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When Chile exhibited a 60-tonne iceberg at the Seville EXPO last summer,
environmentalists protested that the Antarctic was already threatened enough
without huge chunks of it being cut off and sent to one of the world’s hottest
cities. Chile’s answer was to send back the iceberg – now smaller by 40
tonnes – when the Expo ended.

Spain’s environmentalists are now complaining that by the time the ice
reaches Valparaiso, ready for the final leg South, the refrigerated transport
will have generated enough greenhouse gas to cause an iceberg of the same
size to melt.

The cost of the operation has also come under fire. The $30 000 cost
of shipping could have been spent more usefully in Antarctica, say critics.
Pricked by the onslaught, Chile’s deputy pavilion com-missioner, Roberto
Duran de la Fuente, said: ‘We just wanted to bring a bit of the real thing
to Spain so people knew what it was like . . .’