A journey to the edge

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First published in Sanctuary Asia, Vol. 29 No. 10, October 2009

This happened while a tiny Russian research vessel named the Akademic Ioffe was moving through the icy waters at the bottom of the world, with 100 young global citizens on board who were contemplating their future in this climate of change.
 
March 24, 2009
 
I'm writing this from the southernmost city on the planet, Ushuaia, located in the province of Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. It is a stunning place! The sheer expanse of green astonishes me - more so because I am just 1,000 km. away from the icy continent of Antarctica. The dense growth of deciduous trees is a surprise - how markedly different from the conifers of the northern Arctic! 
 
Yesterday, with time to kill before the arrival of fellow expedition members, I decided to explore the Tierra del Fuego National Park and walked to the point known as the ‘end of the world'! This is where the Pan-American highway ends (it starts in Alaska in North America and runs clean through the U.S., Mexico, through South America and all the way to its southern tip in Tierra del Fuego). The serenity amidst the thick groves of Southern beech trees was a sharp contrast to the stark signs of the industrial revolution. The train track on which I travelled was built by hacking down hundreds of trees. Ushuaia itself was initially fuelled by the local forests. The grey stumps that still stand, a hundred years later, frozen in time, are reminders of how humanity arrived at its present concept of ‘development'.  
 
The glaciers in Tierra del Fuego and the freshly melted water made me think of the Himalayan ranges back home. Current projections place the Gangotri glacier at risk of completely disappearing by 2030 when the sacred Ganges will be transformed into a seasonal river. This is a fate shared by land-based glaciers across the globe. The beauty around me could not stay my deepening worry for my country, which is at an ecological crossroad, as is the planet itself. Our predicament has been brought about by the misguided notions of development spawned by the industrial North, and young people like myself pray that India will avoid taking the same wrong fork.
 
As I walked along the winding paths toward the ‘end of the world', I felt far removed from the rest of the planet. Suddenly, a fox appeared before me. Playful and seemingly unafraid, it came closer and allowed me to watch it from a distance of just 30 m. before it disappeared into a thicket. 
 
Native American tribes, I was informed, view the fox as a wise and noble messenger, asking us to alter our lifestyles and embrace new ideas. With a crisis of global proportions staring at us, I believe that fox was sending me a message. I hoped the ‘vision' would reveal itself to me in the course of the expedition.
 
March 26, 2009
 
It is midnight and I am huddled in my cabin on the fifth deck of the Academic Ioffe. Waves lash against our ship as fierce winds rock the southern ocean. My brief venture out on to the deck brought home to me just how puny and helpless mankind is when compared to the forces of nature. Who actually is in control out here? Certainly not us.  
 
We are now passing through the Drake Passage, reputedly the most formidable waters on the planet. This is where the Atlantic and Pacific meet and sea swells rise to unimaginable heights. I look skywards and pray that the storms stay their distance.  
 
Our Antarctic expedition is led by the famous Arctic explorer Robert Swan O.B.E., the first man to walk both to the North and South Poles. Today, he heads an organisation called Project 2041, in recognition of the year when the global moratorium on drilling and mining in the Antarctic will be under review. Currently, Antarctica belongs to no one nation and is reserved only for scientific studies. 
 
Soon I will be on a continent that traps much of the planet's freshwater in ice - ice that is melting fast. How should this matter to a nation of more than one billion people nearly 16,000 km. away? As the fourth largest emitter of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is speeding up man-made global warming, I know we are impacting the climate system around the world just like other “major emitters". Nature, after all, enters no debates and makes no fine distinction between per-capita and national emissions. Nor does it deliver judgements, merely consequences.  
 
The ice melt in Antarctica will see our coastal cities of Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai submerged and spells devastation for our economy. A staggering 20 million climate refugees are projected to flee rising sea levels in the Sundarbans area across both India and Bangladesh. The crisis has never seemed more real than it does now as I stare at ice that could become the water that floods my nation.
 
March 28, 2009
 
I gaze into the distance at King George's Island (KGI), part of the South Shetland Island chain just off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. It has the same climate as the mainland and the same flora, fauna, and soil type. It is freezing on the deck, a horrific minus 10° C thanks to the wind chill factor I am informed. Earlier, I had felt a bit nervous about getting into the zodiacs that had transported us over the icy waters, but the adventure had soon taken charge and I had felt happy to be alive. 
 
King George's Island is literally littered with several research stations (American, Russian, Chilean, Argentinian, Chinese and Korean to name a few).  We heard them even before we saw them thanks to the polluting diesel generators that fuel each station. Robert and his team at 2041 have done commendable work here, helping to clean up the area - which was once a massive dumping ground by the Soviets and had become an open landfill of metal and toxic scrap totalling 1,500 tonnes. Today, instead of that garbage, we were greeted by fur seals, albatrosses and Chinstrap Penguins. I stared open-eyed, as a human child-sized penguin walked near us - completely unfazed by our presence.  It was a deeply moving experience, as much for the sight of the adorable creature, as its vulnerability.  
 
It was also exciting to see that the E-base created by 2041 was powered by renewable energy - solar PV cells, solar thermal water heaters, and a 300 kw. micro-wind turbine. “If this can work in frozen Antarctica then surely we must make such technologies the energy source of choice for sunny India," I thought to myself.
 
March 29, 2009
 
This morning as the Ioffe chugged towards Wilhelmina Bay, the ocean and the landmass around us were shrouded in fog and falling snow. Antarctica was out there somewhere but not visible. As the zodiac pulled away from the Ioffe, the sun tore through the clouds and, like magic, Antarctica revealed herself. Slowly, peak by peak, bay by bay the vistas became visible. I could see a massive sheet of ice stretching off into the distance. Icebergs that had broken off from the main land, or old sea ice perhaps, floated past us like orphans. Curiously referred to as ‘brash' (small), ‘bergy bits' (medium-sized) and ‘growlers' (solid pieces that can hold their ground against ships) - this floating ice originates from the larger body of Antarctic ice. I was amazed to learn that each winter the ice sheets that surround Antarctica expand outwards at the rate of 100,000 sq. km. a day! That's some 60 sq. km. a minute! These are the forces that we humans are tampering with and it takes some time to adjust to the fact that we can actually destabilise even such powerful planetary phenomenon as the weather. 
 
We whipped through the calm bay past feasting humpback whales, their tail flukes clearly visible as they dove deep into their ocean world. Spotting fur seals perched on rocky cliffs became easier as we got closer. But it was only when the zodiac engine was switched off that the true magic of Antarctica was revealed. It took a while for it to sink in, but the groaning and creaking sounds we heard were icebergs pressing against each other. No one spoke, as amazing shapes floated before us, all formed by the interaction of ice with wind and water. The vista seemed straight out of a fairytale. As my imagination ran wild, I visualised castles, arches, towers, intricate textures and brilliant tints of blue, green and red in the ice - a result, I was informed, of algal growth.
 
Our next stop was Cooverville Island, home to the world's largest Gentoo penguin colony. At the beginning of winter, hundreds of thousands of Gentoos had already departed, but we were just in time to see the stragglers, still in their thousands. As I walked amidst them, many toddled up to me, seemingly even more curious about me than I was about them. In the silence, the patter of their feet on the rocky ground was amongst the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard. As I explored the area, I discovered that the colony stretched all the way up past a steep rocky slope and, incredibly, even there the flightless birds had managed to nest!   
 
Off the coast, we saw countless leopard seals, marvellous creatures that I had only earlier seen in photographs. These fierce Antarctic predators lurk in the floating ice, feeding on fish and krill and the careless penguin. I was stunned to see the size of these seals, particularly their massive heads (which support huge jaws filled with sharp canines and which, together with body spots, gives the carnivores their name).
 
April 2, 2009
 
The ship has started to push away from the icy continent as I sit here typing this. To rewind the experiences of the past two days, I begin to scroll through the many images I had taken. But I quickly abandoned the exercise in favour of the real thing, visible from the deck of the ship that had become home. A strange sadness washes over me. I know I am unlikely to ever return.  
 
At night I see clouds hang ominously overhead, though the Drake is calm. The landscape mirrors my dark and contemplative mood, but soon I am left with only memories - beautiful whiter-than-white sunrises, mountains burdened under the weight of ice formed millions of years ago, Neko harbour, where we hiked up a snow slope for an aerial view of icebergs calving (breaking off into the sea from land based glaciers), to the accompaniment of thunderous roars that could be heard for miles. And then, Antarctica is gone. Like a poignant farewell, that reminded me of the transience of our lives on this planet - Adelie penguins, crab eater seals and a beaked or bottle-nosed whale (hard to tell) bade us goodbye. 
 
I have worked on climate change issues for some years now. The northern Arctic ice-cap I know is doomed. But how distant is the Antarctic from a similar fate? Tellingly, our ship was unable to maneuver through a thin passage used by ships for years because there were just too many floating icebergs (Robert suggests this is a more common phenomenon) - a sign of accelerated melting. The Vernadsky Research Station on Argentine Island (our last stop in Antarctica today) confirms this through temperature readings since 1945 that reveal a disturbing 4° C rise. This, incidentally, was the very station, formerly known as the Faraday Station when owned by the British, that announced to the world the existence of the ozone hole over the Antarctic.  
 
We delivered winter provisions for the 13 Ukrainians now running the station, but it was a rather interesting lesson in Antarctic politics - one that excludes the penguins, seals and whales. The area was littered with the remnants of countries' attempts at establishing their presence. At Neko, we saw the remains of a broken down Argentinian structure and the clear ice was littered with piled up rubble and garbage. When the British left, they did not dismantle their camp, leaving structures intact with diary pages still lying about on work tables, plus heaps of canned food. Clearly everyone planned to return some day - possibly 2041, when the nations of the world will fight for a slice of the Antarctic pie. 
 
Is it beyond us to leave just this one continent alone for wildlife, I thought to myself as we camped that night on Paradise Island. Above me the sky revealed a bounty of shooting stars. I had just joined the ranks of approximately only 100,000 people alive on the planet who had spent the night on the Antarctic continent - a privilege that makes you want to save the place for all time. Throughout the night the glaciers calved and their thunderous roars were a constant reminder of the urgency to rein in the climate monster we have unleashed on ourselves. Thirty years remain till the Antarctic treaty is up for renegotiation. But 2009 is when the next global climate deal will be established. I intend to be there in the front ranks to fight for the right of future generations to a functioning world. 
 
By Kartikeya Singh
 
First published in Sanctuary Asia, Vol. XXIX. No. 4., August 2009 
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