The expedition group Desafío Ártico – which has a program on Canal Sur with the same name – has proposed to move 15 tons of an iceberg from Greenland to the streets of Málaga so that it melts in view of the citizens and thus raise awareness about climate change and how it is causing the disappearance of the polar ice caps.
According to statements by Manuel Calvo, who leads the group, collected by Europa Press, bringing an iceberg to Spain will help “from here they can see what will soon be something difficult to find even at the North Pole”. Operación Iceberg is the name given to this eighth edition of Desafío Ártico, which has extracted 15 tons of ice from Greenland to take it, by boat, to Spain. When it arrives – which is estimated to be in September – it is planned that the iceberg will be exhibited on Carrer Larios in Málaga. The aim is to let it melt in front of the population to reproduce the feeling that the thaw generated during this last expedition.
“Checking in situ the disappearance of a thousand-year-old glacial front in less than five years has been devastating. The graphic evidence is there and anyone can verify the reality of climate change and what this planet is suffering”, says Calvo.
The trip has been sponsored by the Provincial Council of Malaga together with the Dingonatura Foundation. It also had as a second objective to document the area and collect biological samples that will be sent to different institutions that will carry out their scientific analysis and in this way will continue to investigate how climate changes affect the area.
The protagonists of the expedition, in addition to Calvo, were a group of Andalusian teenagers who have overcome cases of cancer. They have traveled a total of 320 nautical miles (592 kilometers) in an inflatable boat.
Since leaving on July 14 in Greenland, they have visited the Qooqqut Glacier, which has a large number of icebergs, and the Qaleraliq Glacier, a camp located in the south of the island, in one of the most inhospitable places of the world, only accessible by boat. The visit continued to the town of Narsaq, known for its immense plain and the seals and whales that live in the area, where they have also been able to see foxes or arctic hares, according to Efe records.
The team returned on July 28, after two weeks living with the Inuit (commonly known as Eskimos), with whom they shared the products delivered to them from Sabor in Málaga: chorizos, sausages, cheeses, honey, dried figs and oil.
As for the iceberg, it is still encased in its journey, loaded onto a vessel that keeps it refrigerated at minus 22ºC. To get it out of Greenland, it was necessary to obtain an export license for the purposes of scientific study from the Government of that country.
The action undertaken by Desafío Ártico has been criticized for some environmental concerns. “It’s as if they want to raise awareness about animal abuse with a bullfight”, assessed Ecologistes en Acció. The organization defends that the level of emissions they have produced with transport, added to the ice extraction they have done, is counterproductive; contribute more to the advancement of climate change than to its fight and consider this a form of greenwashing (when a company makes an environmental claim about something it is doing with the intention of promoting a sense of environmental impact that does not exist).
This act also has antecedents. What had the most resonance is the four-tonne iceberg that was placed in the Clyde River in Glasgow on the occasion of COP26, by the scientific organization Arctic Basecamp. This is also the case of the Danish artist Olafur Eliason, who together with the geologist Minik Rosing, did the same in the cities of Copenhagen, London and Paris. All with the aim of making the world population aware of the terrible consequences of climate change.
