|
|
|
|
|
|
Special Report |
LAST UPDATE April 4, 2008
|
|
| site design imagesparkle.com |
| March 11, 2008 |
Antarctica: Journeying to the White Continent |
|
| |
 |
In the Bransfield Strait, participants sighted the first tabular iceberg of the voyage, estimated to be 35,000 years old. Seven-eighths of the iceberg’s mass lies below the surface |
At the southern frontier of our earth lies a white, frozen world of icy mountains and frigid seas. Unmarked by national boundaries, protected from military activity and resource exploitation, and dedicated to science, Antarctica stands as a neutral bastion apart from the territorial claims of humankind. This icy fortress contains a delicate ecosystem that a plethora of animals and plants adapted to the extreme climate call home. To bear witness to the magnificence of this unique and fragile ecosystem, Peace Boat visited the Antarctic Peninsula halfway through its circumnavigation of the globe. |
site design imagesparkle.com |
 |
| Participants gathered on the front deck to enjoy the scenery and wildlife of Andvord Bay |
While terms like global warming and climate change appear frequently in the media these days, the reality of these concepts can sometimes feel distant and removed from daily life. However, as the frequency and intensity of natural disasters in the world increases, the reality of climate change and its effects grow clearer with frightening rapidity. While the ship sailed through Antarctic waters, participants on the 60th Peace Boat global voyage saw firsthand the polar ice threatened by our warming earth, and the wildlife whose habitat will disappear when the ice melts. Onboard guest educator Dr. Ricardo Navarro, an environmental and peace activist from El Salvador, noted that photographs that the voyage participants took of Antarctic sea ice and snow-capped mountains may stand as records of that which will soon disappear, and emphasized the importance of coming face to face with global issues and then sharing those experiences to spread environmental awareness. |
| |
 |
| Looking back toward the Gerlache Strait from Andvord Bay |
This Peace Boat visit to Antarctica bears special significance because it marks the first time that a passenger ship has visited Antarctica while circumnavigating the globe. Consequently, participants on this voyage were able to consider the environmental condition of Antarctica in a larger global context through exposure to social and environmental issues in ports they visited during the first two months of the global voyage. After seeing firsthand the effects of urban development in Hong Kong, poverty in post-apartheid South Africa, natural resource depletion in South America, and territorial war in Las Malvinas / The Falkland Islands*, participants were able to consider the gravity of the state of the world from a unique perspective during their visit to Antarctica. |
| |
 |
| A growler iceberg drifts past this peak on Lemaire Island, which rises 759 meters out of the water of Paradise Bay |
The Antarctic ice pack is in danger of melting, a potential disaster of cataclysmic proportions. Human induced climate change threatens to alter the delicate balance that our earth has maintained since long before humankind made its appearance on the global stage. Scientists around the world hypothesize as to the effects that climate change and the melting of the polar ice sheets might have, but no historical precedent exists for a climatic change of this scale. Some reports indicate that a global temperature change of two to three degrees might cause sea levels to rise by one meter, but others suggest a sea level rise of 25 meters or more. In 2003, the 10,000 square kilometer Larsen-B ice shelf broke off and plunged into the sea due to the effects of global warming. Though scientists predicted the ice shelf would remain until the end of the 21st century, it melted in a brief three months, stressing the unpredictability of climate change and the importance of an immediate response to prevent further change to the earth’s ecosystem. Humankind exists because the unique environmental balance on planet earth creates an appropriate habitat for us to survive, but a significant change to our planet’s climate that disrupts this balance could threaten the existence of human civilization as a whole. |
| |
 |
| The calm water of the Gerlache Strait shimmered like glass as the ship returned from its side trip to Paradise Bay |
Climate change and its threat to human civilization cannot be ignored. Humans have already caused irreversible changes to the environment, and concrete steps must be made to reduce the rate at which we are destroying it. We have but one earth, and this trip to Antarctica highlighted for participants the urgent need to make individual lifestyle changes as well as work towards effecting social and environmental change on a community and global scale.
* As an international organisation regularly visiting both the United Kingdom and Argentina, Peace Boat lists both names for these islands. |
| |
|
|
|
