All language subtitles for The.Polar.Sea.S01E09.720p.WEB.x264-CRiMSON Eng

PINSENT: Last time
on The Polar Sea...

The Arctic hitchhiker
Richard Tegner

has hitched a ride west on
the luxury yacht, Libellule.

They are sailing to Alaska

among the ghosts
of whaling ships

that first opened
these waters.

But a century later,
this is a different world.

Here, the coast is collapsing,

as the permafrost thaws out.

(HUGUES LANTUIT SPEAKING)

PINSENT: Warmer seasons
and softer earth

have enabled plants to march
hundreds of kilometers north,

carrying parasites
that are killing

the beasts of the tundra.

But the great melt
is still a summer event

and now the weather
is changing.

The explorers
must race to escape

before ice overtakes
the Northwest Passage.

The Libellule is sailing west
along the coast of Canada,

bound for the American border.

TEGNER:
Don't know yet how the
ice conditions will be.

There is supposed to be
northerly winds,

which will not be
in our favor,

and it will push
the ice towards us

and towards
the Canadian coast.

So we are heading
for an anchorage

to wait out
for the wind to set

and to figure out
how to continue.

PINSENT: Sailing nearby
is Traversay III.

These are the last boats
trying to clear the passage
this season,

and heavy winds
are forcing them
to seek shelter.

(WOMAN SPEAKING)
(WAVES CRASHING)

PINSENT:
As soon as the wind eases,
they set off.

They have no time to lose.

The temperature is dropping.

Libellule is sailing
just south of the
Beaufort Gyre.

It's a whirlpool
of what sailors call

"old ice" that doesn't melt
in the summer.

Though the gyre
does get smaller every year.

In the 1980s, it covered
30% of the Arctic Ocean.

Now it's shrunk to 10%.

Through the summer,
it spits out ice bits
to challenge sailors.

As winter approaches,
ice will spread from the gyre

until it covers
the ocean again.

(SPEAKING FRENCH)

(SYLVAIN MARTINEAU
SPEAKING FRENCH)

(PHILIPP COTTIER
SPEAKING FRENCH)

(YVES GERMAN
SPEAKING FRENCH)

(MARTINEAU SPEAKING)

(COTTIER SPEAKING)

COTTIER: (SPEAKING ENGLISH)
We saw the first ice
at 2:00 in the morning,

and then it got really heavy

around 6:00
in the morning.

(MARTINEAU SPEAKING FRENCH)

COTTIER: (SPEAKING ENGLISH)
The last four hours
were quite difficult.

Never know how to
get out of this labyrinth.

(ICE SCRAPING)

We got to a place
where we didn't know
how to get further.

(BEEPING)

But then we saw a polar bear.

We went to check out the bear,
and went around it.

And then we saw
a clear passage

through very, very dense ice.

TEGNER: From my point of view

it's the first ice passage
with the Libellule.

At this point,
we're quite lucky,

but we never know
what we have ahead.

This is actually the
first time we see Alaska.

It's the first sight of land,
so far, from USA.

PINSENT:
Entering the United States,

they sail through
the only industrial corridor
on the Northwest Passage.

This is Prudhoe Bay.

It is the center of what
Alaskans call the North Slope,

one of America's
largest oil reserves.

The North Slope
is 20 million acres
of wilderness

covering 35 billion
barrels of crude.

NARRATOR: Since
the first discovery
of oil in 1968,

Atlantic Richfield Company's
operating area at Prudhoe Bay

has been the scene
of an ongoing adventure.

Oilmen and their rigs are
part of a massive operation

designed to tap some
10 billion barrels of oil

locked in a natural reservoir
beneath the Arctic tundra.

To meet the pipeline
completion date,

summer, 1977,

thousands of tons of equipment
must be hauled here
over long distances.

PINSENT:
The land was expropriated
from the region's Inuit,

who call themselves Inupiat.

The deal was controversial.

Many never accepted
the oil industry,
but they had no choice.

The infrastructure was built

during America's
first energy crisis.

The project became
a national goal

and the engine
of Alaska's economy.

NARRATOR: From Eskimo village,

Barrow has grown
into a prosperous community,

many of its natives
employed at Prudhoe Bay.

JOE CURGUS: Oil supports
85% of the state's economy.

It pays for pretty much
everything here.

These are areas
that we've developed.

We've been here
for a long time.

It's changed 100-fold.
I mean...

The schools, they've got new
schools almost everywhere.

I mean, they've got...
A number of them
got swimming pools

and hockey rinks
and things that

we never had
when I was growing up.

It has allowed us to grow up

and be more like...
More like outside,

but still have that
Alaska independence.

PINSENT: Alaska was
able to exploit its oil

by piping it south
to an ice-free port.

But 40 years of pumping oil

have begun
to deplete its wells.

CURGUS: Well,
the production in Prudhoe
since I've been here

has been as high as
2.2 million barrels a day,

and we're doing a little over

590,000 barrels a day now.

Once the oil gets
to Pump Station One,

it starts its trek
down the pipeline.

It's a positive
displacement line.

Whatever you put in,
you get out on the other side.

It used to take
four days at the top

for the oil to get from
Anchorage to Valdez,

now it takes over 10.

So we're in a declining field.

Puts us in kind of an
economic disadvantage
if we're not competitive.

PINSENT:
The US government estimates
that the entire Arctic

holds 90 billion
barrels of oil.

It's enough to meet
world demand for
almost three years.

The warming Arctic, with
its potential for ice-free
drilling and shipping,

is tempting corporations
and governments

to search for oil
in Greenland,

northern Canada
and across the Polar Sea.

In Alaska, the industry
hopes to expand.

CURGUS: There's still
tons of oil in the Arctic.

A bunch of it may be
off-shore.

There's definitely oil,
you know.

Some of it is locked up
in ANWR.

There was a segment of that

that was slated
for oil development.

It's been going
back and forth
for a long time,

as to whether we have
the opportunities
to drill there or not.

We look at it
from a standpoint

that we can do that in an
environmentally-friendly way.

PINSENT: They hope to drill
in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge,

known as ANWR.

Industry here is forbidden
because it's a crucial
animal breeding ground,

especially for caribou.

CURGUS: The pictures
that you see of ANWR,

somehow they end up of some
mountain meadow someplace,

I mean, you know,
the Arctic plain

is definitely
a unique place.

It's very marshy
and very watery.

JEFF ANDERSON:
A lot of the propaganda
that you see about ANWR,

you know, it shows
beautiful mountains,
where in reality,

the area could
potentially be developed

is just really no different
than just the flat tundra

that we work in
right here in this field,

but because of the groups
that want to try and keep
the oil industry

from producing in those areas,

paint it up to, you know,
this beautiful picture
of what it's not.

I think the oil industry
gets demonized

by the news media,

by some administrations.
The current one.

TED SCHMITT:
I've run across that a lot.
People think we're just

out spraying oil
all over the ground

and wiping it up
with baby seals,

and that's nothing,
nothing like that, you know.

We take a lot of
pride in staying...
Keeping it clean.

PINSENT: Oil field workers
fly in from other places

and stay in the giant
work camp called Deadhorse.

It's a rare Arctic community
where most people don't sense

that the world
is getting warmer,

and nobody's convinced
that it's being warmed
by fossil fuels.

SCHMITT: Not in my lifetime,

but I know that glaciers
have receded over time,

I've seen pictures.

But I can't fully
make the decision

if that's due to
fossil fuels or not.

We also have proof
that the Earth

has gone through
many cycles
through its time,

so in 100 years
of science,

I can't make that call
either way.

CURGUS: In my old
drilling days, you know,

basically when they were
doing core samples,

and they'd pull out
core samples

that had palm leaves
and stuff from here.

So, we talk about
global warming

and we talk about change
and stuff like that.

The world's been changing
for a long, long time.

We're on this Earth,
we're impacting it
to some extent,

but I'm not completely sold
that it's the only thing
driving it.

That's my personal opinion.

I don't believe
in global warming.

I think that's just one
of the biggest hoaxes

that's been perpetrated on us.

I'm not saying that
the climate doesn't change,

but I think it's just
a natural cycle of the Earth.

I really don't believe that
as a human population,

we have the ability
to affect it that much.

MATT MARTINSEN:
Any greenhouse gas,

radiation reflected
off the Earth's surface,

you pass that
infrared radiation through it,

it's going to warm over time.

That's a greenhouse gas,
and so,

the more greenhouse gases
you have in the atmosphere,
the more warming you'd see,

so that's the
general concept there,

in the importance
of greenhouse gases.

PINSENT: Matt Martinsen
works in a lonely outpost

that's just up the coast
from Prudhoe Bay.

His job is to monitor
the atmosphere.

(MONITOR BEEPING)

MARTINSEN: You find,
in general, that it's one
of those forms of science

that if you're talking
about the atmosphere

of another planet
or something,

you might have people
not even debate

that it's interesting
to measure it,

but it seems kind of
a little politically charged.

PINSENT: Matt runs
America's northern-most
atmospheric data station.

Every day,

he measures
hundreds of unseen
changes in the air.

MARTINSEN:
I really like this job

because I never feel like
I'm doing the same thing

day in, day out,
and so for me,
that's really rewarding.

Our group at NOAA
chose this spot

because it's the northern-most
point in the United States.

Since we're measuring air,

we'd like to get
some Arctic air.

There's nothing between us

and the Beaufort Sea
and the Arctic Ocean.

So, we've got a tower with
a bunch of airlines on it

measuring air from outside,

going into our different
instruments inside.

Just to have a standard
unit of measurement

that other people
can base science off of
is really important,

and so those are the types
of measurements we have here,

are baseline measurements
for things like greenhouse
gases and CO2.

So, it's got two flasks in it
that we send back to Boulder,

which is where
our headquarters lab is,

and they measure the flasks
for greenhouse gases

like carbon dioxide
and methane

and also a lot of
important things

for tracing
the greenhouse gases.

(MOTOR WHIRRING)

Most of the major
greenhouse gases

are going up
pretty consistently.

Barrow has the biggest
seasonal fluctuation,
up and down.

That's because
we're influenced
by all the boreal forests

like in Canada and Siberia,

but in general,
it's all going up over time.

PINSENT: The frightening
conclusion from Matt's work

is not just the build-up
of greenhouse gases,

it's in the evidence
of feedback loops.

MARTINSEN: People
usually talk about CO2

when they talk about
greenhouse gases

and the next thing
in the conversation
is usually methane.

And methane in the Arctic,
in particular, is important,

because there's giant
carbon stores in the tundra

and so, the warmer
things get in the Arctic,

the more of that methane
you're gonna give off
out of the tundra.

More methane and greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere,
which causes more warming,

and then you get back
to thawing more
out of the tundra

and that's what we call
a positive feedback loop,

and there's a couple
of those in the Arctic

and methane's
one of the important ones.

(INSTRUMENT STARTING)

This instrument
measures ozone.

So, you look at different
wavelengths of sunlight,

and you can get
an ozone measurement.

COMPUTER:
Three, two, one, zero.

PINSENT: Matt's measurements
not only prove the threat,

they prove something
more important.

They prove
we are not helpless.

There's actually
22 different gases

being measured
right here

and a lot of them
have to do with
the ozone layer

and they measure CFCs
or chlorofluorocarbons

and things like that.

These four in the
top corner were banned

by the Montreal Protocol.

So there's a good situation
where the world got together
and said,

"Hey, we're doing
something not good.

"We're depleting
the ozone layer,

"so we banned these gases."

A lot of the major countries
banned these gases,

and we can see them
decreasing over time.

How... You know...

People can find out
from measurements,

you know, like,
the ozone hole,

they found out
through measurements.

They didn't even
believe it at first,

but they found out
that it was a problem

and pretty quickly
we figured out

that it was
a man-made problem

and you know,
governments got together

and they actually
did something about it.

I think like anyone,
you always want to feel like

you're working
towards something

that is on the
positive end of things.

And I definitely feel with
this job, it's a no-brainer

that you're working towards
something that's gonna have
a positive effect,

and scientific understanding,

is very easy for me
to understand

how that's having
a positive effect
on the world.

PINSENT: Arctic sailors
accept climate change,

but even they question
the scientific evidence
about its causes.

(GERMAN SPEAKING FRENCH)

TEGNER: (SPEAKING ENGLISH)
On board Libellule,
cooking was very important.

These two French guys,
they really knew how to cook.

(GERMAN SPEAKING ENGLISH)

(LAUGHS)

(CHUCKLING)

TEGNER: I am making
a pasta sauce.

A very simple one.

Just tomatoes and butter,
and salt.

And what are you making?

I am making a tuna fish salad
with celery, capers.

It's coming,
it's getting there.

(SQUAWKING)

Forty, fifty geese.

PINSENT: The Arctic
still has incredible
colonies of wildlife.

But the only way
to understand them

is to study their individuals.

(SHUTTER SNAPS)

Just south of where
Libellule sails,
is Cooper Island.

It's the second home
of George Divoky,

an independent,
and very patient biologist.

DIVOKY:
I first was up in the Arctic
in the early 1970s,

and in '72,
I came to Cooper Island

and I found a colony
of black guillemots
breeding on this island.

Black guillemots need
a very secure nest cavity

for a period of almost
80 days every summer

and Cooper Island
didn't really provide that

until the 1950s, when the
navy came to the island

and left a bunch
of boxes there.

And guillemots
started breeding there
sometime in the '60s.

And I was
very surprised to find

all these birds breeding in
man-made sites in 1972.

So in '75,
I started coming back
and building more boxes,

and I got the population
up to 200 pair

by the mid-1980s.

(SCREECHING)

This is a newly-hatched chick.

It's hatched in the
last six hours or so.

There was an egg
there earlier.

I've had birds
come back as adults

and I've seen them
every summer
for up to 30 years.

And I say, "I've known you
since you were an egg,"

and there's this connection,

and they tend to have
band combinations
I can easily remember,

like blue-orange-blue is Bob.

PINSENT:
George tries to arrive
on Cooper Island each spring,

just before the birds
lay eggs.

DIVOKY: I started
having to leave

earlier and earlier
in the year.

And it was almost
that shift in my schedule

that made me realize,
"Gee, birds are really
laying earlier."

I started looking at the dates
of snow melt in Barrow

and I realized that
my data on egg-laying

correlated very well with the
date of snow melt in Barrow,

and it was clear that
snow was melting earlier.

And I thought,
"Well, this is something."

So that was the first thing.

As the warming continued,

the ice was pulling off-shore
and taking their food away.

There is one species of fish
that has adapted

to feeding under the ice,
which is the Arctic cod.

Guillemots have keyed in
on that species

and that is what they fed
their young on Cooper Island

for the first 25 years
of the study.

That was almost all we saw
being brought back.

There are algae
that actually are found
on the bottom side of ice,

and there are diatoms
that are trapped in there

during the period
of ice formation.

Diatoms are phytoplankton
that are blooming when...

When they are in the area
where sun is able
to reach them.

PINSENT: Ocean ice
is an ecosystem
supporting a long food chain.

DIVOKY: Basically, polar bears
are re-packaged Arctic cod.

If you see a polar bear,
you are seeing
"X" number of Arctic cod

that has been
eaten by a seal,

and then the seal's
been eaten by the bear.

PINSENT: Guillemots
are also repackaged cod.

As the ice receded further
into the ocean every summer,

George saw
the birds suffering.

DIVOKY: The parents
started to either
not bring in as much food

or try to go to
alternate food sources

like sculpins
and various bottom fish

that guillemots
clearly don't take
unless they have to.

Sculpin actually can
maintain those horns

sticking out like that,

which makes it very hard
for a chick to feed on.

There's been
certainly a decrease

in black guillemots
in this region,
in the population,

it may be half
of what it was when
I started the study in 1975.

PINSENT: First, it was
the eggs coming early,

then the cod disappearing.

George finally knew
the climate was changing
when the bears arrived.

DIVOKY: For 28 years,
I slept in a tent

with nothing
other than my shotgun.

Suddenly we had a young
male polar bear

coming up to our tent site.

He ripped up our tents,
we saved the data,

and then we called
Search and Rescue
the next morning

and said,
"We have to leave the island

"because polar bears
have taken over our camp."

So we took an
8-by-12 cabin out

in the winter of 2002-2003,

and now live there
with a bear fence.

Because of polar bears getting
into the wooden nest sites
that were there for so long,

we got these
plastic cases from Nanuk,

um, that we drill
a hole in one end

and put a
wooden baffle inside,

and all we need to do
is go open it up,

we can weigh
the chick every day,

and most importantly,
they're really secure

in that we've had polar bears
get on top

and put, you know,
I don't know,

400-800 pounds
on top like that.

It's a great way
to keep guillemots
breeding in the Arctic,

even though the polar bears
are now all over the beach.

And I mean,
it really does make
them though,

the canary in the coal mine

in that we are
maintaining the colony

so that they can keep
monitoring the Arctic,

even though polar bears
would be wiping out the colony

on an annual basis
if we didn't do this.

But we think
it's important to do it.

(HORN HOOTING)

One doesn't believe
in climate change

the way you believe
in a religion.

One gets information
and you say,

"Does this show
this is happening,

"or doesn't it show
this is happening?"

It isn't like I believe
in climate change,

but I believe in polar bears.

If you've lived in a place
for 28 years in a tent,

and then suddenly
have a massive
polar bear show up...

There is a
mid-brain response
that says,

"Now you believe
in climate change,

"because something
that depends on ice,

"which is melting
because of warming,
is now on your island."

One of the things
that is reported every fall

is that sea ice is now
down to its lowest extent,

and it's always presented
as a physical loss.

It's a biotic loss.

It isn't looked on as
"Oh, by the way,

"it's the Amazon rainforest."

(SCARE CARTRIDGE SOUNDING)

After I got over
my fear of polar bears,

I started really
feeling sorry for them.

When they show up on the beach
I no longer see them and say,

"Oh, my gosh,
I'm scared of them."

I realize this
is an animal that is...

Has been displaced
by climate change.

It walks around this
island trying to find out
what it can possibly eat,

and it finds things
like guillemot eggs
or guillemot chicks.

I know who this is, too.

I'll have to go back and see
just how old this bird is,

but it's a bird
that I've known

since it was an egg
some years back,

and it has bred here
for quite some time.

This is yellow-black-brown.

There were certainly times

prior to the
climate change issue

when I thought,
"May be this is
the year to stop."

Now I'm thinking, "I can't."

Now, because of
the implications
of what's happening

with regards to global change,
not just Arctic change.

I mean,
you just can't look away,

but it's the same way
as you can't look away
from a train wreck.

PINSENT: As the winter ice
and marauding bears close in,

George prepares to return home
to Seattle.

He's the last to pack up at
the mainland science station.

But it will be busy here
in the spring.

New Arctic
development requires
environmental studies,

and those require scientists.

DIVOKY: It is
a very strange time
to be in the Arctic

because there are threats
to birds and all wildlife
because of the melting

and the habitat changing
as quickly as it is.

At the same time,
you have development

at a scale where
it's never happened before.

The climate change
is hitting the guillemots

and a range
of other species twice.

It's both by changing
the habitats that they're
used to living in

and then also allowing
industry to come up

and directly impact them
by having developments up here

and possibly
things like oil spills.

But then they're also
taking the fuel,

the fossil fuel,
and shipping it south

where it will be burned
and then continue
to warm the Arctic.

That makes me
very philosophical

when I walk around the island,

when there are birds dying
in every nest site.

It is very different
when you're out there

and you see the chicks hatch

and they get to be
17 or 18 days old,

and then they die
because there's no food.

It's like working
at an animal shelter

where you're taking care
of animals

that you know
are going to be gassed
the next day.

Where it's like you, you know,
you want to be nice to them

and you're hoping
for the best,

but you know that
due to the food supply,
they won't make it.

I am certainly
in no position to say,

"Oh, by the way, you should
be doing something different."

I use wind and solar out on
the island almost exclusively,

but it isn't as if
everyone can do that.

It makes me understand
all the more

why people are pulled into a
high-consumption lifestyle,

and I've seen it happen with
my evolution on the island.

When I go out
to a small tent now,

I can't think of the fact
that I lived in a small tent
for 28 years.

Now the 8-by-12 box
is the minimum

that I would have to have
to live out there.

And all it would take
to have this change,

to have a little bit
bigger box,

with may be a little bit more
creature comforts,

and suddenly that would be
the thing I have to have.

It's just want humans do.

It's the reason we've been
successful as a species.

We keep doing this progress.

But at some point,
we have to say,

"We've done this at the cost
of the environment around us,

"and now, what can
we do to make sure

"that future generations
don't go back

"to conditions that would make
living on Cooper seem plush."

COTTIER: Duck?
TEGNER: Yes.

COTTIER: It's duck. Wow, wow.

It smells like a duck,
it must be a duck.

(LAUGHTER)

Does your duck bite?

COTTIER: It's too nice to eat.

Bon appetit.

(COTTIER SPEAKING FRENCH)

(GERMAN SPEAKING FRENCH)

(LAUGHING)

TEGNER: (SPEAKING ENGLISH)
What would happen
if a tanker breaks down here?

It would be
a terrible catastrophe.