Antarctica & Global Warming
This photo of penguins in Antarctica is one reader's entry in Conde Nast Traveler's Dream Trip Contest. (Wanna enter too? You have until April 23.)
Last night "60 Minutes" had a segment about the effects of global warming on Antarctica, and the show's evidence was incredibly persuasive. The number of chinstrap penguins in Paradise Cove, for instance, has dropped by 50% because the babies can't find enough krill to eat--and that's because krill grows under sea ice, and higher Antarctic temperatures mean less sea ice.
But what "60 Minutes" didn't tell you is that its crew was on board Abercrombie & Kent's Explorer II, a luxury ship with an ice-strengthened hull that carries 198 travelers at a time to the coldest continent. Over at Gadling, blogger Dave Luna recently pointed out that the Chinese government has asked its citizens to stop traveling to Antarctica because of the impact of human visitors on this near-pristine environment. (As if the Chinese couldn't find a potential ecological disaster closer to home to prevent!)
RSS Feeds