Funny stuff
As inhospitable environments go, it doesn’t get much trickier than living near the Arctic Circle where the temperature can plummet to minus 40 degrees Celsius in the permanent winter darkness and the diet consists of walrus and whale blubber.
But this is where a British adventurer has been living for the last three months with an endangered tribe so that he can record their rapidly disappearing culture and language.
Steven Pax Leonard has spent 12 weeks freezing his tuccus off. His Apple Mac is literally frozen. He’s witnessed glacier’s and ice pack. But, you know
But Leonard says that apart from political pressure, the tribe faces a new and unprecedented threat to their culture from global warming.
“It is widely understood how global warming is threatening the natural environment but the Inughuit represent a bona fide example of how climate change impacts on local cultures.
“The threat of global warming to their traditional hunting life has left the Inughuit believing that their current settlements will not be here in 15 years’ time, that people will relocate southwards, and will assimilate into a broader Inuit culture,” wrote Leonard.
Of course, it has to be. And you know it is mankind’s fault. Apparently unlike all the other times where the climate has gone from warm to cold to warm to cold. Oh, hey, I wonder how Steven got there?
“With 16 others and a small mountain of freight as co-passengers, I arrived in the community aboard a Dash 7 turboprop aircraft.”
Interesting. And how did he get to Greenland in the first place? A jet airliner, by chance?
Wait, they are there for 3 months with temps getting to -40C and may not get above that for the duration of the next 3-6 months??
AND THEY ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING??????
Crimeny, you’d think they would love to have some warmth. Course, smart people live where it’s warm and you can burn trees for fire when its not.
If the scientists are worried that these people will go extinct, then why not bring them back to a nice warm place where they can interview them using things that don’t freeze, and they themselves won’t freeze and can solely focus upon their work, instead of not dying.
It is beyond concept that our government is allowing these people to live in this harsh environment. We definitely should bring them into civilization and put them in one of our thriving ghettos. They can learn to wear their pants below their butts and learn how to shoot from a moving car. I would say they would get into the drugs, but they are already there. In fact, that is the real reason for the tribes being in distress: drugs, alcohol, STD’s, tuberculosis and all the other evils that afflict indigenous people on the periphery of the civilized world.
I agree David. The government needs to step in to protect these people from their life-choices. They need to be forcibly relocated, like we did with the Indians, and put them on either a reservation where they can be cared for and protected, or in inner-city multi-storied living and care facilities where they can have room to grow, develop and experience all that America has to offer.
CaptainFish the temps can go to -40 (no need to put C or F on that temp, right class?) but they haven’t during the 3 months he has been there.
And for those of you who seem to be geographically challenged or who failed to read the article, those Inuit are not Americans they are Danish. So “our” government has no control over them.
Teach the Dash 8 is not a “jet” it is a turbo prop and is the least expensive regional airliner my guess is that it gets better than 50 passenger miles per gallon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_Dash_8
maybe his share of the flight was 10 gallons of fuel really not much of a carbon footprint. And as for drugs and alcohol they are not much of problem for those Inuit and certainly not TB
Dang John, what the heck you smokin lately.
That -40 could have been Kelvin. I imagine that you would have ripped the article for not putting a C on it as well. Some libs just attack anything.
Who in this post demanded or expected any government to enforce control over the Inuit?!!?!?!?!?
And, tell me oh Mighty Brainiac, who’s the one who didn’t read the article.
Quote from article:
“”With 16 others and a small mountain of freight as co-passengers, I arrived in the community aboard a Dash 7 turboprop aircraft.”
The link to Dash 7 on Wiki is here.
Quote from you:
“Teach the Dash 8 is not a “jet†it is a turbo prop and is the least expensive regional airliner my guess is that it gets better than 50 passenger miles per gallon”
I have a feeling that this version of the Dash 7, like this one, is probably modified for ice-traffic and long trips.
And since most air personnel don’t use “gallons” to measure fuel usage, the Dash 7 holds 10,000 pounds of fuel. The -150 version holds 16,000 pounds. The artic\antartic versions carry auxiliary fuel tanks in order to get back home and carry the extra weight for a total of 18,000 pounds of fuel.
And, with a max speed around 250 mph, and having flown for 4 and half hours, means they could have flown over 1,100 miles using at most half of that 18,000 pounds of fuel. Let’s say 8,000 pounds (with 2,000 in reserve) to go 1100 miles. That gives us 7.3 pounds of fuel per mile.
Now, there were 16 passengers on that flight, plus 2 crew for a total of 18 people. That means, 7.3 ppm\18 people equals 0.41 pounds of fuel per mile per person.
Ok, still with me.
If jet fuel is on average 6.5 pounds per gallon, then the Dash 7-150 carried (18,000 lbs\6.5 lbs per gallons) 2770 gallons. Now, after traveling for 1100 miles burning 8,000 pounds of fuel gives us 1230 gallons burned for 1100 miles.
Thus, 18 people used up 0.89 miles per gallon.