Sunday
Jan052014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Fool in chief
Jan 5, 2014 Greens I did wonder if applying the "Ship of Fools" tag to Chris Turney and his shipmates wasn't just a bit rude, but take a look at this video, recorded before his departure, in which he talks about the trip. You have to say that Turney does not come over well. And to spend most of the interview discussing the life and death nature of the expedition and the hardships they will face, before revealing that he is taking his wife and family along, is almost too much.
You can see how the trip might end in a shambles.
Reader Comments (88)
I would have thought 'Ship of fools' is quite mild given the total horlicks the 'expedition' became.
O/T re the Guardian. The paper was the subject of a few comments on WUWT with respect to their increased intolerance of any views other than those they consider acceptable, this was linked to SKS's involvement with the Guardian.
I had an account for over six years and recently I was put on pre mod for a comment on one of Nutter's pieces. After waiting a month or two and finding I was still on pre mod, against their stated moderation policy I closed the account. What a pathetic bunch of big girls blouses they are.
Re a response I had about the quality of the Telegraph of recent have a look at the David Irving PQ17 article, and I quote:
in which seven of the convoy’s 35 merchant ships were lost during a series of heavy enemy daylight attacks which lasted a week
Anyone who actually saw the programme or knows anything of the history of that convoy can see that stinker a mile off.
Everything seems to be a joke to Turney. He doesn't appear to be the sort of person I would want organising and leading a boy scout camping trip to the Lake District, let alone leading a group of students, tourists and reporters to an extremely dangerous environment. Anybody trusting him to be their leader has a very poor judgement.
Turney - the joke that just keeps on giving...
Hmmm... to quote my dearly departed mater..."Scientific my arse".
A pretty incredible video. Science?
Even before setting sail, based on that video, the people approving/funding the trip should have had doubts.
It just has the flavour of smugness of the 10:10 episode, that blew up in their faces also. Just a similar feeling.
If I was a serious scientist who had possibly years of pleading/preparation badly affected by this guy, I would be causing a stink in the polar scientific communities.
Turney's Turbulent Tours. Not a holiday company I would use.
He looks old enough to be my grandson. How can one so young be called ''Professor''?
I think your Ship of fools poke was mild in comparison to the truth.
Prof Turney looks a very good tour guide. Always smiling and giggling like a teenager.
What a jolly good prank Biggles. Sicence wot science!
A quest for the holy grail of AGW turned into an insider's frolic to a place infamous for its hazards. The hubris of the leaders of the frolic turned this into a ship of fools.
I've been on a few and thoroughly enjoyed them, but if this clown was organising a piss up in a brewery I wouldn't be signing on.
I agree with Phillip Bratby, there must be a doctorate for someone on why people invariably laugh on camera. This is a feature of workplace documentaries on TV and is quite annoying at times. The views on Scott and Shackleton are hardly new and can be found in the National Museum of New Zealand in Wellington where Shackleton's rowing boat now resides and a rather scathing account of Scott is also on view.
Turney approved his son to go on the botched Hodgeman islands trip on the 23rd, i.e., the day they got stuck.
Another article.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2533875/Veteran-explorer-claims-tourists-stranded-eight-days-Antarctica-lives-needlessly-risked-planners-opting-budget-ship-break-ice.html
Robert Headland, of Cambridge University’s Scott Polar Research Institute, blamed the team for not investing in a ship suitable to the ‘easily predictable’ sea ice.
Mr Headland, who has completed successful missions to where the ship was going, said: ‘The expedition was hopelessly optimistic in trying to carry out this mission on the cheap and has needlessly taken many risks.
OK, I watched, in horror, about 7 more minutes of video than I can usually stand. His laugh is pathological, unless it's simply embarrassment at being filmed, in which case, why wasn't that bizarre hilarity edited out. And, I know it's just dialect pronunciation, but I'd swear he says 'seance' instead of 'science'.
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Trefor: I believe the James Caird is on permanent loan to Dulwich College in London - where Shackleton was a pupil (as is my nephew).
Is it possible to fill the basket of hubris more fully? 'Honor and recognition assured'. Well, he got the recognition part right.
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Excellent video, throw in a few scantily clad research assistants popping out of their bikini's and you have the makings of the new Sid James film "Carry on Climate".
Clearly a con, as his revised ad (based on Shackleton`s original) and the presence of tourists and his wife and family reveal. Did anyone else notice (c1 minute 29 seconds in) the background of carefully arranged tomes, with Antarctica prominently displayed on the cover, incongruously set along side the solar topi and the binoculars? The UEA must be feeling proud.
Totally cringeworthy.
Yes, I noticed the tropical helmet too.
I wonder if he took it with him.
tropical helmet? Well, he is taking the pith.
Turney. Let n=d.
Harry: thanks, it was 2004 when I was there and I was amazed at how anyone could have survived for so long in such a small boat.
Monty Python's Antarctic Circus
This plonker deserves three points on his 'Polar explorers License'
failing that , a fine and a compulsory 'ice awareness course'
CharmingQ
Who could forget the Twin Peaks of Kilimanjaro Expedition
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46btEgKmCTo
Don't forget that this was all helped along by the state TV services. Did either the BBC or ABC do any Health and Safety risk analysis. One risk would have smacked them between the eyes, Turdey.
I wonder if the lad will be missing some term time and what the punishment for the turkey will be. Not to mention missing most of the next term while he helps his dad plant 287,000 trees or whatever it was
Wow.
Does he have good days too? Or was that one of them?
On this evidence, not a credible figure to ask to post a letter, let alone 'lead' an Antarctic expedition.
What a grade-A plonker.
I suppose that is the only qualification required to be a "professor" at a Climate Change Research Centre?
So was it a life and death trip needing the hardiest people to have a chance of surviving or was it so safe young children could be taken? Turney apparently wants it both ways.
He may have a tough time squaring those extremes should anyone ask - social workers for example.
Alan Reed
You can see the similarities. Perhaps that is where they got the planning pointers from.
Ross Clark has his second "ship of fools" article in two days on the Speccie's Coffee House blog. Some here may be interested in the subsequent discussion. (Note to Geoff Chambers, Alex Cull and Richard Drake: yes, I'm banging that old drum - but I'm trying to get my message to a new audience.)
An idle mischievous thought...
What about a crowd funded documentary on Turney's folly?
After the PQ17 documentary - maybe Jeremy Clarkson might ......
Frack Nation seems to be still providing value.
Really, it was such a badly produced story that I don't think you can infer very much about Turney from it alone. Mawson would probably have looked like an idiot in Turney's place if this crew had been around to do an inept story on his expedition, back in the day.
If ever Martin Durkin was casting about for a new documentary subject, this is it.
Quite a nerve mocking Scott's party like that.
I'm guessing Turney's adventure- -had it ever happened- wouldn't have included walking 100s of miles to the South Pole on foot supported only by dogs. And who in his motley entourage would have been volunteering for the Cpt Oates-style sacrifice if it had ever come to it? No one I suspect.
Pygmies laughing at giants.
From the Ship of Fools, by Sebastian Brant (1498),
The Association of Fools, Concealing Truth, Foolish Messengers, Not Following Good Advice, Not Practising What You Preach, Of Foolish Plans, Of Not Avoiding Danger, Of Overestimating One's Fortune, Of Seeking Postponement, Of Useless Death.
http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/p15195coll15/browse/page:1
Excessive laughter when being interviewed can be seen in court hearings, official enquiries, and job interviews, as well.
To me, it comes across as saying "I don't really feel in command of what I am supposed to be in command of, but my laughter shows you all how relaxed I am, which I hope will dispel any doubt on your part".
The crew probably had better and more learned conversations with the penguins...............................
I think anyone who had decided to spend some time on a boat with this jerk Turney, even if, it was just an afternoon spent line fishing off the coast of Flamborough or Brid' - they certainly would need their heads examining.
But organizing an Antarctic expedition and being cooped up with that loony for all that time, only
fellow travellersloonies needed to apply and judging by the vid's taken by that 'ship of fools' the floating loony bin creche was just that.Think for a minute and consider the poor Russian crew, it must have been murder [did they consider it?] I bet they were crying with relief to see them go.
The man, Turney, is a complete idiot. Who could possibly consider him to be leadership material; I wouldn't trust my fate to a wimp like him. It is impossible to imagine a man who speaks like a child and who laughs at his own comments as anything other than a embarrassment. If he said 'follow me' I'd go in the opposite direction. And to compare himself to Shackleton is just another example of his immaturity. Shame on him. A Fool indeed, on a ship of fools.
What really happened on the Akademik Shokalskiy
(Link also on BH Discussion)
Global warmers? Hopelessly optimistic? Hardly. Optionally blind or deaf, certainly. Naive and ignorant, probably. Politically motivated, quite possibly. But many in the media make a living from undiluted environmental pessimism.
For some details of the escapade see www.spiritofmawson.com
"Supporters"
If anyone is in need of some mild amusement please go to the Telegraph and see the updated article on PQ17. How they can change it and still get the numbers so hopelessly wrong goes completely over my head, I even gave them the right numbers in my original comment, now updated (it won't last long). I think they are taking the pith.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/10550874/Jeremy-Clarksons-BBC-show-in-battle-with-Nazi-historian.html
Turney set on a modern day quest. A secular one searching for the holy relics of AGW. His character led to the quest becoming a dangerous farce.
Consider through the retrospect-o-scope how this video and all of the pre-programmed Guardian/BBC propaganda material would have looked had this trip 'succeeded', i.e., went off without a glitch. The whole thing would have blended into one large slurpy paste of tourism, adventurism and global warming alarmism.
Notice how Turney took great delight in belittling the polar explorations from the past.Stories of Cannibalism and Arctic Madness.
Just proved Turney,s own smug incompetence.
His son may of had the right idea suspecting miles of open ocean.Most of it Frozen.
The boy can go back to his nice warm bedroom in the suburbs and get back to GTA 5 on his PlayStation.
He can Tweet that to all the Schoolkids instead.
As has been commented on, from all I've read so far, I get a general feeling that a lot of the people involved in this are just not very likable. Academia in general just seems so far detached to real life now, that it really seems they are sucking up as much grant money as they can until it all goes pop. Unfortunately real life seems similar with the banksters doing the same kind of thing and a thin veil of 'private enterprise'.
You can see the appeal of climate alarmism for such a buffoon. How much reinforcement has the grossly irresponsible 'climate movement' had from people like him who spotted an opportunity for vainglorious attention-seeking? He was not fit to follow in Mawson's footsteps. Let us hope the PR disaster which he created for the 'movement' will encourage a good many more people to take a closer look at it with a growing sense that it too lacks substance and sense.
Here's some information about Carbonscape describing the MULTI-BILLION dollar opportunity
from making microwave charcoal from waste biomass. http://www.rexresearch.com/carbonscape/carbonscape.htm
Then here's a Guardian piece by Alok Jha banging the Carbonscape drum. The last three
paragraphs are telling. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/13/charcoal-carbon
And here's Turney in Sydney Morning Herald video "Carbon tax and you"
http://media.smh.com.au/system/ipad/carbon-tax-and-you-2478448.html (he's at 2:09)
Jo Nova wonders how this debacle can be compared with Climategate:
</>Caldwell thinks this is a setback almost on par with ClimateGate, which tells us how oddly important this farce is, but also something depressing about how commentators judge scientific credibility. The sea-ice saga of the wannabee Mawsons is a PR disaster, but even skeptics are not pretending this has much to do with climate science. ClimateGate was a scientific disaster unparalleled – we saw that the processes of science itself at the centre of the debate were corrupted, and the leading scientists were displayed at their worst. The saga of the Akademik Sholaskiy is a mere symptom of creative ways to waste money on immature, misguided self-aggrandizing adventure. Though as a PR stunt, skeptics could not possibly have come up with a better way to highlight the growing sea-ice around Antarctica that the models never predicted; nor to display the lack of pragmatic skill modern climate science has attained.
There is the battle for good science, and then there is the propaganda war, two completely separate areas but I would hazard equally important, no wonder the MSM almost without exception call it a tourist trip.
Always been a bit suspicious of people who laugh at nothing.