No Climate Change Education in our schools?

The debate around climate change in the science curriculum rages on in the press with a letter published in yesterday’s Guardian and signed by a number of educationalists.

This is response to the news that climate change is to be dropped from the national curriculum.

My immediate and emotive response to this is that the government has this wrong and must immediately change their policy and include climate change within the science curriculum.
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Arctic Expedition on BBC

One of my roles on the Catlin Arctic Survey was to film for this documentary coming out on the BBC and Open University this week. It was quite nerve-wracking shooting my first film, with the added pressures of the Arctic environment and the fact that it is to be broadcast on the BBC. I haven’t seen it yet, and look forward to reliving the expedition through Victoria’s eyes.

Broadcast details
This weekend Dr Victoria Hill presents a BBC Earth Reporters documentary about the Catlin Arctic Survey. The programme screens on BBC World (02:30 & 09:30 28/5 or 15:30 & 21:30 29/5). If you’re unable to watch BBC World TV, you can view the programme from the Open University website from this Friday.

On Cold (Arctic blog)

‘How cold is cold?’ I asked. I felt a bit stupid. Simon, the Ice Base Manager was giving me a briefing in the sitting room of his house in late February. I had never been to the Arctic before and had no idea what to expect.

We went for a walk after lunch. The air was damp and heavy. It crawled in between my jacket and fleece, the heavy, clinging, damp cold of England. It must have been 5°C.

Simon was a polar veteran. I tried not to shiver in the relative mild.

The temperature at the Ice Base was likely to be between about -35°C, rising to about -20°C towards the end of April. I had no idea what these figures meant. Is -35°C twice as cold, three times as cold, ten times as cold? These numbers were abstract and extreme in equal measure. They accompanied me on shopping trips to buy thermal leggings and fleece jackets and entertained friends in pubs at weekends.

I am now in Resolute, one of the coldest inhabited places in the world, waiting for a flight to the Ice Base. The cold here is a sharp and dry cold that is, at first, a comfortable contrast to the stuffy and claustrophobic warmth of the hotel.

As I stretch outside, the first sensation is a stiffening brittleness in my nose as the damp exhalation freezes. Then my beard starts to feel waxy. Nose and cheeks are pinched and sting. It is -40°C, yet I do not feel cold. Ears if uncovered give off a sharp ache. The fabric on my gloves hardens. Each layer of clothing is like a piece of armour, a defence.

It is a battle to see how far the cold can penetrate from the outside and how well my body can warm from the inside. I feel cocksure wandering around town, confident that the extra chips and chocolate cake will fuel me in this fight. To battle the cold, you need energy.

If I were in London, I would be eating 2,000 calories a day to lead a normal working life. Here, I need to eat 5,000 calories a day. 3,000 calories just to fuel my body to stay warm, like feeding an extra me. On an expedition, pulling a sled, polar explorers will be consuming three times as many calories as recommended by your doctor and losing weight.

Even with the food and thermals, I feel like an invisible sprite has a frozen set of tongs and presses them to any patch of exposed flesh.
It is not colder in the Arctic. It is a different cold. Not malicious but lethal for the unwary. Do not think in terms of degrees. Imagine that the cold here is not a temperature but an animal or ice spirit, a polar djinn if you will, trying to find a way in, trying to find a weakness, biting, clawing, burning.

The team at the Ice Base put their idea of cold into words. This is what they came up with.

On Copepods (Arctic Blog)

Ceri thinks copepods are cool. I didn’t know what a copepod was. I hadn’t even heard of them before I met Ceri.

We met at Heathrow airport on the way to join the Catlin Arctic Survey and compared choices of bad films on the flight to Ottawa.

Dr Ceri Lewis of the University of Exeter drew a picture of a copepod for me on the paper table cloth of Montana’s in pink crayon. It looked like an elongated marine wood louse. (more…)

On Wonder (Arctic blog)

I like hotel rooms filled with kit. They speak of independence.

I spread out in a spacious room on the fifth floor of the Southway Inn in Ottawa. Strip malls and apartment blocks spread through scrubby woods, five minutes drive from the airport. Tanning salons, hardware stores, petrol pumps and fast food. Tucsons, the local bar across the street offers drinks and dancing with live music on Saturdays and Wednesdays. It was Thursday.

Somewhere between the anonymity and dullness of the ringroad hotel, there is a freedom. I look down at the three kit bags lying on the patterned carpet. Down jackets, rugged weather proof computers, adaptors, tape, kit, thermals, bandages, medicine, back-ups, independence. This is the thrill: knowing that I have everything I need and nothing more. (more…)

On Certainty (Arctic blog)

The expedition to the Arctic has plunged me back into the world of science. Friends have enquired about what the expedition will be doing. The research focuses are on ocean acidification and thermohaline circulation. I understand these concepts little and look forward to learning more from the science research team.

Research on thermohaline circulation concerns the health of the world’s ocean currents. If these currents break down, it could have quite different impacts on the climate to those that we might be expecting.

I found it easier to understand in terms of property development. Where should I buy a house which would be future proof from the point of view of the changing climate? The answer isn’t as simple as I had hoped. Depending on which climate model or theory you listen to, it could be anywhere between the Canary Islands and Ullapool. (more…)

On Curiosity (Arctic blog)

In childhood we ask: ‘Why is there good and evil?’ ‘How does nature work?’ ‘Why am I me?’ If circumstances and temperament allow, we then build on these questions during adulthood, our curiosity encompasses more and more of the world until, at one point, we may reach that elusive stage where we are bored by nothing. The blunt large questions become connected to smaller, apparently esoteric ones. We end up wondering about flies on the sides of mountains or about a particular fresco on the wall of a sixteenth-century palace. We start to care about the foreign policy of a long-dead Iberian monarch or about the role of pear in the Thirty Years War.

from ‘The Art of Travel’ by Alain De Botton

‘I’m going here.’ I pointed to an island in the Arctic.

‘Are you excited?’ (more…)