LIVE MAP: Expedition races to North Pole for environmental awareness

Sixteen young trekkers are now on an expedition to help save the Arctic, while meeting with a delegation of influential Arctic officials at the North Pole in the process.

 

The group's ski trek includes Hollywood actor Ezra Miller, two Arctic Indigenous representatives, and a young man from the Seychelles. "We 're here at the top of the world sending love and warmth to the Phillippines. We hope you can join us and think for a moment about the Arctic, and how we're all connected to this amazing earth we live on," Miller said in a personal message sent to GMA News Online.

 

Message to the Philippines "What happens up here in this fragile and beautiful place affects every single one of us from the tip of Greenland to the bottom of the Philippines. It's hard to imagine how far away we are right now. But all of this ice up here, this incredible canvas of texture and light and cold and snow — it regulates the temperature of the entire planet. Without it, or with less of it, weather patterns everywhere begin to change in ways that we're only just beginning to understand," he explained. "We want to fight climate change and protect our future together, and we can only do that by standing up to people who put profit before everything else. A better world is coming, we really believe that," Miller concluded. "This is a unique chance for us to talk with the people responsible for protecting the Arctic and we know our supporters around the world would want us to go for it," said Josefina Skerk, 26, a member of the Sami Parliament in Sweden.

 

"I'm here with three young people from across the world who each have connections to the Arctic and it's a great honor to deliver our message to the council at the place we all wish to protect for future generations," she added.

 

Accompanied by Greenpeace, the youths kicked off their trek at Barneo Base, aiming to cross the sea ice to the geographic North Pole.

 

However, they are also hoping to meet with members of the Arctic Council, the governing body comprised of foreign ministers and senior officials from Arctic states, who will also be at the North Pole this week.

 

Skerk sent a letter to Gustaf Lind, Swedish chair of the Arctic Council’s Senior Arctic Officials, requesting a meeting with the officials.

 

Greenpeace said Lind accepted the invitation.

 

Time capsule

 

The trekkers are bringing a time capsule containing a declaration with 2.7 million signatures calling for the Arctic to be made a global sanctuary.

 

They plan to lower the capsule and a "Flag for the Future" through 4.3 km of freezing water to the seabed under the North Pole.

 

According to the activists, no one nation should own the Arctic or be allowed to exploit the melting Arctic sea ice, which itself is a crisis created by climate change.

 

Now, the campaigners plan to use the unexpected meeting with the Arctic Council to challenge the council and relay their demand that the uninhabited areas around the North Pole be declared a global sanctuary. — TJD, GMA News