Not letting facts spoil a good story.

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I am not certain who the originator of this is, but it was sent to me by Viv Forbes.

Recently one of the TV news programs (I can not remember
 if it was TV One or TV3) showed an item about a certain
 Lewis Gordon Pugh, a British canoeist, who was planning
 to paddle his canoe to the North Pole to draw attention
 to the (allegedly) dramatic melting of the Arctic sea ice.

He did not make it. Sea ice and a earlier than expected start of winter blocked him at 80.5 degrees north, while still 960 km from the Pole. But that did not prevent the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to congratulate him, or for Pugh to boast that he had traveled further north
 that anyone had kayaked so far.

The American meteorologist Anthony Watts, a well-known spoilsport, in his blog Watts Up With That, had to point out that in 1893 the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen found the Arctic so ice-free that he was able to paddle his kayak to above 82 degrees north, 160 km further than Pugh. How sad that history and nature keep on spoiling the fun of the global warming alarmists. …….

The expedition has three participants: the initiator for this expedition, the British lawyer Lewis Gordon Pugh, who obtained some fame last summer by swimming one kilometer at the geographical North Pole (he swam for 18
minutes in water temperatures of minus 1.7 degree Celsius).

Another participant is Sam Branson, son of the super-rich Richard Branson, famous for creating an airline and who is trying to improve its eco-image
 somewhat by making a lot of noise, together with Gore, about climate.

Number three is Robert Hegedus, a kayak champion. But they don’t paddle very much. They are being forced to remain on the accompanying ship (also because there is a polar bear in the neighborhood). We cite some passages from their report - with a lot of schadenfreude: 


It was very difficult to make progress this morning. The temperature has been going down dramatically and each time when the boys go into the water, is it a bit more difficult. We are seeing large pieces of ice and instead of sailing through them, we are forced to go round them. Now and then we crash against such a piece of ice, which causes pieces to break off. One such piece almost pushed
 Lewis out of his kayak. The water is now below zero and a few splashes can be very painful.

The water that swirls at the feet of the boys starts to freeze, which costs extra warmth. Robbie is suffering from sore toes.

My mixed feelings about this news reminds me of another
 paradox of this expedition – the fact that I spend my days now by paddling in freezing cold water, with a
 frozen, sore back, while I am trying to draw the attention of the world to its warming.

Klimatosoof writes that this trip reminds him of the
 attempt by two ladies (Bancroft and Arnesen) last year to reach the North Pole on foot and ski. They had to abandon their attempt because of the severe cold. Before their trip they had said that they expected to have to swim part of the way.

The above stories provoke several reactions. On one level it is very funny. On another level it is very sad. While on yet another level it highlights the all-pervading
 global warming hysteria. It also underscores the present lack of good education and training in critical thinking, 
 probably as a result of post-modernist education ideologies. 


Cheers, Gerrit