14 Comments

Wow, what an illuminating response from Aaron O'Connor, what a low-life he is. So the whole thing is a money making scam, and is putting people at risk. However, even without the financial con, and the Covid risk, I still wouldn't be going on one of these cruises. No-one should be going on cruises in the Arctic. No-one should be going there at all except in exceptional circumstances that are directly related to making a significant impact on climate change.

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I agree

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I was on this trip and yes, got sick. Thankfully I fully recovered so for me personally, Covid was just the cherry on top. While it was an incredible privilege to be in that environment (paid for by cobbling together an academic grant and personal savings), my biggest takeaway was that, as other commenters below have mentioned: we shouldn’t be there. The artistic hubris (and I include myself in this) was, in hindsight, heartbreaking. The walrus have been through enough— they don’t want 100 artists landing near their beach and they definitely don’t want to listen to your saxophone. Since returning and recovering, I’ve been reconsidering my role as an artist and the place of art in the face of climate catastrophe. The trip was a Triangle of Arctic Sadness, and pretty pictures of icebergs won’t help.

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I agree with all of these insights.

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Woooooow that is awful and incredibly juvenile of him. I guess Dr. Kreuter got lucky in a way by finding out how little Aaron cares about these things

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So Aaron O'Connor studied at the Elon Musk Academy of Debate and Rhetoric?

Mr. O'Connor's neglect in designating which part of Dr. Kreuter's body needed the offing probably indicates he did not matriculate cum laude.

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When someone tells you who they are, listen. This is even worse than I would have expected from Aaron O’Connor. I hope it reaches anyone considering participating in the program.

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This is absolutely abhorrent behavior. Even if he didn’t intend to change a damn thing re: precautions, he could have plainly said that while staying professional or just neutral. I guess he’s not hurting for customers, so what does he care? I hope Dr. Krueger carries out his plans to go even more public with this. Thank you Nate for bringing this to light.

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Simple ignorance is forgiveable. Willful ignorance is not, especially when it's in the service of greed. Apparently O'Connor has learned exactly nothing about hubris in the face of nature. Perhaps he'll be enlightened when SARS-CoV2 finds him.

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Thanks for continuing to shine a light on this disaster in the making. Might want to check your numbers, though. A ship with 100 passengers would have more than four crew members, maybe more like 30-40. (We had a crew of four on a Hebrides cruise with 11 passengers.) It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that their health matters, too.

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Thanks yeah changed it, the 4 person team mentioned in the docs is the expedition team

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I have shared on other socials. This residency won't be worth whatever people think they'll get from it. Plenty of other experiences that cost less than 9K.

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This story reflects an overall fatal flaw in the human mind; which in my opinion, is why we are killing ourselves and the planet we live in.

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Jan 10Edited
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Yes all the details are in the article

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