Antarctica: Centenary of Scott Expedition

Baroness Worthington Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Worthington]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, on securing this most timely and important debate.

Much has changed in the 100 years since Scott and Shackleton’s epic journey to the South Pole. In 1912 the polar regions were an unknown wilderness, a hostile environment that thwarted man’s efforts to conquer it. We now know much more about these unique features of our planet and have a much greater understanding of their importance and how human activities are impacting them, largely thanks to the work of the British Antarctic Survey.

The year 2012 may be remembered not just as the centenary of Scott’s epic achievement but as the year in which the polar sea ice melted at such an alarming rate that the scientists studying it began using phrases like “shocking”, “staggering” and “scary”. Predictions about the rate at which the warming of our world would lead to losses of Arctic ice have been proven woefully optimistic; the pace of change is far faster than models predicted and the impacts of climate change are happening far sooner than we had thought.

In that context, the work of scientists at the British Antarctic Survey should be being praised, encouraged and supported. It is they who have been monitoring the west Antarctic ice sheet, which is suspected to be dangerously unstable and which over time could ultimately lead to a rise in sea levels of more than three metres if it collapsed. Instead, I find it absolutely astounding that BAS should have recently lost its director and now be facing a poorly thought-through merger for which no clear business case appears to have been provided.

I have been investigating the background to these proposals and have been told that NERC’s initial proposal was to inflict swingeing cuts on BAS, but the ring-fenced funding arrangement put in place by the Foreign Office effectively stopped this, on the basis that BAS provides an important strategic presence in the South Atlantic. This so infuriated NERC that it in effect sacked the then director and came up with another plan to cut BAS down to size by merging it with the National Oceanography Centre. I wonder why NERC is pursuing a campaign against BAS. What has it done to deserve the threat of dissolution? BAS’s history of world-leading science does us proud, and it has produced many important findings of global significance, not least the discovery of the ozone hole by BAS scientist Joe Farman.

The consultation on the proposals closed last week, but many experts will have been loath to comment, given that NERC essentially holds the purse strings for many of them. To step out of line and criticise could mean funding being withheld. As if to add insult to injury, the documents setting out the vision for the proposed merged organisation illustrate a marked departure from the principles currently embodied by BAS. Instead of focusing on the pursuit of pure science, the emphasis is to be on the national interest, the UK economy and the derisking of investment in the polar regions.

At times, I have the sense that I have stepped through the looking glass into the surreal world of Alice in Wonderland precisely when science is telling us that the burning of fossil fuels is having a far faster and more dramatic effect on our global ecosystem than we could have predicted, and that our scientific institutions are being co-opted to assist in the extraction of ever more fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels unabated should now be viewed as a reckless, immoral act. Our generation’s challenge is to rid ourselves of this dangerous addiction and to leave the reserves in the ground, if necessary, not to support the discovery of more. Faced with a raging inferno, we should not be asking our firefighters to help pile on more wood.

What a squalid period of history we are living through if pure scientific endeavour is not deemed in and of itself worth while and where scientific institutions must be harnessed to further commercial interests. The people behind this vision statement ought to be embarrassed. NERC must be urged to reconsider, and I hope that the Government would, if necessary, intervene to restore confidence in BAS and its scientists.

With each passing year, it becomes clear that human society is on a collision course with nature, and there will be huge repercussions. Explorers such as Scott and his men embody the human drive to increase our understanding and extend our dominion. However, there are some forces too powerful for us to conquer and control. During this debate, I ask that we reflect not just on Scott’s bravery and the UK’s undisputed scientific achievements but on human frailty, for that is an important part of this story. Continuing on the collision course with nature that we are now on imperils the lives of millions of people alive today and billions of people yet to be born. If our polar regions do not survive, neither will society as we know it. In this centenary year, we must protect and enhance our scientific capacities in the polar regions, and this means retaining BAS as a centre of excellence.

Perhaps I may humbly suggest that if reforms are needed, let us start with a review of NERC itself, because in this instance it appears to be acting as an extremely poor and short-sighted guardian of our world-leading scientific institutions.