Ethanol industry supports Arctic expedition

March 6, 2007

Minnesotan Will Steger knows and loves the harsh lands of Antarctica and the Arctic like few other people. Since the early 1980s, he has explored these regions—usually by dogsled—leading the first teams to cross the Arctic Ocean, the entire continent of Antarctica and the entire north-south length of Greenland. These exploits and others earned him the honor of being named National Geographic's first explorer-in-residence in 1996.

Steger's latest expedition is a trek across Canada's Baffin Island, the first of three expeditions he calls Global Warming 101. Most of Baffin Island is north of the Arctic Circle. Steger wants to give the native Inuit people of the island a chance to tell the world how climate change has affected their environment and culture. Fagen Inc. and the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC) are sponsors of the expedition.

"This region is ground zero for global warming," Steger said. "The sea ice is starting to melt off in the summer, which changes the culture and the wildlife. What we want to do is put a cultural face on global warming and touch people from heart to heart."

Steger and his team will travel from village to village and talk to hunters and elders about the changes they have seen in the climate. Steger said the Inuits have 5,000 years of tradition they acquired while living in the region and have knowledge that is impossible to duplicate. "These are people whose whole lives revolve around winter," Steger said. "They have a whole traditional baseline of knowledge."

Steger also thinks his expedition will make people think of global warming as more of a concrete issue rather than an abstract threat when they see its very real impact on the Inuit culture. "I think people understand something a whole lot clearer when they see it through a human face," he said.

In the past 20 years, Steger has personally witnessed dramatic changes in the polar regions. "A lot of the routes I've traveled are now open ocean," he said.

Steger and his team are keeping a daily journal on the Web site http://globalwarming101.com. The Web site also has links to more information about global climate change, the Inuits and Baffin Island.

"The ethanol industry is supporting this expedition so consumers understand that every time they go to the pump, if they fill up with ethanol, they are providing part of the solution to global climate change," said Joanna Schroeder, director of communications for EPIC. EPIC is also doing a promotion where individuals can "purchase" a polar bear with the proceeds going to a charity chosen by Steger for habitat preservation on Baffin Island.

Updates and links to the expedition will be available on the Web sites of both Fagen (www.fageninc.com) and EPIC (www.drivingethanol.org).

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