A good friend of mine recently returned from a trip abroad. The word ‘abroad’ hardly seems to cover it, to be fair: the bloke had gone all the way to the Antarctic. This bleak paradise of ice and midnight sun was his for a mere £3500, he eagerly explained: a snip when you consider the distances. He’d flown from the UK to Buenos Aires, then a connecting flight to Tierra del Fuego to catch an icebreaker to the southernmost continent. Two weeks, and for that cost he got around three days on the actual ice.
It’s easy to understand why you’d want to tick it off your life list. Antarctica is a threatened environment. It’s not really
owned by anyone, and only protected by a flimsy international treaty that’s as prone to melting round the edges as… well, as Antarctica.
Quite a contradiction, or even an irony, really: it’s the people rushing to see this marvel that are actually propelling it towards its destruction. According to new figures from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, 40,000 tourists alight on the ice every year now – that includes 7000 or so from the UK. It’s a figure that’s been creeping upwards for years.
Accidents with fuel, sewage or rubbish and disturbing the precarious wildlife are just the most visible effects of damage. What’s going on with the carbon produced by these monsters of the deep, the vast diesel liners that are cruising the Southern Ocean?
The answer is, nobody seems to know. There aren’t any reliable independent figures produced to tell us – if you hear of any, let us know. What we do know is, it’s not exactly an eco-trip. Figures published in The Telegraph in 2008 compared one cruise liner to Eurostar with shocking results – every kilometre travelled by liner emits 36 times more carbon than rail.
Now consider the extra effort a ship has to make in the grim conditions of Antarctica: the winds, the weather, the temperature, and the extra miles that all the supplies need to be transported in the first place. If it’s an icebreaker, then consider the weight of the reinforced hull, or the powerful engines. You can guess it’s bad news.
And was a trip to the Ross Ice Shelf worth it for my friend? Not particularly. No sleep, processed food and being trapped on a boat with rich bores wasn’t his idea of the Shackleton experience. Penguins can only really do one thing well, he recounted: swim away, fast. Now those are some problems you won’t get travelling by train.
Ed Chipperfield
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Tags: Antarctica, Buenos Aires, Holland
