jet-ski “personal
watercraft” that were attempting to cross from the east coast
of Russia to the North Atlantic. Arctic observers are now
warning that even Canadian icebreakers might not be able to rescue them.
The Northwest Passage blog reminds us that fall super storms
are a potentially deadly fact in Alaska. “It is only a matter time. . . .
Give Mother Nature her due time and she will move billions of tons of sea ice
and push it up against the Alaska Arctic coast—effectively closing the door to
exit the Arctic ice from western Canada. . . . No icebreakers are going to
be able to offer any assistance. Mother Nature is mightier than all the
icebreakers put together.” Note that the Atlantic exit is already
problematic.
Helicopter
rescues on Arctic ice are incredibly expensive, involving hundreds of miles of
flying by copters and crews expensively maintained in that icy and sparsely
populated region. Additionally, all the lovely boats become write-offs.
The boaters ignored major warning signs. The planet has not
warmed appreciably in at least 15 years. NASA told us in 2007 that
the Pacific Ocean had shifted into the cool phase of its 60-year
cycle and that fact predicted cooler winters until 2030.
Most
concerning of all is that the costs of an Arctic sailing mistake are
horrendous. Wonderfully preserved hulks of sunken explorers’ ships litter the
sea-bottom around the Northwest Passage. Some of the vessels that survived
the ice were trapped for as long as three winters. At least one sailboat
recently froze into the ice near Svalbard. The captain and his boat were
buried under the heavy snow, 100 miles from human habitation. (He actually
survived to write a book.)
The risks run
by the Arctic boaters are obvious. Modern society is running less obvious risks
based on the same sort of naïve advice coming from the Sierra Club, Greenpeace,
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a host of like-minded “saviors
of the planet.” What about the poor and elderly Britons and Germans who have
frozen to death in their homes because they couldn’t afford the higher costs of
gas and electricity imposed by “renewable fuels”?
What about the
millions of Third World mothers and children who die of lung 
diseases every year as it is politically incorrect to give
them access to tiny amounts of kerosene for heating and cooking. The
alternative is burning dung and charcoal in indoor, poorly ventilated fires.
diseases every year as it is politically incorrect to give
them access to tiny amounts of kerosene for heating and cooking. The
alternative is burning dung and charcoal in indoor, poorly ventilated fires.
Closer to
home, what about the millions of young Americans who can’t get jobs in an
economy stalled by overpriced “Green” energy and investor uncertainty over the
War on Coal? Inevitably, being gullible carries a price tag. We are just
beginning to realize how expensive the naïveté of the environmental movement
has become.
Categories
- See more at: http://www.cfact.org/2013/09/19/gullible-green-sailors-trapped-in-the-arctic/#sthash.qtHUrqjF.dpuf
Dennis Avery,
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