Global Warming, Polar Expeditions and the Meaning of Life

February 6 was a cold day. Today is a cold day. Two days ago it snowed in an absolutely dark, dreadful weather. But on Sunday February the 8th Tokyoites lived to experience a pleasant and surreal weather as the temperature hit 24 degrees Celsius. It was spectacular and absolutely insane. Almost every casual conversation after that day had some references to the effects of global warming. Here was yet another proof that our planet was headed for an environmental catastrophe.

Last week the wonderful people at CLSA Asia organized the 6th Japan Forum where I attended an inspiring presentation by Ben Saunders, the polar explorer (http://www.bensaunders.com/). Ben is the youngest person to ski solo through the North Pole. He set out his 1996 km journey from Severnaya Zemlya (Russia) in March 5, 2004. The plan was to reach Canada via crossing the Arctic Ocean, but after earning the youngest-adventurer ever to reach the North Pole on ski he had to cut the expedition at 1031th km because conditions got very dangerous.

As I was listening to his story I realized his journey was as much a mental challenge as it was a physical one. He was pulling a 180 kg heavy sledge of supplies through an endless sea of ice, whiteness and emptiness. It was daylight 24 hours, there were no reference points, no living things, nothing. Besides being a fight of body and mind, the expedition also required extensive amount of logistical planning, fundraising, and preparation. But this young man did it. He put his mind, hearth and resources towards a goal, a point in horizon and a stop in the middle, and literally walked towards it overcoming all obstacles in between while pulling a tremendous weight along the way.

Walking across the Arctic Ocean first sounds absurd. What is the point? Referring to his celebrated title Ben himself says that there is little to explore: North Pole was traveled before, anything on it can be photographed from the space, you can continuously stay in contact with your support team and ask for a rescue anytime you like. So what was this then, just another tale of an adventurous man doing extreme sports?

There is abstract symbolism in Ben’s tale. It is like reading a Haruki Murakami or Orhan Pamuk novel. His descriptions of the journey, daydreams, hardship sound surreal, like excerpts from Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World which makes you think about grand themes like the meaning of life. Precisely! He sets out to complete a Journey full of obstacles, dangers and setbacks. Despite weighting a 185 kg his resources are scarce, precious and need protection. He walks through constantly shifting and drifting blocks of ice. Sometimes he wakes up to find himself somewhere behind where he started the previous day because the ice block he camped on moved backwards. The ice is occasionally patchy with gaps and he has to jump in arctic water to swim to the next block then pull his sledge. Sometimes ice simply cracks and he submerges to the sea. His path is frequently closed by pressure ridges, barriers or piles of ice he has to climb over and pull his sledge. He learns to accept bad weather, white nothingness, wind, cold and things he can not change or control. North Pole is not a place for control freaks he says. He talks to himself, discovers new shades of white for which he invents new vocabulary, melts snow to make drinking water, encounters a polar bear, and dreams about the day he returns home in glory. What can be more symbolic than that?

Listening Ben was a spiritual experience. He even had a food for hope for those souls that are employed in the perilous financial industry. When things got really tough during the last halve of his journey towards Canada, the Helper of the Last Resort intervened. During the CLSA conference I saw man and woman of the free world, with their eyes looking up and fixed respectfully somewhere in the horizon, talk about those things the world’s governments will do to save the system. Except of course that in Ben’s case the Helper of the Last Resort was a team of well prepared, experienced professionals who knew what they were doing.

Global warming is taking its toll. This journey may be impossible in few years because the ice in the Arctic Ocean is getting thinner and therefore drifting faster causing larger pressure ridges. Walking through the North Pole may soon be a thing of the past.

You can access a photo stream of Ben Sounders at www.flickr.com/photos/bensaunders/

Websites for Haruki Murakami www.murakami.ch/main_4.html, and for Orhan Pamuk http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2006/pamuk-autobio.html