Polar explorer and musher Will Steger to visit Fairbanks

by Tim Mowry

FAIRBANKS — Famed polar explorer Will Steger is interested in hearing what Alaskans have to say about climate change when he visits the state’s three biggest cities this week to speak on the topic.

On one hand, Alaskans should be more aware of climate change than most people living where they do, Steger said.

On the other hand, considering that Alaska’s economy is built and depends so much on oil, Steger can understand how many Alaskans could be in denial.

“I would imagine people in Alaska are pretty aware of the changes that are happening,” Steger said by cell phone from Minnesota. “I don’t know if anybody speaks out up there about it because oil runs everything up there but it’s a fact.

“I’m curious to see where the people are at in Alaska when I get up there,” he said.

Steger will be in Fairbanks for two days this week as part of his “Eyewitness to Climate Change” tour that also will take him to Juneau and Anchorage.

At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Steger will hold an afternoon press conference and give his presentation, “Eyewitness to Climate Change,” in Schaible Auditorium at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

On Thursday, Steger will tour UAF’s permafrost tunnel, meet with scientists and researchers at UAF and visit both the Cold Climate Housing Research Center and Alaska Center for Energy and Power. In the evening, he will present “Eyewitness to Climate Change” at the Mushers Hall on Farmers Loop at 7 p.m.

Both talks are free and open to the public.

The 65-year-old Steger, of Ely, Minn., is a legend in modern-day polar exploration, having led some of the most significant dog sled expeditions in history.

In 1986, Steger made the first confirmed dog sled journey to the North Pole without resupply. He also completed a 1,600-mile south-to-north traverse of Greenland in 1988, which ranks as the longest unsupported dog sled expedition in history.

Steger also made the first dog sled traverse of Antarctica in 1989-90, the 3,741-mile International Trans-Antarctic Expedition, and the first and only dog sled traverse of the Arctic Ocean from Russia to Ellesmere Island in Canada in 1995.

For the last six years, however, Steger has focused his energy on raising public awareness about global warming and the need to preserve the Arctic. In 2006, he created the Will Steger Foundation, a non-profit group dedicated to creating programs that foster international leadership and cooperation through environmental education and policy.

The climate change issue is a personal one for Steger, who has watched sections of arctic ice he traveled more than 20 years ago melt away. One example is the Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctica, part of which Steger crossed in 1989 while crossing the continent. The portion of the ice shelf Steger crossed, which was the size of Rhode Island, has disappeared. It took Steger 30 days to get across an ice shelf that no longer exists.

“That was a real wake-up call for me,” he said. “It’s just shocking.”

The Arctic Ocean ice pack he crossed to reach the North Pole in 1986 also is melting at a rapid rate.

“That’s totally changed now,” Steger said. “In a few years you probably won’t be able to make it to the Pole without some kind of flotation.”

These days, Steger spends most of his time traveling the country and world stumping for clean energy and a reduction in the use of fossil fuels, which he and other experts say is contributing to or causing global warming.

“We have three problems,” Steger said. “We have a climate problem, we have a real bad economy and we have a national security issue because we get most of our oil from foreign governments that aren’t very stable.”

The solution, in Steger’s eyes, is to get legislation passed that will foster a clean energy economy that conserves energy and develops new forms of clean fuels, which would reduce the country’s dependence on oil, stimulate the economy and reduce greenhouse gases. It’s the failing economy, not the melting ice shelves, that will eventually push people toward clean energy.

“People are not going to change their ways of life for the climate,” he said. “The economy is something you can’t put aside. I think the American people will catch on to that.

“The economy will form around (clean energy) and make the technological boom in the 1990s look small,” Steger said. “This will be permanent.”

But that’s not what oil companies want to hear, he said.

“It’s pretty discouraging right now because there’s a whole new wave of deniers out there funded by the fossil fuel industry,” Steger said. “It’s hard to compete against tens of millions of dollars pumped in by fossil fuel industry to keep the confusion (surrounding global warming) going.”

Steger said more people are seeing through the smokescreen being put up by oil companies and they’re not all environmentalists.

“Some conservatives do catch on,” he said. “It’s not all Sarah Palin and the far fringe.”

Inevitably, though, any kind of movement begins with people, and individuals can make a difference, Steger said.

“It really starts with changing our habits,” he said, whether it means riding your bike to work instead of driving, taking reusable cloth bags to the grocery store or refusing to buy plastic bottles.

“Once you get into that habit, that starts other habits,” he said.

Steger is no stranger to Alaska. He first visited the state in 1963 and was a firefighter in Alaska for a couple years in the late 1960s. He was in Alaska when the Prudhoe Bay oil field leases were sold.

“I got to see the tail end of the old Alaska and I got a taste of the new Alaska,” he said.

Steger’s trip to Alaska is being sponsored by Clean Energy Works, a national coalition of organizations dedicated to developing cleaner energy sources, and Catholic Social Services Alaska, which works with faith-based communities to combat climate change.

Mary Walker, project director for Alaska Interfaith Power and Light in Fairbanks was asked to help organize Steger’s Alaska tour, and she made a push to bring him to Fairbanks.

“When we found about this I got on the horn and said, ‘We need to take advantage of this opportunity because most of us couldn’t afford to bring up here,’” she said. “It’s going to be awesome. Between the scientific community and the mushing community and the permafrost tunnel tour, our lineup rocks.”

Amanda Byrd with the Alaska Dog Mushers Association agreed, saying Steger’s appearance in Fairbanks is “huge.”

“I’m really excited ADMA was asked to be involved,” she said. “I’m hoping a lot of people come to the Mushers Hall to see him.”

Contact staff writer Tim Mowry at 459-7587.

See the online article from the Newsminer website - April 11, 2010