Friday June 16, 2023
First Lecture – Peter Varley – Climate Change in the Arctic. For many Climate change is a myth, for others an imminent disaster, but I think for most it is reality that makes sense and that is something that warrants attention but will not spell “the end of the world” in the next few years. Varley gave a very interesting factual presentation of the true facts and figures as published by trustworthy sources. In one of the first pie charts he showed that it is a very small percentage that is due directly from man’s Carbon Dioxide actions. Natural Carbon Dioxide, Methane, Ozone and other factors are larger than Man’s CO2. The vast majority 80% is due to more evaporation of the water. However, there is more water vapor due to the rise in temperature. If one looks at CO2 emissions over time, dating from 185, at that time virtually all CO2 emissions emanated from land use and amounted to some 2,000 million tons a year. By the early 1900’s Land and Coal accounted equally for the 5,000 Million tons. By the 1960’s Oil and Gas had started and coal was now far greater than land use and the totals had reached 10,000 Million Tons of CO2 emissions. Currently about 35,000 million tons are produced mainly due to Coal (13K); Oil (10K); Gas (6K) and Land use (5K) with Cement the remaining 1K. If one considers the cumulative CO2 emitted by area since 1850, Europe is the worst at 600 Billion Tons of CO2 emitted, as the Industrial revolution started earlier there. The next is the USA with 400 Billion, China with 200 Billion and India with 100 Billion. Overall Total world cumulative CO2 editions since 185 amount to 1.6 Trillion Tons of CO2. In the Arctic during the period 1985 to 2022 the age of Arctic Ice has gone from – 4 year old 30+% to 1%; 3, 2 and 1 year old ice have remained constant and the 0-1 year old has gone from 35% to nearly 70%. This shows that ice has melted into liquid water rather than remained as ice. As there is more water there is more evaporation which causes greater warming due to the “greenhouse effect”. He also talked about the effect of reducing permafrost and the effect on wildlife, but perhaps more important to Man’s survival for the next millennia is that the change will affect positively as more usable land and resources are available with no ice, when measured as % change in GDP per capita countries like Russia (+419%), Canada (+247%) and UK (+42%) for example. However countries further away from the Arctic (which is all frozen ocean as opposed to Antarctic which is frozen water on top of land) that will be negatively affected are for example – Nigeria (-91%; Brazil (-83%); Australia (-53%) and USA (-36%). Another interesting point he made was the number of military based that Russia has in the Arctic are 18, whereas Norway has 1, Greenland 1, Canada 4 and 7 in Alaska. There are already claims, mainly by Canada of the resources in the Arctic, but Russia has a longer coastline bordering the Arctic, so this is and will become more of a political issue in the future. Many more points were raised, but these seem to be some of the principal set of facts which made it a very interesting lecture.
The Second lecture was – Peter Goss on Recreating an 1854 voyage made by seven Cornishman in search of the Australian Gold Rush. A fascinating story which, like many, starts in a pub in Cornwall, where a chap after a few beers told Peter Goss of an ancestor who had sailed with some friends from Cornwall to Australia to find their fortune in a small fishing vessel. The story festered and Pete thought – another made up story! However, after doing a lot more research, he found that there indeed was a small vessel (35 ft) and was able to get plans of a ship that seemed to approximate the ship. The problem is that in those days a shipbuilder would make a small model and sculpt it to the desires of the customer, Once it was all sanded and exactly what the customer wanted it would be scaled up and the ship built, so usually there were no written plans. Nevertheless, he got the plans, went into the woods and found the right trees, planked them and they made their boat. While this was going on his 14 year old son Eliot, who disliked school and was finding there to be no purpose in going, while sitting at the dining table one evening, his dad asked – Do you want to come with me on the trip? He was ecstatic and super enthusiastic and immediately started the training. He then asked his brother and brother in law, neither of whom had even sailed, if they wanted to join the project and thus the crew of four was formed, making it a family affair. They tested the ship and got the provisions and after months of preparation, they set sail, with the proviso that they would sail to South Africa and then make the final decision as to whether or not all should tackle the violent Southern Ocean. In Cape town, all had gone well, Eliot was pulling his weight and thriving so they tackled the violent Southern Ocean. There were violent storms and lots to worry about, but they eventually made it to Tasmania, where they found some relatives of the original Cornishmen. Of the 7 original 1854 Cornishmen that had started the trip, 5 went back to Cornwall and two stayed. One of them died a pauper and the other became a successful surveyor and laid out the plans for cities in Tasmania.
We planned on dinner in the Britania to see the Parade of Chefs, but sadly this did not occur. When we asked the head waiter, he said it was due to COVID and had not been done across the fleet since COVID started. We told him that last month on the Queen Mary II, there was the Parade of Chefs as we participated. He was surprised and not sure what to answer, other than to mention it when completing the survey. In the evening we went to the show – Top Hat – A musical play that had won 3 “Olivier’s” on the West End and was reduced to 1 hour. It is based on the music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin for the movie in 1935. It is the story of a man Jerry Travers, a tap dancer and actor, going after a society girl Dale Tremont, however the introductions being made by a married couple in which there was confusion as to who was the married man and who was the “available” one. All went well and the Cunard Singers & Dancers did a terrific performance.
Roger & Anne Travels 