Alarmist talk given at the "Village Idiot" restaurant

Revelstoke Times Review - Your Best source for Community News in Revelstoke and region.

Explorer, writer and polar activist Bernice Notenboom spoke to a captivated crowd that filled the Village Idiot restaurant Wednesday evening. Accustomed to long expeditions, Bernice was full of energy and humour during the 55th stop on her lecture tour. The presentation, entitled Warm Ice! Four Expeditions, 15 Months, discussed her expeditions to the North and South Poles, the Cold Pole in Siberia, and to Greenland, which, as a result of climate change, has become the single largest contributor to global sea-level rise.

One of the presentation’s first slides asked: Will the Arctic be free of ice by 2011? This acute awareness of time continued throughout Notenboom’s presentation; she demonstrated a sense of urgency about the future as well as a deep connection with the past, paying homage to those explorers who went before and who continue to inspire her.

She recounted stories of frostbite, tent-poles snapping in the cold, having to keep a fuel canister warm between her breasts all day to be able to melt ice for drinking water at night, and being separated from her tent mates as the ice they slept on split apart. She also showed videos of crossing huge gaps in the ice on skis and across makeshift bridges made from their sleds.
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Organized by the North Columbia Environmental Society (NCES), the event was well-attended by Revelstoke residents of all ages. Sarah Newton from the NCES was thrilled that Bernice came to speak in Revelstoke: “She was able to tell and show us about the rapid changes in polar regions because of climate change; here in Revelstoke the ravages of climate change are so subtle and often not noticed.” Newton was especially impressed to learn how “the government of the Netherlands is funding [Notenboom], and how all school-aged children in the Netherlands are engaged with Bernice and her story of our changing climate.” Newton continued, “It was inspiring [to see] how a government can really get on board in education and policy changes to tackle a country’s carbon footprint on all levels.”