Cape Farewell: Brainwashed students weigh in

2008 Cape Farewell Expedition Blog » Blog Archive » Rust-Another Draft Essay, Please Review and Comment.

We had arrived on a lonely beach; it was an ordinary Arctic day. The wind was whistling, the cold gently pinching our skin, the sea licking the sides of the Zodiacs. All the students were expecting to feast their eyes on yet another awe inspiring landscape; barren plains, harsh peaks piercing the skyline, glaciers slowly creeping towards their demise; giants, carved of ice slipping into a cold pool.

Instead we were met with something different, sure the beauty was there but it was taken over completely by something else, something so horrible, so unbelievable; so human.

The whole beach was strewn with left over equipment from a now defunct weather station. Iron girders, barrels, bricks and bulldozers, all rusting, contaminating the purity of the land. As if a giant, man-made, metal cancer spread itself over the landscape like an infectious blanket.

Our teacher pointed out how at one point in time all of those things were useful, they had a purpose. Barrels used for storage, bricks for building, bulldozers for bulldozing and so on and so forth.

However, for a reason unknown to us the occupants of the weather station fled and naturally all of their supplies and equipment were left behind, a parting gift to nature for being so hospitable to them.

2008 Cape Farewell Expedition Blog » Blog Archive » Don’t Hurt Me!!

Our green team has become alot smaller and that just goes to show that We’re going to have to work a hell of alot harder this year, and you can tell that people are not interested, it’s really discouraging. So we’ve been doing alot of brainstorming to reach out to the parents, make them the center of attention. Maybe they can drill the concrete block known as the teenage mind. hey, you know it’s true.

2008 Cape Farewell Expedition Blog » Blog Archive » Introduction

I think it is amazing how the experiences encountered on the past 20 days of my life have been strong enough to completely topple my little tower of normal existence. What I see now vastly differs to what I saw a month ago. I have always appreciated nature. However, before that appreciation was akin to looking at a masterfully drawn painting, now it’s like looking at that very same painting dangling over an open fire, slowly roasting, slowly dying.

2008 Cape Farewell Expedition Blog » Blog Archive » Repaying the Carbon Loan

Also, one way of getting my message across has been through embarrassing myself. In celebration of National Carbon Footprint Day, I went on my school’s P.A. system and shouted, “OOO, IT’S GETTING HOT IN HERE; THERE’S TOO MUCH CARBON IN THE ATMOSPHERE!”