Something Is Happening - Part II

This is a post which follows a previous one some weeks ago. This is the second part of our wanted travel to Finland, a post in which I continued wondering what we were going to find when we arrived to Lapland.

"I don't know what we are going to find when we get to Kemi. Rain? Snow? Three days after cancelling our trip on the ice breaker the only thing the crew says is that.... it's raining.... It could see something usual if we don't know where Kemi is, even we could think such event is something punctual, but I don't think so. It takes an hour and a half to go from Kemi to the Artic Circle using not a high speed train of course.

As I said in my last mail, in the very beginning of December, it should be an ice sheet of 40 kms long. Now it's nothing at all.. I think the issue is not a silly thing. Anyway, below, I let you the last mail from the ice breaker crew (pay attention to the suspension points next to the word 'raining')

Good morning Pedro
Yes we have received you e-mail. You are wellcome to Sampo to have a lunch.
Do you want that we return the difference of amount on Sampo in cash or shall we return to your credit card (which we have charged) ?
PD Weather continues as already 2 weeks, it´s raining...
WBR
Sampo Tours
Annikki

----- Original Message -----

From: "Perico" <energias.renovables.ya@gmail.com>
To: "SampoTours" <Sampo@kemi.fi>
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 2:20 AM
Subject: Re: URGENT MESSAGE from Sampo Tours

Hi Maija-Liisa, have you received my e-mail to confirmate the booking for
four persons?

Have a nice,

Peter.

P.D. What is weather like? Has it become freezing already?"



The question just now is: Will we have at the end of this summer a new record in Artic ice sheet melting?

That's all for today. See you.

Maybe... More than Simple Animals...

Two people raised a lion cub and he was named "Christian". He became very big to be kept for those people, so they decided to let him in freedom to live as a wild lion.

One year later they travelled to the natural reserve where the lion was. They were told that the lion wouldn't remember them. The video was taken in the moment they met.

Get your own opinion.

Christian the Lion - More amazing videos are a click away

Something is happening

Skeptics of climate change say nohting is happening but I don't think so. One of the things I do when I go somewhere, if possible, is to ask older people of the place about how weather was like in their childhood and if things are changing. So far, every body asked agrees in that way. Anyway, I'm going to tell something that happened to me, my wife and our friends in December 2006. It was just some weeks before we began a journey to Lapland, Finland.

"Let's see, today is Monday and we begin the week badly. Our eagerly awaited journey to one of the most beautiful places we have been to has becoming one of the very first places in which climate change is showing its effects, or at least it's the way I interpret it. 

Two years ago we were in Rovaniemi. There a man aged in his mid-twenties and whose job was to prepare "safaris", told me that winter had begun unnormally: ice arrived later than usual and some weeks later it began to rain, which supposed that many places covered by ice became dangerous for walking. The same thing told me a ship attendant on the icebreaker Sampo in Kemi. That year, the ice sheet which covered the Botnia Gulf was one kilometer and a half shorter and of course it was thinner. About temperatures the assistant told me that they were enough warm: -4 ºC. The usual temperature in that moment should be -14ºC.

Two years later we go back the third time. We are departing next sunday, but the icebreaker staff has just confirmed me that there is no trip along the ice because simply there is nothing at all. It should be normal having 40 kms of ice in this moment but there is no ice.... no ice.... I can't believe it. The staff say that there have been  several of unsual warming weeks.... If there winters are becoming warmer I don't want to think how summers are going to be here....

Below I let you the answer of the crew. Later, get your own conclusions."

Dear Pedro

Unfortunately we are forced to cancel the icebreaker cruise on Saturday 16th of December due to the lack of ice. Normally the sea is frozen about 40km from the coast of Kemi in the beginning of December.

Now we have had several weeks exceptionally warm and windy weather here in Finland and there is no ice and snow because of it.

Instead of 4 hours cruise, which has been cancelled, we will organize the guided tour and lunch on Sampo.

Time: 12.00 - 13.30
Price: 30,- Eur/adult (15,- Eur/child under 12 years)
Incl.: guided tour on board and lunch (same lunch as you have chosen for the cruise)

Please let us know if you are interested to have a lunch on Sampo.

In case you want to cancel the whole Sampo visit, of course we will return the amount you have payed or compensate the difference of the cancelled cruise.

We apologize for this situation and wait for your contact.
Please acknowledge this message, thank you.

With best regards
Maija-Liisa Helistö

SAMPO TOURS

ForestLove

For more information click here.

Barcelona 2018

One Sunday on November 2006, I could read a piece of news in which it was said that, in the case some measures were not taken, in 2018 traffic jams would collapse the city of Barcelona. The truth is that piece of news atonished me because Barcelona is one of the best organized cities in Spain when you speak in terms of public transport or at least I thought so. The point was that public transport should be adapted to new demand. I couldn't help thinking the stacks and stacks of asphalt that were and are being spent.... think about it. We are fragmentating the envioronment at full speed and that's no good at all, above all for animals which need big extensions of land like iberic lynxes or bears.

I'm absolutely convinced that even with 18 lanes streets or roads, in not many years time, they would be collapsed. And why? Because we humans are as we are, there's no awareness , there's no culture of responsibility respect to the environmental limits. I know there are a very big bunch of people who couldn't care less pollution. To them is not a big deal to asphalt everywhere, it's not a big deal to fragment most ecosystems. Think about that, the less cars driving the less space we need to asphalt, I don't know if you catch me. Imagine if we have so much land asphalted in Spain that if we used all that surface to produce green energy we could supply all the energy that our country needs...... Go back to think about it.

To conclude, I think asphalting a lot of land impoverishes a lot of people, in the long term, and makes rich a few ones, in the short term. We almost have the same kilometers of highways than Germany, but Germany almost doubles us in population and the worst is that some of the highways built are not justified because they are underutilised. Dear politicians, please, change your policy of asphalting, because it is bread for today and hunger for tomorrow; please drivers, think about no using so much your box of four wheels, don't be so lazy above all if you are alone in your car. Put into practice this: 4 x 4 = four wheels for four people. Thanks.

Dedicated to Them

Be Afraid of What?