WWF

We have heard a lot this week from the peoples of the Arctic, those who live with climate change effects as a daily event. Today we heard from people who go even where the peoples of Arctic do not, people who’ve been drawn to the unpopulated areas of the Arctic. As one of these people remarked today, there are no more blank spaces on the map to explore, but there are places seldom visited, and things unknown and unmeasured. In that sense, those who travel in the seldom visited areas of the Arctic can still be considered explorers.

Today was 2 Poles day at the Arctic Tent – on the surface, there are many similarities between these places defined in the imagination by their ice and snow. It is under the surface that they are different – literally – under the surface of much of the arctic ice is an ocean, while Antarctic ice mostly rests on rock. This is part of the explanation for why warming in the Arctic is faster and has larger local effects.

The Peoples Orb – a shimmering 20cm silver sphere containing a 350 gigabyte mosaic of stories, voices, images and action on climate change collected from around the world – arrives in Copenhagen.

Today was turn of the youth voices to dominate the Arctic Tent. They were not the first youth in the tent, but this was their day, entirely given over to young people from the Arctic, or inspired by the Arctic.

The speakers list for today read like a who’s who of arctic climate science – which I guess is understandable since it was Science Day in the Arctic Tent. Still, it was impressive that all these big names were assembled in a tent on a chilly Copenhagen Sunday afternoon because of their passion to bring their messages to the world.

It seemed grand to me anyway – the culmination of more than a year of planning, the WWF Arctic Tent opened today. The audience, a mixture of the curious and the committed, heard stirring words from the speakers today – starting with Kim Carstensen, WWF’s climate spokesperson, who told the audience that the states gathered here must step up their pledges to cut emissions if they hope to keep world temperatures at levels considered reasonably safe.

Meet the exhibit team from outdoor exhibition specialists weCommunic8, who helped to create the beautiful outdoor photographic exhibition at the Arctic Tent on Nytorv Square, Copenhagen. With them are members of the WWF Arctic Programme and some of the Arctic Tent team.

Silent Sound completed her epic voyage through the Canadian Arctic on October 10, four months and four days after slipping her moorings in Victoria, BC. It was a cold day with pouring rain when she pulled into Halifax Harbour, but there was still a crowd of family and friends waiting to welcome us ashore, reminding us of the community that has formed around the Open Passage Expedition.

The front yard of the average Inuit home will contain several snowmobiles, some of them working, some of them being repaired, some in a state of despair. There will also be a few quad bikes, and, if the resident works for the government or one of the town’s big companies, they will have a late model truck or SUV parked in the driveway. Mounted on a wooden stand next to their modest bungalow will be a steel tank containing diesel that slowly drips into their furnace and keeps them warm. Spread around the rest of the yard will be an array of broken toys, wooden sleds, chained dogs and the other detritus of modern northern life.

There was more sea ice in the Arctic this summer than in the past two years, contrary to early spring ice forecasts and the longer term trend of melting sea ice. “Arctic ice is holding in there, with about 20 percent more than in 2007,” Dr Humfrey Melling, a research scientist with Canada’s Institute of Ocean Sciences, told me.