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Steger will kick off the Frozen River Film Festival tonight with a talk about the impact of global warming on the Artic.
The Minnesota explorer has led dogsled explorations to the North Pole, Greenland and Antarctica. He led the International Artic Project in the first and only dogsled traverse of the Arctic Ocean from Russia to Ellesmere Island in Canada in 1995. He says his travels have shown him firsthand the affects of global warming.
“It’s catastrophic in the Artic,” Steger said. “Huge blocks of ice are melting, and the populations of polar bears and walrus are dropping.”
“The vast majority of people are disconnected from their surroundings, but the changes are happening now,” he said.
Carbon dioxide gas is to blame, Steger said. “When it’s added to the atmosphere, it’s like adding sweaters on the body.”
J. Drake Hamilton, a science policy director for Fresh Energy, a Minnesota-based non-profit organization that promotes clean energy sources, is working with Steger to educate people about global warming. Hamilton is part of The Climate Project, a group of 1,000 people trained to present the information delivered by Al Gore in his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”
“It’s not an unsolvable problem,” Hamilton said. “We need to get more people engaged.”
Hamilton said even small efforts to reduce energy use — shutting off lights or a computer that’s no longer in use — can help, as can recycling.
“It’s a process for all of us,” Hamilton said. “We need to make a transition in how we do things.”
Steger says there are economic, moral and ethical reasons for us to make these changes, but they don’t have to be an imposition on our lifestyle.
In February, Steger is going on a four-month, 1,200-mile dogsled trip through villages in the Canadian Arctic. He will post video on www.willsteger.com showing the effects of global warming. Near the end of 2007, he will kayak around masses of sea ice in Antarctica.
“We have a small window of time — eight or nine years really — to act,” Steger said.
If you go
What: “Eyewitness to Global Warming,” presented by Will Steger and J. Drake Hamilton
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, January 25, 2007
Where: Somsen Auditorium, Johnson and Sanborn streets
Cost: $5, free with Frozen River Film Festival pass
Info: www.frff.org
Contact Käri Knutson at kknutson@winonadailynews.com or 453-3523.
