With the Antarctic tourist season begun – more than 40,000 will visit the seventh continent during the upcoming austral summer – yesterday’s memorial of the thirtieth anniversary of the worst accident ever on the continent was evermore relevant. AFP reports on the visit of relatives of the accident to the site of the accident. For obvious reasons, flyover tourism of Antarctica was stopped after the 1979 accident, resumed only again last year:
Six relatives of 257 people killed during an Air New Zealand sightseeing flight to Antarctica 30 years ago returned to the crash site Friday to mark the anniversary. The airline arranged for the relatives to be flown to McMurdo Sound in Antarctica on a U.S. Air Force flight.
Helicopters then flew the family members to the crash site on Mt. Erebus, although plans to land had to be postponed because of bad weather, Television New Zealand reported. “There are no words for this, it is incredibly beautiful,” said Pip Collins, daughter of Jim Collins, the captain of the DC10 aircraft which crashed into the mountain on November 28, 1979
Eric Houghton, the son of one of the victims, said: “I’ve been here probably hundreds of times in my mind but nothing prepares you for the vastness, emptiness and beauty of the place.” Memorial services will be held at New Zealand’s Antarctic center at Scott Base, as well as Auckland and Christchurch, on Saturday.
Air New Zealand apologized last month for its treatment of families of the crash victims, saying they had not received the support and compassion they deserved
The worst air disaster in New Zealand history was mired in controversy after a judicial inquiry overturned an earlier finding of pilot error, and blamed the airline for incorrectly programming the aircraft’s navigational computers.
Though they seem like distant past lives, I used to write often about photography and I used to live in Paris, the latter for about ten years. One of my favorite annual events there was called Paris Photo, a gathering of and displays by 100-plus of the best photo galleries from around the world, in the Carousel de Louvre. I met and made many friends there over the years, occasionally bought some beautiful photography that I would never have discovered otherwise, all in a very Parisian setting.
As luck would have it, the event was on last weekend while I was in Paris, so I lucked out. I went on a warm November Saturday, so the place was packed … I would have preferred to wander the gallery displays privately, or at least unaccompanied by a thousand elbowing, rubber-necking Frenchmen, but it was still great. The biggest difference since the last event I’d seen, easily a half-dozen years ago, was the content. Then, it seemed, the most beautiful work by some of the best art photographers in the world was focused on art for art’s sake. Still-lives from Japan, big colorful recreations by Gregory Crewdsen, and lots and lots of work by my old pal Peter Beard.
It’s a different world now and was reflected in the artwork, and the theme of the show: Work by and about the Arab and Iranian worlds. Fourteen galleries from the Mideast were spotlighted, as were about fifty Muslim and Mideastern photographers. Most of the work would not be considered photojournalism but rather an artist’s take on real life, but the line between the two in many instances was thin. One goal of the curators, I am sure, was to get away from the stereotypical image of life in the Arab world – veiled women and local craftsmen – and on the destruction that has wreaked havoc in the Empty Quarter so intensely this past decade. Talks and videos by Iranian photographers were highlighted during the weekend, as was the Arab Image Foundation, dedicated to preserving photography of the region going back one hundred and fifty years.
Given my affection for blue water, I especially liked these photos by Tehran-born Jalal Sepehr, seen at the Esther Woerdehoff Galerie. The experience reminded me of the mountain film festivals I’d seen in recent days, and my discouragement of the need for any more movies focused on privileged white people throwing themselves on boards off the tops of increasingly steeper mountains; art for art’s sake will always have a place, but art focused on the human condition – particularly when it is at its worst – is invaluable.
Regarding tourist ships stuck in the ice, apparently the “Captain Khlebinkov” is out of the pack ice in the Weddell Sea and headed back to Ushuaia, running just a couple days behind schedule. But after the incident was first reported, I had an email from a passenger who’d been on the previous voyage with the “CK,” reporting that the ship had taken a very similar route – near to Snow Hill, down the east side of the Peninsula, just into the Weddell Sea – and had gotten similarly “stuck” amongst the ice in windy, whiteout conditions. It was, she wrote, a fantastic adventure!
On the big screen, in Torello, Spain
In Ushuaia, the ship will pick up another group of passengers and apparently is headed back towards the same region, the same risks. As the season progresses (i.e. warms) there’s more chance the thick ice will begin to move out, but there’s no guarantee. I’m obviously not on the ship, and don’t know what the captain knows … but … returning to a place along the Peninsula where you’ve managed to get stymied by wind – or lack of wind – and lots and lots of thick, old ice two trips in a row seems a bit odd, a bit risky. I’m assuming the company has sold the trip based on getting into the Weddell Sea and is delivering! We’ll watch its website to see how it progresses.
Meanwhile, I’m writing from the comfort of Paris, where yesterday I spent the day with filmmaker Jacques Perrin and his team who are set to launch their new, eight-years-in-the-making OCEANS film (premieres in France late in January and in the U.S. on Earth Day, April 22). I screened the movie last night and, following on the global success of their “Winged Migration,” OCEANS promises to change the way movie-goers view and consider the ocean. Since the film is still something of a work in progress (some reviews have started to trickle out) I’ll hold off on any specific comment. Suffice to say OCEANS is the ‘wildlife opera’ that Perrin describes, delivering the most beautiful imagery from the undersea world that I’ve yet seen.
I’m fortunate to be linked to the film in a small way, editing an anthology of ocean issues writings to accompany the movie’s release in the U.S. in April.
My route to Paris took me to film festivals in Graz, Austria, and Torello, Spain … so I’ve had a full ten days of travel and movie watching. Our most recent film – TERRA ANTARCTICA – played at both, to great, fun review, which is always nice. After ten days I’m not sure that I ever need to see another ‘traditional’ ski film again; you know the variety, verging on ski porn? Snowboarders and skiers hucking and chucking themselves off impossibly higher and more dangerous peaks, dropped there by risk-taking helicopter pilots and more than occasionally plunging to death in the rocks below. Given all that’s going in the natural world around, both the threats that are everywhere and the cultures that abound in those very same mountains, do we really need to see more young white guys and girls risking their necks on the steeps for the cameras?
It’s that season again – the beginning of Antarctica’s tourist season – and already there’s report of a ship struggling to free itself from heavy ice. The Russian icebreaker “Captain Khlebnikov” has apparently been slowed – though the company that manages the ship is being careful to say it is not stuck nor aground – by typical heavy ice on the Weddell Sea side of the Antarctic Peninsula. According to company spokesperson the ship it is not in any danger; there are 100 passengers on board, most British.
According to the Associated Press the” Khlebnikov” will need to wait one or two days to resolve the situation. “The icebreaker’s crew is waiting for the weather to change and then the ship will resume its course. The passengers are in no need of assistance,” a spokesman told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti. A film crew from the BBC is also on board filming material for a documentary called Frozen Plane; the ship is reportedly continuing its helicopter tours while stymied.
The ship is currently moving slowly, searching ice-free water, near Snow Hill Island in the Weddell Sea, not far from where the Larsen B ice shelf famously collapsed in 2002. I was at Snow Hill twice last season, but not until about seven weeks later in the season when traditionally – but not always – more of the icebergs and pack ice have been blown out by big winds. Venturing into the Weddell Sea, even in an icebreaker, is always something of a crap shoot, no matter the time of year.
According to Argentine officials the “Khlebnikov” is trying to move slowly through the ice but the winds are too light to break up the ice pack, essentially suspending it in the ice and delaying its return to Ushuaia, Argentina, by three to six days.
“The icebreaker is trying to move and is waiting for more favorable winds,” said a ship’s spokesman. “After the winds get stronger, the ice grip will weaken … and it will break free.” Fingers crossed!
The cruise was advertised as a unique opportunity to watch Emperor Penguins in their natural habitat. The Finnish-built icebreaker has been used as a cruise ship for several years and carries two helicopters. Natalie Amos, a spokeswoman for the tour operator Exodus Travel, said 51 British tourists were among the ship’s 101 passengers. Paul Goldstein, a guide and photographer with Exodus, traveling on the ship, told the BBC News that the ship was trying to move. “We’re breaking ice,” he said Tuesday. “Obviously there’s frustration, but we’re going to get back perfectly safe.”
Rene Reibel, operations chief for the Argentine Coast Guard in Ushuaia, told The Associated Press that the icebreaker was moving amid floating ice and no one was in danger. “This ship was never stuck or run aground,” he said. “It’s floating, it has its engines and control.”
With tourism still growing along the Antarctic Peninsula groundings and tourist ships stuck in ice are becoming an annual happening. Last season it was the “Ocean Nova” and the “Ushuaia” which were stranded on rocks. In 2007 the Norweigan “Fram” lost power off the tip of the Peninsula and banged into a glacier. And of course in November 2007 the very first Antarctic tourist ship, the “Explorer,” sank off the tip of the Peninsula, spilling 185,000 gallons of diesel fuel and lubricants.
Since it was announced ten days ago that Dow Chemical would join 2010′s version of Al Gore’s “Live Earth” I’ve been concerned about the Nobel Prize winner’s sense of direction. For several years Dow has been sponsoring “Run For the Planet” marathons, in an effort to draw attention to the world’s need for clean drinking water. Which is a good thing. The downside is that around the world Dow chemical plants are among the worst polluters of nearby drinking water and air.
For the past eighteen months we’ve been working on a film in Louisiana about the relationship between man and water; it’s a relatively easy subject since there’s water everywhere, and every Louisianan has a water story or two or three. But my introduction to the state was nearly twenty years ago, when I went on assignment for Audubon magazine to write about a small town called Morrisonville, in Plaquemine Parish.
A hundred-fifty-year-old town homesteaded by just-freed slaves, in the 1990s it was home to a small core of eighty-seven indigent blacks. Over the years its closest neighbor – Dow Chemical – had expanded its property, and its pollutions, until both butted up against and ran under the small town; it was so close that the company installed alarm radios in each home to serve as alerts in case of an accident or spill (which most refused to turn them on, convinced the company was eavesdropping on them). Here’s what my friend Marylee Orr, founder of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network told the New York Times 20 years ago: “Companies are reducing their problems by moving people instead of reducing accidents and pollution.”
Over the years Dow’s chemical-making processes had badly polluted the local aquifer that lay beneath Morrisonville with vinyl chloride, information the company discovered but did not make public. Instead, when they discovered that the cancer-causing chemicals had spread over several acres just below the earth’s surface, spreading beneath the town, it did the only reasonable thing from a corporate perspective: It tried to buy off any potential complaints and lawsuits. As residents of Morrisonville resident’s began to get sick from the pollution, and as Dow recognized the impact it was having on local waterways, the company stepped up and bought up the town, house by house, moving the residents into shiny new brick houses in a nearby suburb. Though many in Morrisonville were already cancer-tinged, did the chemical company suggest to them it might be because it had polluted their drinking water? No. That would have been something of an inconvenient truth. Instead they simply said they were buying properties in order to move people away from “potential” harm.
Of course Dow’s support of “Live Earth” (I’m hoping to find out how much cash they’re putting into the event) is not completely altruistic or even out of guilt. It’s about growing its business. Turns out they have a sizable water purification business – Dow Water and Process Solutions – they are hoping to grow “by double digits” and participation in “Live Earth” is simply good advertising. (At the NYC press conference announcing Dow’s support, Ian Barbour, general managaer of Dow Water and Process Solutions, told the crowd and gathered participating celebrities (Jessica Biel, Pete Wentz and more), “We want to generate a surge in awareness and level of funding that will make a difference – making a dent in the number of people who don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. We must energize people to get involved.” While helping to solve the global water crisis is a worthwhile humanitarian cause, it is also good for business, he acknowledged, suggesting that Dow Chemical aims to grow its Dow Water & Process Solutions unit by double-digit rates. “We’ve seen average annual growth of 12-15% for our water business in the last decade, and we expect this level of organic growth going forward. We are also looking out for acquisitions, especially of new technologies that can drive down the cost of water purification.”)
Dow’s Louisiana story has been repeated around the globe wherever it has made chemicals (see the story below from ecorazzi.com). My question for Al Gore, his partners at “Live Earth” and the celebrity spokespeople who’ve signed on to promote Dow’s “Run for the Planet” is do they need Dow’s sponsorship badly enough to put up with the obvious bad press they’ll deservedly get for the linkage? Or maybe their goal is to try and “cleanse” the company’s attitude towards clean water and community relationships.
From ecorazzi.com: As more bad news surrounding Dow Chemical and its pollution of a vast river valley in Michigan surfaces, one has to wonder if their sponsorship of Live Earth’s clean water initiative is looking less like social responsibility and more like a giant billboard for irony.
The company recently agreed to help clean up more than 50-miles of the Tittabawassee River after dumping cancer-causing dioxins into it for most of the last century. The contamination has turned the area into one of the nation’s most polluted sites — something the Obama administration decided was in desperate need of government intervention. According to company records, Dow has known since the mid-1960s that dioxins could sicken or even kill people. The EPA even performed independent tests confirming that the chemicals cause cancer and “disrupt the immune and reproductive systems.”
Despite this, Dow has been criticized time and time again for dragging their feet on the matter. “This cleanup can get done, and a company like Dow can afford it,” Tracey Easthope of the Ecology Center told the LA Times. “But we are under no illusions that this will be carried out without constant pressure from concerned citizens.”
If current events aren’t enough to make Live Earth second-guess their partnership with Dow, the company’s handling of the Bhopal cleanup should have been the first red flag. 25 years ago, one of the world’s worst industrial accidents happened in Bhopal after a Union Carbide pesticide plant leaked a deadly gas that spread over the city. 8,000-10,000 people died within the first 72 hours — and 25,000 have died since. According to Wikipedia, some 390 tonnes of toxic chemicals abandoned at the Union Carbide plant continue to pollute the ground water in the region and affect thousands residents of Bhopal who depend on it.
Since Dow Chemical acquired Union Carbide, the company has refused to perform any additional cleanup, saying that UC’s settlement payments have already fulfilled Dow’s financial responsibility for the disaster. However, the on-going contamination of ground water in the region and high rates of cancer have brought heavy criticism on the company; most notably from campaigns fueled by corporate pranksters The Yes Men. In June, 27 members of Congress wrote to Dow Chemical Company CEO Andrew Liveris and Dow’s Board of Directors, urging the company to face their criminal and civil liabilities for the tragedy that occurred at Bhopal. “While thousands continue to suffer, Union Carbide and its successor, Dow Chemical, have yet to be brought to justice,” Congressman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) wrote in the letter. “I appreciate the efforts of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal to raise awareness of the plight of the people of Bhopal. Members of Congress will continue to fight against companies that evade civil and criminal liability by exploiting international borders and legal jurisdictions.”
One wonders how Dow can be so concerned about clean water, but completely ignore or avoid responsibility for environmental dangers that continue to happen under their watch. It’s even more maddening when you see organizations like Live Earth and charity:water jumping into bed with them. Sponsorship means cashflow to pull off important events, but is a company like Dow worth the ethical headache? Should an initiative focused on the water crisis partner with a company that is responsible for some of that damage to begin with?
Short answer: No.
While we may feel today that Planet Earth has been pretty well explored easily ninety-five percent of the ocean – which already covers more than seventy-five percent of the globe – is unknown. In an effort to plug gaps in knowledge about key ocean processes, the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s division of ocean sciences has awarded nearly $1 million to scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. According to U.S. News, the Scripps marine scientists will develop a new breed of ocean-probing instruments. Jules Jaffe and Peter Franks will spearhead an effort to design and deploy autonomous underwater explorers, or AUEs. AUEs will trace the fine details of oceanographic processes vital to tiny marine inhabitants.
While oceanographers have been skilled in detailing large-scale ocean processes, a need has emerged to zero in on functions unfolding at smaller scales. By defining localized currents, temperature, salinity, pressure and biological properties, AUEs will offer new and valuable information about a range of ocean phenomena.
“We’re seeing great success in the global use of ocean profiling floats to document large-scale circulation patterns and other physical and chemical attributes of the deep and open seas,” said Phillip Taylor of NSF’s division of ocean sciences. “These innovative AUEs will allow researchers to sample the environments of coastal regions as well, and to better understand how small organisms operate in the complex surroundings of the oceans.”
The miniature robots will aid in obtaining information needed for developing marine protected areas, determining critical nursery habitats for fish and other animals, tracking harmful algae blooms, and monitoring oil spills. For marine protected areas, AUEs will help inform debates about the best areas for habitat protection. With harmful algal blooms and oil spills, the instruments can be deployed directly into outbreak patches to gauge how they develop and change over time. In the case of an airplane crash over the ocean, AUEs should be able to track currents to determine where among the wreckage a black box may be located.
“AUEs will fill in gaps between existing marine technologies,” said Jaffe. “They will provide a whole new kind of information.”
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