Shipmates.

Our passenger list is dominated by Americans, along with five Russians, five Japanese, and one or two other nationalities. Jessica and I are the only Canucks, other than one member of staff. Notable passengers are the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the UN, a Russian concert pianist, and great-great-nephew of Earnest Shackleton - let's hope it's not a family curse.

The largest single group, at about half of the 70 or so on board, is business students from Stanford University: they consist of around 15-20 students and the rest are invited lecturers and their families. They are here studying and discussing responsible economic opportunities that would help to address the climate change. We are downplaying the fact that we are from an oil & gas town; I think I'm going to start saying I'm from Saskatoon.

With this academic and scientific group on board, there is no talk about the "debate" on climate change, but this was not clear to me when we first met them. Some of them are from "The Center for Social Innovation", a name that to my ear initially sounded like it was one the American right-wing think tanks ("The Freedom & Liberty Foundation", "People for American Awesomeness", etc.), which mostly seem to busy themselves with spreading misinformation but certainly not thinking. At the welcome dinner, when we found out there was a large group of grad students in economics (not science) combined with what I suspected was a right-wing lobby group, I imagined they were on the cruise to see how much ice there was in Antarctica and how this proved that global warming was a sham. I spoke with one of the student leaders at dinner and cautiously asked her what their group's position on the validity of climate change was; the look on her face would have been equally appropriate if I had asked her what their group's position was on the validity of the Earth orbiting the Sun.

Full disclosure: at the time of this writing I have no idea what the Center for Social Innovation is all about, whether it is part of Stanford or an independent group, or what their official positions are. (I would look it up online but internet and cell phone coverage in Antarctica is appalling.) All I do know is that it is definitely American since they don't know how to spell the word "centre".

(Written on Dec 19.)