With just a few more meter readings to come in, the Student Switch Off (www.studentswitchoff.org) has now saved over 500 tonnes of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere this academic year which is a fantastic result. A massive thanks must go out to the Eco-Power Rangers at the respective Universities who number over 2,800 (over 13% of the residents in halls) and are fulfilling their roles as ambassadors for positive change.

The carbon dioxide saved by the Student Switch Off is equivalent to that produced by leaving a 15 Watt energy-saving lightbulb on for over 9,000 years!

As well as saving a substantial amount of CO2, the SSO has helped participating Unis to save over £100,000 in their energy expenditure. As energy prices continue to rise, becoming more energy efficient makes more and more sense.

I'm currently trying to secure sponsors for the next year of the Student Switch Off. We've got 16 Unis signed up with over 40,000 students living in halls and the good people at Ben & Jerry's have already confirmed that they will be offering some excellent prizes - what more could a person want than a years supply of Ben & Jerry's. Yum!

I'll post the list of new Unis on here once everything's confirmed so you can prepare yourself for becoming an Eco-Power Ranger!

On a slightly sifferent note (though still climate change related), I was recently priviliged to be invited to become a judge on the panel for Cut Your Carbon - a competition offerring up to £200,000 for community carbon reduction projects in the East of England region. We had the judging panel on tuesday and it was fantastic to see such innovative ideas for tackling climate change at the community level. Check out http://www.cutyourcarbon.org.uk/ to get more details including how to submit an application.

 Bye for now

 Neil

Almost a year has gone by since our trip to the Arctic which seems crazy given everything that has happened over the last 12 months.

Things have been going well with the Student Switch Off. To date the 7 participating Unis have reduced their electricity usage by an average of 8% and the small actions of the students have saved a total of almost 300 tones of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. 14 Unis have already signed up to host the initiative next year which is really exciting. I’m also finally close to submitting my thesis!

Handing over the reigns to the new ambassadors in November was obviously very sad but I know they will continue the excellent work of the college with their own fantastic projects. The Climate Change College helped me immensely in moving the Student Switch Off on to the next level and I will be eternally grateful to the advice of Caroline, Philippa, Marc and Michel – a Dream Team of inspiring, imaginative and ‘switched on’ (please excuse the pun) people.

I’m obviously highly jealous of the Ambassadors forthcoming trip to Alaska. Reading articles on the BBC news website (e.g. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7303385.stm) it is very alarming to hear that the place we visited last year is suffering increasingly rapid and significant changes. I’m sure that the forthcoming experience of the Ambassadors in seeing an area of the world which is suffering the negative effects of climate change will further inspire them to take their projects forward.

I’ve realised that this is sounding something like a final goodbye which isn’t the case. I’ve not blogged on here in a while but I will be back here with updates in the not too distance future.

This is not the end, it’s merely the end of the beginning!

We stayed up till 4am last night chatting with some American scientists and pretty much put the world to rights. We are woken at 8am by the sound of Russian voices and banging. The camp is being disassembled but because they have taken a shine to us, they take our tent down last.

One constant source of amusement in Barneo has been the Russian timekeeping. We would frequently be told that a plane was coming in at a certain time, sometimes to the latest minute – “oh yes, the plane will arrive at 14:04”. The timetable almost never reflected reality and our flight back was no exception. Our plane arrived an hour after it was due to depart and even though we packed the plane almost entirely by ourselves, we still had to wait around for another hour before we took off.

To add insult to injury, upon arrival in Svalbard the Russians went off with our baggage and put it in storage with all their own equipment. After an hour searching, we retrieve our stuff.

We store our equipment safely and head off on some skidoos to the snow den where the rest of the Ambassadors have been holed out for the last 3 days. It is great to see the other Ambassadors again and catch up on their experiences over the last week. We waste no time in celebrating Queen’s Day (Dutch National holiday) by sending ourselves rocketing down snow-covered slopes in our sleds.

One quirk of the snow den camp is that someone needs to be watching out for polar bears all night long. We work in 1 hour shifts which means that I get very little sleep but it was quite amusing thinking that you were protecting the Ambassadors from the world’s largest land carnivore.

Day 7: Barneo

After writing the blog last night we met a guy called Richard Webber. Richard and his expedition partner are the first and only people to trek from Canada to the North Pole and back again. He told us that over the last 20 years, he has observed significant changes in the Arctic. Conditions in April at 89oN used to be clear and sunny but cold. Conditions now are much stormier as there is more energy for the climate system to dissipate and transfer. This is problematic from the perspective of an Arctic explorer because the storminess causes ridges to form which make the landscape much harder to navigate. I’ll put the video up on my blog or CCTV shortly for all to see.

Julian and I slept out in the tent again and at one point I woke to find that my hair was frozen to my head! Apart from that I slept well.

The planes are running into Barneo again and today we were visited by a couple of Guys from 3FM – a Dutch Radio Station. These guys have been championing action on climate change by having a week of debate and interviews with the other Ambassadors in Svalbard and have renamed their show ‘North Pole FM’ for the week. While they were here they conducted the first ever live radio broadcast from the North Pole which included interviews with Julian, Marc and myself (my first ever live radio broadcast and on a foreign radio station – how bizarre, how bizarre). The programme ran remarkably smoothly given that it was being done over satellite phone but the lead up to the live broadcast was pretty hectic.

About 45 minutes before they went live, they realised the batteries on their satellite phone would die during the show so one of the Dutch guys and myself travelled the mile back to the base and picked up the generator (which, by the way, is very heavy). Muggins here ended up dragging the generator on a sled back to the radio site and power was restored. I didn’t mind too much as after a week without doing any training, I was quite keen to do some decent exercise. After a very successful broadcast, however, I seemed to turn into a Sherper as this time I ended up dragging both the generator and all the radio equipment on the sled back to the base. Unbelievable.

We ended up being ‘out in the field’ from 3-10pm to get everything set up for the 7-10pm show. By the end of the 7 hours I was getting pretty chilly (temperatures including wind chill were -23oc) so I was pretty happy to get back into the mess tent for dinner.

While the radio guys were setting up their stuff, Julian, Marc and myself were putting together a weather station. The station is going to be left on the ice and will send data via satellite to track its movement as the ice breaks up and it travels southwards (probably towards Canada). The data the station provides is fed into the International Arctic Buoy Programme which aims to better understand the way that Arctic ice behaves (how long it takes to melt, where the ice moves to, and so on). By collecting data over a number of years, the programme will help us to better understand the way climate change is impacting on the Arctic. Check out this site for the latest conditions from the weather station.

After dining at 10.30pm I shot some more footage for a video I’ll be putting on the CCCTV website very shortly. Fingers crossed it will be as amusing to watch as it was to film. Watch this space.

Till next time,

Neil

Day 6: Barneo

Well, in the end Julian and I decide to camp out after umming and erring for a couple of hours. We make the decision at half past midnight and set about erecting the tent. Even though a chilling breeze does its best to halt us in our tracks, we get the tent up in about thirty minutes and transfer our sleeping bags and carry mats across.

After having a night cap to keep us warm, we hit the sack. We keep a gun in our tent just in case a polar bear pays us a visit during the night but as I initially try to nod off, I am paranoid by every noise from outside the tent. The sleeping bags are designed to go down to -40oc but I still wake in the morning with cold toes – probably because my toes are so far from my heart being lanky 6ft 4!

During the day, Julian and I work on video and blog stuff, and particularly a piece that I intend to have on the CCCTV section in the very near future. Watch out for the World Exclusive of the Polar Bear rapper Knut the Elder!

While taking more video footage in the afternoon, I revisit an area where we did some interviews yesterday to find that it is almost unrecognisable. Over the last 24 hours, the pressure of the ice masses against each other has forced a ridge to form. The ice that has been forced to the surface is composed of a beautiful range of blues and in places there are distinct layers within the ice which resemble the beds of a sedimentary rock.

Tonight we’ll be sleeping out again. I would normally say ‘sleeping out under the stars’ but as you may just have gathered by now, it never gets even slightly dark.

Anyway, that’s all for now, speak again soon.

Keep it green.

Neil

I wake after 9 hours of blissful slumber and without sweating. Woohoo! We didn’t camp out last night as we’d left it too late to set up the tent – it’s too easy to get to midnight here without realising it and then you have to force yourself to go to bed.

At breakfast we find out that our runway, built after the previous one developed a crack, has now developed one of its own. It turns out that at 5am there was a loud bang which woke a number of people as the ice deformed and created a gaping hole in the runway. Oh dear…

… this in itself was a slight worry as I had heard that people had been stranded here last week (like the woman I mentioned on day 2). But not to worry, the Russians are a resourceful lot and they set about finding a new runway site. After searching around in a helicopter, a suitable location is found 5km away and development begins. All is well… or so we think…

… until later on when we find out that the tractor they use to build the new runway has sunk into the ice and is on a 4000m journey to the bottom of the ocean! [don’t worry, the driver got off safely]. So, what next? Well your guess is about as good as mine but fingers crossed will not have to make it back to Blighty on top of a drifting ice sheet ;-).

While all these shenanigans were going on, we were busy getting stuck into some proper scientific work. We spent 3 hours out in the field taking measurements of snow and ice depth. This involved a combination of drilling holes into the ice and using some fancy scientific gadgetry which sends electromagnetic pulses through the ice – I think ‘electromagnetic’ may win me the competition for longest word in the blogs!

The ice thickness we measured ranged from 3m down to just 50cm and after taking the latter measurement, I tip-toed my way onto what I knew to be thicker ground!

Although we were out in the field for 3 hours, it was weird as I only got cold on the way back to the camp and by the time I had got back my cheek was pretty numb. This afternoon, Julian’s nose started to go white without him realising it and Marc was quick to point out that in an environment like this we have to check on each other regularly for visual signs of coldness.

It was in the afternoon that we went out into the field to interview an American scientist. He showed us various pieces of scientific equipment that were being left on the ice in order to measure different bits of their surroundings – the air temperature, pressure, snowfall, the ice pack and the ocean all the way down to 750 metres. All these probes had been placed within metres of each other in order to make sure that they collected their different bits of data from the same geographical location. Mother Nature had different ideas though as the same crack that had closed the runway carried on going and ran right through their collections of probes! Unbelievable, what was the chance of that?

We’re making the most of this evening by uploading our pictures and videos and doing various bits of editing. I have some amazing photos and think a slideshow will be in order for friends and family when I get back to the U.K. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Anyway, once more I find myself coming to the end of a blog and going slightly mad so I’ll leave it there.

Much love and respect

Neil

I didn’t get much sleep last night. I never thought I’d be saying this while staying on the Arctic but I was just too hot to nod off! The base here has a system where heat is pumped into each of the tents. Unfortunately, my sleeping bag is right next to the vent that brings in the warm air and I was roasting. Quite a contrast to the temperatures outside (-15oc today)!

Despite not sleeping much I feel very fresh – in no small part due to the clean air and stiff breezes. ‘Fresh’, however, is not a word that could be used to describe my odour at the moment. It has been 3 days since I last showered and it will be another 5 till I can have a decent wash. Fortunately everyone is in the same boat so the ambient pong masks individual smelliness!

This morning we have been putting together video and camera footage. After lunch we will get stuck into some scientific research, heading out into the field with various bits of complicated equipment (many of which I will probably not be able to pronounce let alone spell) to measure the depth of the ice below our feet. As I mentioned yesterday, this work is important as scientific understanding of the depth of sea ice is incomplete.

There is the possibility that we will take our tent with us when we go and collect the data and camp out tonight. If so, I certainly won’t be sweating when I try and get to sleep!

Bye for now

Neil

Day 2: Svalbard-Barneo (100km from the pole). Having gone to sleep at 3am, I wake at 9am thinking it’s about 12pm – that would be the 24-hour daylight thing then! We join with the Dutch TV crew and they take us through some camera shots before we head to the airport. While checking in at Svalbard airport I have an ‘interesting’ conversation with one of the check-in ladies. She tells me that she has just come back from Barneo (the polar research base on the North Pole where I’m writing this from). “Oh, how was it?” I ask inquisitively. “The weather was so bad I’ve only just been able to get back from there. I have never been so frightened in all my life” she says. Now don’t get me wrong this lady was very nice and friendly but I think she may have been lacking in the tact department! So, suffice to say we arrived safely on the North Pole after a 2.5 hour flight on a Russian Antonov 74. I’m no plane spotter but this little baby was certainly something else. The front half of the plane was just like a normal plane but the back half was like the back of a cargo plane, so much so that during the flight Marc (the polar explorer) and Julian (the German Ambassador) caught 40 winks on top of our luggage! I was lost for words as soon as I stepped out of the plane. A sea of ice stretched in all directions as far as the eye could see. Contrary to what I had expected, the landscape is relatively varied with ice and snow jutting up all over the place where the ice sheets have pushed up against each other and contorted. A crack runs along the ground where part of the ice sheet has shifted. This forced the runway to be closed last week and they had to build an entirely new one. It’s worth mentioning that the landing strip here is a bulldozed section of ice and the plane, and indeed the base, rests on under 2 metres of ice. It’s one of those things that is best not to think about too much! We spend an hour or two chatting to some American scientists who are drilling a hole in the ice and over dinner we discuss scientific stuff and the strategies their Universities are using to reduce their energy use. It is interesting to hear that there seems to be a growing commitment amongst U.S. Universities to address climate change – one of the scientists mention that U.S. Universities plan to be carbon neutral in the next 10 or so years. Let’s hope that all the pressure from the Universities, the cities, and Leo and Arnie manage to bring the national government into line! After dinner we meet a lady called Barbara Hillary from America who proves to be an absolute inspiration. Barbara is a 75-year old from New York and if all goes to plan, tomorrow she will become the first Black woman to set foot on the geographical North Pole. Marc, Julian and I chat to her over a coffee. She speaks to us about her perceptions of climate change and specifically about the need for students all over the world to become a force for change on the issue. She points out that so much of the major change over the last century has been catalysed by student action – e.g. calling an end to the war on Vietnam, the civil rights movement. As she talks I think about links to the Student Switch Off and how it could be part of this kind of collective action. I know I’ll look back on the discussion with Barbara whenever I get frustrated by difficulties rolling the Student Switch Off out to new Universities. I wish more people were like Barbara! (Btw, Julian recorded our discussion with Barbara so watch out on CCCTV for some very wise words from an absolutely amazing woman). Anyway, I’ll call it a day there. I’m writing this at midnight though it is as light as it would be at midday in the U.K. How bizarre, how bizarre.. de de de, de de de, de de de, de…! Oh dear, I think I might need some sleep! Bon nuit, Neil

Greetings from Tromso, northern Norway! After getting up at the crack of dawn and flying from Amsterdam with what seems like everything but the kitchen sink we`ve made it safely to the Northern tip of Norway and our portal to the Arctic. You`ll be surprised to hear that a trip to the Arctic isn`t something that can be done with your t-shirt and shorts! Tromso is amazing - located in a fjord and surrounded by snow covered mountains. It really makes me want to go skiing but I realise that there are a few more pressing things to do... like go to the north pole! Yesterday we picked up all our polar gear and did our best impressions of Michellin men as we made sure everything fitted. Note to self: Polar gear is not designed to be worn in +20oc and doing so will lead to copious amounts of perspiration. Nice! Tomorrow we meet up with the Leader of the Saami Council, an indigenous tride who are witnessing and being negatively affected by climate change. It will be fascinating to get their perspectives on how they are adapting to the impacts of climate change. After that, Marc (the polar explorer), Julian (the German Ambassador) and myself fly to Svalbard - a Norwegian island in between Norway and the Arctic ice cap. On Sunday we travel to the Arctic. It`s a bit mind-boggling to think that in two nights time I will be in a tent on the Arctic ice cap. I`ll try and blog again tomorrow with some pictures from Svalbard and Tromso so stay tuned. Bye for now Neil