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.