The majority of people that travel to Antarctica go for a job like scientists, artists, and researchers.The other few people that go are some brave tourists. There has been an increase in tourism to Antarctica. Tourism only occurs from the late spring to summer months (November - March). In November and Early December people go to see the winter ice beginning to melt, giant icebergs, scenery, and seals. From Mid-December to January people go because of these are the warmest months, to take photos because the longer days have the best light conditions, less ice allows for more exploration, and penguin chicks hatch. In February and March people go because the whale sightings, penguin chicks begin fledging, even less ice makes for more exploration, and there are more seals. The problem with tourism is that too much of it hurts Antarctica's environment. One thing tourists bring are invasive species. There is also a greater chance for oil spills to occur if more tourists come. Also people in the past have thrown waste onto Antarctica or the Antarctic ocean because they didn't know where to put it. The Antarctic scientists are concerned about this issue and are warning of the consequences of tourism on Antarctica's environment.
To get a job in Antarctica is not easy probably one of the hardest thing you will do. The first step is to know what kind of job you want to do in Antarctica and keep in mind that you want to have to put your all in it. You would have to put your because they're so many other people that want that same job. Now that you have that job in mind and have gone to classes and worked hard you must know where to sign up. To find a job to go to Antarctica you would should google some hiring organizations the following are some big organization that hires. This organization is an also shortened bills spindler's list. This is a version that bill updates by bill in 20132015. Some of the jobs to get in Antarctica are engineering because if something brakes down and you have a degree in engineering you can always fix it. Another job is being a scientist but only become a scientist if you have a interest in it. There are way more jobs but I will only say a couple more or I would be taking way to long. Other jobs are NSF the OPP, researchers, media and many more. Having a job in Antarctica would be a lot cheaper than just taking an actual vacation. An actual vacation would cost so much that you would want to stay in Antarctica for at least 4 months so you get your money worth. But if you take a tourist boat you will still not have the full experience in Antarctica. You would go to the edge of Antarctica and most likely take pictures with the penguins. Overall I feel that you would want to get a job and look around for your full experience instead of having a chance to just take a picture with penguins.
Troubling a Star by Madeleine L'Engle is a novel about Vicky Austin a sixteen year old girl who is given a trip to Antarctica as a birthday present. She is given this present because her friend Adam Edditington was going to Antarctica and she becomes friends with his great-aunt Serena. She becomes such good friends with her that Aunt Serena decides to send Vicky to Antarctica since she is too old to go. The rest of the book is about Vicky's exciting adventures in Antarctica where she travels on a ship along with a group of several other people going to Antarctica as either scientists or on vacation. Throughout the novel there is a primary theme repeated that every action has a consequence and a petrified wood, a dead son, and a song illustrate this idea. While Vicky and the rest of the group explore Seymour Island, Antarctica Jason, a geologist, finds a piece of petrified wood. Someone comments,"Perhaps it's just as well there have never been any human beings around here to muck it up with our bloody history." (223) Wherever people are they leave a bad history behind. We've destroyed civilizations and destroyed the environment. We see today how our actions have affected the entire planet and now we are having to deal with climate change. Aunt Serena knew a lot about Antarctica because her son, Adam II, had gone to Antarctica to do research but then on one of his trips he disappeared and never came back. It was assumed that it was an accident but Vicky suspected it was no accident. She thought that because he had made enemies by stopping oil drilling in Antarctica. Then on Vicky's trip she was abandoned on an iceberg because a couple of people thought she was involved with Aunt Serena's son's work, as she was friends with Adam, who was related to him. Right before being rescued she said, " Was that action affecting only what went on in Antarctica a generation ago, or was it touching the present?" (193) When Adam II tried to protect Antarctica his action not only affected what happened to him but also what happened years later when Vicky went to Antarctica.This illustrated the theme not only in theory but in action. A man's actions had consequence's even into the future. Siri Evensen, a biochemist, sings and plays a song on her harp for some penguins. She wants to experiment to see how the antarctic animals will react to her music. The song is right in the middle of the whole book. The author is showing the importance of this scene by placing it literally right in the middle of the book.This is her song: "All things by immortal power, Near or far, Hiddenly to each other linked are That thou canst not stir a flower Without troubling a star." (146) The song not only facinates the penguins but Vicky also. It causes her to reflect on the words as she looked at the wildlife around her, "If I pick one of the yellow sea cabbages, that casual action might result in trouble to a star millions of light-years away...all actions have consequences far beyond anything we can imagine." (149) Both of these quotes are about the main theme. The song says that everything is connected and that because of that if something is affected so is everything else. Vicky echos that and adds that every action has a consequence. In a short discusion between Vicky and Cook, who makes sure she stays safe on the trip, they talk about Siri's song and it's meaning. Cook says,"Everything we do has a part in the weaving of the pattern, even our wrong decisions." (157) Throughout the novel Troubling a Star by Madeleine L'Engle there is a primary theme repeated that every action has a consequence and petrified wood, a dead son, and a song illustrate this idea. This theme is very important to the author because it is even adressed in a note from the author in the beginning of the book, "We share our wonder and confusion: Who am I? Why am I here? Does it matter? Ultimately I hope we all answer with Vicky: Yes it does. We do matter. What we do matters. And that is both a challenge and a joy." (note from the author) This theme is important, not only for the author but for everyone, because as she said "What we do matters". It matters not only to us but to everyone and everything else because our actions can affect everything. We cannot choose the consequences of our actions, whether good or bad, and we can't choose who or what will be affected. Therefore we should strive to be more mindfull of our choices if not for ourselves then for anyone or anything that might be affected by them because "thou canst not stir a flower without troubling a star."
Anne Aghion is a filmmaker. She made a 77-minute-long film called ICE PEOPLE. It is about daily life in Antarctica, including science and climate change research. It also shows the environment of Antarctica. You can find the movie at http://www.anneaghionfilms.com/ice-people/ for 5.99 euros.
In Endurance by Alfred Lansing, Shackleton's journey through the uncharted Antarctic seas is told. The crew made their way through the Weddell sea and faced numerous perils such as ice floes, negative degree weather, and dangerous waters. The Endurance and its crew fought hard through these conditions, although the ship barely lasted half of the trip, the crew pushed for survival and eventually found safety on South Georgia Island. The story is a true recollection of the events of Shackleton's voyage told through the eyes of the crew and Shackleton himself. The first danger Shackleton's crew face in Antarctica is ice. The Weddell sea is full of countless ice floes that are some of the largest in the world. The Endurance struggles to make it through the ice packed sea and in turn ends up being crushed by surrounding floes. After the crew had abandoned the ship, they camped out on the ice nearby and some of the men said, "The ice, in its frenzy to wreck her, had driven through her sides and remained there, supporting the broken hull." (79) The men watched as their ship was ruined by the ice and they could do nothing about it. As they continued to to camp on the ice the boat sunk lower into the water. When they later saw the boat they said that, "...in the past two days the ice had further mutilated her twisted hull." (84) They noticed the powerful impact of the ice on their boat in just two days. The ice that covered the sea had not given the Endurance any chance to survive the full trip. The crew had to leave the boat and helplessly watch it slowly sink. The ice was expected to be dangerous but the crew could not know the extent of its capabilities until they had to face the situation. The second danger they faced was the weather. Winds in Antarctica at times were so bad that the men couldn't go outside of their tents. One man wrote in his diary, "we also suffer from Amenomania [literally-wind madness]...this disease is exhibited in two forms: either one is morbidly anxious about the wind direction and gibbers continually about it...the second form is more trying to hear." (141-142) The constant wind drove some of the men crazy. They often stayed in one spot for an extended amount of time which created boredom, and wind madness turned the mentality of the men into an unstable mess. Another man wrote in his diary, "The gusts increased in violence and became so strong that we could hardly walk against them, and there was not a lee or scrap of shelter anywhere." (233) Wind became so bad for the men that they could not achieve anything other than boredom and slow growing insanity at times when the wind lasted a long time. The dangers of the wind caused the crew of the Endurance to suffer in many different ways and as a result they were challenged both mentally and physically. The last danger to the crew was the water; water was a constant threat to the men's health and overall abilities. When the men were on the ice they had to always be aware of how the water's current pressure was affecting the ice. At one point in the book the ice under the middle of the crew's camp split, a boat fell in, and as they were getting it out, it was explained that, "She was halfway up when the ice gave way and Bill Stevenson, one of the fireman, plunged into the numbing water." (188) The water is cold enough to kill anyone whether they know how to swim or not. Bill Stevenson had to be pulled out of the water by the other men. After they pulled him out, the book went on to say that, "The men stood by, tense and altogether aware that in the next instant they might be flung into the sea to be crushed or drowned." (189) At this point the men knew that they had to be constantly aware of the ices condition or they could be the next person in the freezing cold water. The water continued to be a problem as the crew sailed, in their spare lifeboats, into the open ocean with the spray hitting their faces making them constantly numb. The sprays were not only numbing but the salt in the water also burns their eyes as they struggled to keep them open to see where they were going. Therefore the men sailed through the dangerous cold and painful waters without sleep or warmth to save themselves from the conditions that they had been in for so long. In conclusion the journey had its challenges that tested the crew to their limits, but along with the expertise of the captains and the perseverance of the crew they all managed to survive. By the end of the book the men managed to make it to South Georgia Island where they were all rescued. The story that made Antarctic exploration history was one of the most perilous and well led journeys in history. Works cited Lansing, Alfred. Endurance. New York: Basic Books, 2014.
A landmark international agreement to create the world's largest marine park in the Southern Ocean 24 countries and the European Union agreed that 1.5m sq km of the Ross Sea will be protected. Zones are set for General Protection and for Research. Protections are set to expire in 35 years. It is the first marine park created in international waters. This will set a precedent for further moves to help the world achieve the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's recommendation that 30% of the world's oceans be protected. The Southern Ocean region (Including the Ross Sea) produces about three-quarters of the nutrients that sustain life in the rest of the world's oceans and is also home to most of the world's penguins and whales. Considered to be the last intact marine ecosystem on Earth
A blue whale, or balaenoptera musculus, is an endangered species found in the oceans of Antartica. They are apart of the chordata phylum, mammalia class, cetacea order, balaenidae family, and muscles species. They are the largest animal in the world and can weigh up to two hundred tons. A blue whale's tongue can weigh as much as an elephant and its heart as much as a car. Despite their weight, their diet mostly consists of krill, making them carnivores. They use a technique called filter feeding in which they take in everything in front of them and filter out the food they don't want. Blue whales travel alone or in small groups of two to three. However, their groups can be as big as sixty whales when they are in feeding grounds. They migrate to the poles to feed and to subtropic areas to breed. A female is pregnant for ten to seventeen months and can have a calf every one to six years.The growth rate of a blue whale is one of the fastest in the Animal Kingdom. They reach maturity between the ages of five to ten years. One of the most notable characteristics of the blue whale is their powerful voice. They are considered the loudest animal on the planet and can hear one another from a thousand miles away. Some threats to the blue whale are commercial whaling, impacts of climate change, ship strikes, chemical and sound pollution, overfishing krill, habitat loss, and entangling in fishing gear. To protect blue whales, organizations try to bring awareness to these problems and create marine protected areas.