In an unprecedented heat wave this week, Alaska today reached 96F degrees in temperature, beat the all time record of 91F degrees set…the previous day.

Read more here.

LA finally makes the only responsible choice and bans single use plastic bags. It is just a matter of time for the rest of the nation to follow suit. But when?

There are plastic gyres around the world, floating in the ocean, some exceeding the size of France or Texas in square footage. It is a disgrace.

This is one step in reducing that waste and forging a path towards sustainable living. Well done Los Angeles!

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-plastic-bags-20130618,0,6576624.story

400. That is the symbolic milestone of concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere in parts per million. It is increasing at the rate of 2.5 PPM per year and seems to accelerate. Not in at least one million years has the planet seen such high concentration of carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gases in the atmosphere.
If you wonder what it means, this is the most direct threat to humanity and most living species that have thrived on this planet for the last 65 million years.
We cannot grow in perpetuity in a finite environment. It is time to have less and do more, and do more intelligently with what we have at our disposal.

Read more here: http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/10/us/climate-change/index.html

Here is a free link to the Men’s Journal article of the Antarctica Legacy Crossing which was published last October 2012. It’s a riveting condensed account of the blog (which you can read here http://sebastiancopelandadventures.com/antarcticaexpedition). The article “81 Days on the Ice” retraces the first East/West transcontinental crossing of Antarctica from coast to coast that Sebastian led from November 2011 to February 2012 with partner Eric McNair Landry on the 100 year anniversary of the South Pole.

You can read it here: http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/81-days-on-the-ice-20130704

Sebastian’s show “A Million Faces Of Ice” opened at the beautiful Bernheimer Gallery in Munich, Germany. It will be on display from March 8 to April 13, 2013     You can also visit the gallery virtually here: http://www.bernheimer.com/photography/en/exhibition/371/antarctica-a-million-faces-of-ice-0

                                 My new exhibition “A Million Faces Of Ice” has just premiered in Munich at the Bernheimer Gallery. The show is a retrospective of multiple trips to the poles, and features some of the new works from Antarctica. It will be up until the middle of April. If you cannot see it there, you can visit the show here:

http://www.bernheimer.com/photography/en/exhibition/371/antarctica-a-million-faces-of-ice-0

The Chukchi and Beaufort Seas are temporarily saved from devastating drilling as Shell Oil is postponing its plans again for another year, making this the second consecutive postponement for drilling in the region. This after the coast guard found multiple and potentially disastrous violations of safety protocols, and after one of Shell’s platforms run aground. The decision confirms what scientists and environmentalists alike have been arguing for decades: drilling in the Arctic is unsafe, and too hazardous to risk long term devastation for short term gain. This issue has not gone away, but it is a breath into an ongoing battle for life. The solutions to our problems do not lie at the bottom of the Arctic ocean in its stored reserve of greenhouse creating fossil fuels; they exist in the air that we breath, the sun that reaches us, the oceans and the currents: it is time we commit to recycling the power of nature into our energy needs, and a market transformation to a sustainable future.

http://ens-newswire.com/2013/02/27/shell-oil-cancels-offshore-alaska-drilling-for-2013/

Sebastian and Eric at the Antarctica Pole of Inaccessibility on their way to complete the first crossing of the continent from east to west with nothing but skis and kites (note the bust of Lenin in the b/g!).

Sebastian and Eric are shortlisted for Epic TV’s Adventurer of the Year award 2012 for their epic 4000 kilometers, 81 day kite-skiing expedition in Antarctica. The trip netted the team three new polar records, among which the first transcontinental crossing linking the east coast to the west coast via the Pole of Inaccessibility and the South Pole, one hundred years after the conquest of the pole. All this with nothing but human and wind generated energy. Epic TV and adventure magazines across the globe shortlisted twelve teams. The rest was left to voters: one vote per day for one month. May the best, err, marketer win…?

You can vote here until January 23rd: http://daily.epictv.com/awards/people/copeland-mcnair/

The Arctic Awards 2012 awarded Sebastian a special medal on behalf of the FIAP (Federation Int’l de l’Art Photographic) for his image Moonrise on the Greenland Ice (below). Sebastian also received a Photography Society of America (PSA) ribbon for another image: Reflections at Otto Fjord.