Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change

The sea ice that impinged on our trip has become even more abundant as glaciers continue to break up, making it increasingly difficult even for scientists to reach their research stations. Ice blockages are exacerbated by the fierce wind that results from the depletion of polar ozone, the increase of greenhouse gases, and the temperature differential caused as the tropics warm faster than Antarctica. Those winds drive relatively warmer water up under glaciers, causing them to melt. Structural characteristics of certain glaciers of West Antarctica render them particularly vulnerable; degeneration of the West Antarctic ice sheet will likely raise sea levels by at least four feet in the near future, a process NASA describes as “unstoppable.” Meanwhile the Totten Glacier in East Antarctica is taking on warm water through two gateways. The glacier holds back land ice three-quarters the size of Texas; if it melts, sea levels could rise by a further eleven feet.

On March 24, 2015, a record-high recorded temperature of 63.5 degrees Fahrenheit was logged at Esperanza Base on the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. New varieties of fungi are cropping up in Antarctica, buoyed by such warmer temperatures; the number of fungal varietals could be up by a quarter by the end of the twenty-first century. Such fungi could support an onslaught of invasive species. Warmer weather has made Antarctica an attractive destination for king crabs, which may pose significant risk to other sea animals that lack defenses against them. Melting glaciers deposit iron in the water, which is good for phytoplankton, which is in turn good for penguins, but which also significantly disrupts the ecosystem.

The ban on polar mining established by the Antarctic Treaty expires in 2048. The Chinese have already built four research stations on the frozen continent and are working on a fifth. China is harvesting vast quantities of krill from Antarctic waters. Liu Shenli, the chairman of the China National Agricultural Development Group, said, “The Antarctic is a treasure house for all human beings, and China should go there and share.” China has recently signed a five-year accord with Australia that permits vessels to refuel before continuing south; that pact will enable the Chinese to harvest sea life, exploit the continent’s abundant oil and mineral resources, and obtain fresh water from icebergs. Anne-Marie Brady, a professor of political science at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, said, “China is playing a long game in Antarctica,” adding that the wish to initiate mining operations there has been broadcast “loud and clear to domestic audiences.”

INDONESIA

When Everyone Signs

Far from the Tree, 2012

Nicholas Evans, an Australian linguist I met in 2006 when we were on a shared fellowship program, told me about a village in Bali where a hereditary strain of deafness had led to the development of a deaf-normative culture, and I had long wanted to visit. After the frustrations of our Antarctica trip, John and I were pleased to stop in Bali on the way home so that I could pursue this research.

When I described Bengkala as an idyll in Far from the Tree, some readers supposed I was enthusing about the primitive lives of noble savages. I would never want to gloss over the struggles of people in villages such as this one. It is utopian only from a disability-rights perspective. Deaf people the world over experience social exclusion; a society in which everyone can sign responds to a common dream of shared fluency even if that idyll is circumscribed by the toil of subsistence farming in an impoverished locale.

In the small village of Bengkala in northern Bali, a congenital form of deafness has persisted for some 250 years; at any time, it affects about 2 percent of the population. Everyone in Bengkala has grown up with deaf people and knows the unique sign language used in the village, so the gap between the experience of hearing and deaf people is narrower than perhaps anywhere else in the world. I found that where deafness is commonplace, it is not much of a handicap. Deaf and hearing people marry each other freely, and people are essentially as happy with a deaf child as with a hearing one.