Encounters at the End of the World Page #2

as it's beginning to move north

I can feel that sound coming up

through the bottoms of my feet

and telling me that this iceberg

is coming north That's my dream

So here I'm sitting in this lovely warm lab

and just outside is the environment

that Scott and Shackleton first faced

when they came here about 100 years ago

Unlike Scott and Shackleton, who viewed

the ice as this sort of static monster

that had to be crossed

to get to the South Pole,

we scientists now are able to

see the ice as a dynamic living entity

that is sort of producing change,

like the icebergs that I study

For me, it's been a wild ride

First of all, I found out that the iceberg

that I came down to study

not only was larger than the iceberg

that sank the Titanic,

it was not only larger than the Titanic itself,

but it was larger than the country

that built the Titanic

That's pretty big

This is B-15 So what we see here

is the white cliff It's about 150 feet tall,

so that means that there's over

This iceberg is so big

that the water that it contains

would run the flow of

the river Jordan for 1,000 years

It's so big that the water that is inside of it

would run the river Nile for 75 years

MacAYEAL This is a little bit

of video that we shot

when we were flying up to the iceberg

It looks big and it looms above us,

even if we're on an aircraft

flying above the iceberg,

the iceberg is always above us

It's above us because it's a mystery

that we don't understand

Here's a picture of what it looked like once

we had arrived in the center of the iceberg

We put out our instruments

Now we're gonna have an opportunity

to monitor how the iceberg drifts north

They're so big, there's an element of fear

We don't know, really,

what's going to come ahead

when they eventually begin to melt

in the ocean beyond Antarctica

What we're seeing now here

is a time-lapse sort of animation

of satellite imagery of the sea ice

and of the continent of Antarctica

And what you see are three shades of gray

This sort of lighter shade of gray

is the sea ice,

and these little bits and pieces here,

these are titanic icebergs

This little fellow right here, he's not a very

big iceberg compared to these other ones,

but that guy there might be the size of

the island of Sicily in the Mediterranean

It's like a little tiny bumblebee

zipping around in a circle,

happy to be in the warm waters

as it's drifting north

I'd be happy to see Antarctica as a static,

monolithic environment,

a cold monolith of ice, sort of the way

the people back in the past used to see it,

but now our comfortable thought

about Antarctica is over

Now we're seeing it as

a living being that's dynamic,

that's producing change, change that

it's broadcasting to the rest of the world,

possibly in response to what the world

is broadcasting down to Antarctica

Certainly on a gut level

it's going to be frightening

to watch what happens

to these babies once they get north

HERZOG What environment would the men

of Shackleton's expedition encounter

if they returned in a next life?

Shackleton, seen here,

would finally make it to the Pole,

a quest he had to abandon

a mere 100 miles short of it

Would there be any ice left?

Would he have to construct

an artificial Antarctica in a studio

and try to find his route through

papier-mache icebergs?

Would our only modern recourse

be to create ice with machines?

This is Frosty Boy, here in McMurdo

It's the equivalent of ice cream in the States,

and it's a really big hit

Everybody loves it It's what they go for

three or four times a day

And it has the texture of ice cream,

but it's not quite ice cream

There's a lot of crises that happen

in McMurdo when the Frosty Boy runs out

It's bad news

Words circulate everywhere throughout

McMurdo when Frosty Boy goes down

It's really good stuff

HERZOG From the very first day,

we just wanted to get out of this place

McMurdo has climate-controlled housing

facilities, its own radio station,

a bowling alley and abominations

such as an aerobic studio and yoga classes

It even has an ATM machine

For all these reasons, I wanted to get out

into the field as soon as possible

But before we could do that, it is mandatory

that every inhabitant of McMurdo

attend survival school

before being allowed to leave

This two-day exercise

is called Happy Camper

Students learn to build

survival trenches and igloos

The bad news is, that night

you have to sleep in your own construction

As long as I end up with 10 fingers

and 10 toes at the end, it's all good

Oh, God, sorry!

We just need to break ourselves

into two different groups now

We're gonna brief this group over here

for the burning vehicle scenario first,

then we're gonna come back over

and we're gonna brief

the bucket head white-out scenario

for everybody else

Essentially, we're trying to create conditions

where we wouldn't be able to see

The wind is so severe, the snow is blowing

so severely Very, very cold

Exposed skin might actually

create frostbite instantaneously

The winds are so severe

you could be blown off of your stance

of just simply standing out,

and visibility is pretty much none

You can't see flag to flag

You might not be able to see your hand

in front of your own face

Therefore,

what we're gonna do as a simulator

is incorporate a bucket to simulate

a white-out condition

to a point where I can barely hear myself

You can't necessarily even hear me, and

I certainly can't see any of you right now

So that's the whole idea

behind the bucket head

is to actually be a white-out simulator,

and it works really quite well

So, some of the parameters

for this are gonna be,

we're gonna start inside the sea-ice hut

I said I was gonna go to the bathroom,

and in fact I did

I needed to go to the bathroom, right

So, I've gone out

I've been gone for

quite some time now though,

you know, like 10, 15

All of a sudden 20 minutes, you're like,

"First off, where's the chocolate,

second off, where's Kevin?"

- EMERY:
Are you with us, Number One?

- Number One is out

HERZOG The goal is clear,

to find the instructor next to the outhouse

Number Two is out

Number Three out Number Three out

EMERY:
All right, Number One, you're

gonna have to walk in one simple direction,

and I'm gonna keep the

Pull on one rope for me

Four out

HERZOG It looks pretty good They seem

to be heading in the right direction

Five out

Six out

But very soon the front man veers

off-course, pulling everyone else with him

- Pull the rope, somebody

- THREE:
Hey, anybody out there?

Out here Number Three is here

- Where you at, Number Two?

- Find him?

- Did we find the guy?

- No

ONE:
Okay, I think we're gonna go this way

Follow me this way, guys This way, guys

Hold on, hold on

So part of what we want to do here

as an educational opportunity

is see if they realize what they've done,

come back to a hut

and come up with a new game plan,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes