Latest News: Climate Change from a Polar Explorer's Perspective

Northwestern Magazine, Winter 2007/08, by John Huston

For centuries polar exploration has provided a human link to some of the most remote areas of the world. Expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic have always symbolized humankind's adventurous spirit, our willingness to explore the unknown and our capability to endure severe physical and mental adversity.

Today, due to the rapidly melting ice sheets of the Arctic Ocean, Greenland and Antarctica, polar exploration can reveal the immediacy of the world's climate change crisis. Without a significant reduction in atmospheric carbon levels, there may not be enough ice to ski to the North Pole in the coming decades. The melting of these ice sheets exemplifies one of the many environmental changes that pose an immense challenge for our society: Can we find a solution to accelerating worldwide climate change?

Since graduating from Northwestern, I have spent several seasons traveling in the Arctic and hundreds of nights sleeping outside in subzero temperatures. I am fascinated by the strategies with which historic and modern polar explorers have approached seemingly insurmountable challenges. I greatly admire their unflinching optimism and discipline. However, the lesson learned from these explorers - namely that success comes not from attempting to conquer nature but from adapting to it - is perhaps most applicable to our environmental problems today.

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