Pole2Pole explorer Mike Horn on surviving Antarctica and plastic pollution - Augustman
Augustman Logo
Style
Culture
Gear
Food & Drink
Travel
Wellness
AM Select
E-Magazine
Most Trending
Pole2Pole explorer Mike Horn on surviving Antarctica and plastic pollution
Most Recent
Pole2Pole explorer Mike Horn on surviving Antarctica and plastic pollution
Most Trending
Gucci Melds Their House Code with Balenciaga’s For Their Centennial
Most Recent
Team Effort: Cool Brand Collaborations In Fashion And Retail
  • Fashion
  • Watches
  • Grooming
Most Trending
Live The High Life At These Most Extravagant Penthouses
Most Recent
Life in Edo | Russel Wong in Kyoto Exhibition Explores Japanese Culture And Craftsmanship
  • Design
  • Events
  • Art
  • Music
  • Film & TV
Most Trending
Modernity Meets Sustainability With Ante’s New Tech-cessories
Most Recent
BMW 4 Series Convertible Ushers In A New Era For Open Top Motoring
  • Tech
  • Motoring
Most Trending
Pretty Sweet: Dolce & Gabbana And Fiasconaro Are Celebrating Italian Confectionery
Most Recent
Lost Distillery: Rare Brora Whiskies Are Going Under The Hammer
  • Dining
  • Drinks
Most Trending
Check Out These Lavish European Castles Available For Rent
Most Recent
Are “Health Passports” The Key To Restarting Global Travel?
  • Travel Guides
  • Hotels & Resorts
Most Trending
These Famous Athletes Also Run Successful Lifestyle Brands
Most Recent
Can’t Sleep? Try These Effective White Noise Devices
  • Fitness
  • Health
Most Trending
Technopreneur Ryan Chew On Using Blockchain To Solve Global Issues
Most Recent
A Tribute To Britain’s Prince Philip. The A To Z Of The Duke Of Edinburgh
  • Men of the Year
  • MVMT
  • August Mentors
  • A-Listers
  • Hit List
  • sg
    • MY
    • SG
  • Search
Pole2Pole explorer Mike Horn on surviving Antarctica and plastic pollution
Sort & Filter
Close Filter
Sort By
Date
Relevance
Filter By Category
All Categories
All
Style
Culture
Gear
Food & Drink
Travel
Wellness
AM Select
Apply
Filter By Location
singapore
All Countries
Culture
Life in Edo | Russel Wong in Kyoto Exhibition Explores Japanese Culture And Craftsmanship
Culture
Live The High Life At These Most Extravagant Penthouses
Culture
Dave Grohl Of The Foo Fighters Is Releasing A Memoir
Augustman Logo
sg
Pole2Pole explorer Mike Horn on surviving Antarctica and plastic pollution
Back
All  Style
  • Fashion
  • Watches
  • Grooming
Back
All  Culture
  • Design
  • Events
  • Art
  • Music
  • Film & TV
Back
All  Gear
  • Tech
  • Motoring
Back
All  Food & Drink
  • Dining
  • Drinks
Back
All  Travel
  • Travel Guides
  • Hotels & Resorts
Back
All  Wellness
  • Fitness
  • Health
Back
All  AM Select
  • Men of the Year
  • MVMT
  • August Mentors
  • A-Listers
  • Hit List
E-Magazine
  • Malaysia
  • Singapore
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
Sort & Filter
Close Filter
Sort By
Date
Relevance
Filter By Category
All Categories
All
Style
Culture
Gear
Food & Drink
Travel
Wellness
AM Select
Apply
Filter By Location
singapore
All Countries
Culture

Pole2Pole explorer Mike Horn on surviving Antarctica and plastic pollution

Darren Ho
28 Nov 2017
Article Hero Image
Trending Now
Team Effort: Cool Brand Collaborations In Fashion And Retail
StyleRead More
BMW 4 Series Convertible Ushers In A New Era For Open Top Motoring
GearRead More
Gucci Melds Their House Code with Balenciaga’s For Their Centennial
StyleRead More
Longchamp X EU “Been A Champ” Collection Brings Out The Champ In You
StyleRead More
Here's your ticket to incisive commentary and insights from the celebrity sphere. Sign up for our newsletter.

Around 9 months ago, as Mike Horn became the first solo explorer to completely trek across Antarctica (6,800km in 57 days), he encountered an unexpected problem. His ship, the 110-foot Pangaea, had an electrical issue and could not arrive in Antarctica to retrieve him. Stranded, with summer fading, he journeyed to a French research facility, the Dumont d’Urville, where he got on a resupply vessel to Australia and met his ship. You can watch his interview with us above.

What Mike Horn Discovered on Pole2Pole

The Pangaea is back on its feet and now making its way across Asia. Horn has been communicating about his experience crossing the two Poles. One important tool that enabled him to survive was his watch. One of his sponsors is Swiss watchmaker Officine Panerai. It worked with Horn to develop a special version of the Pole2Pole watch meant to survive temperatures as cold as -50∘C and would keep precise time in order to double as a compass and navigation as well. “Magnetic compasses don’t work at the Poles. So my watch had to act as way to tell the direction as well.” But his focus is on climate change and the scientific research he conducted as they traversed the world.

The Panerai watch Horn wore was entirely made from a single block of metal, including its gearing system due to the weather in Antarctica and its impact on metal expansion/contraction.

 

His accounts of climate devastation are worrying. Some clear evidence he saw included the migration routes of whales, which are changing. This is due to the lack of food (plankton) at certain depths of the oceans. “The plankton are no longer rising as high to absorb carbon dioxide that they need,” he explained. “So the whales can’t find the plankton they consume and they need to go deeper.” Another was grizzly bears moving into the habitats of polar bears. “I saw polar bears and grizzlies killing each other,” he recalled. “We’ve never seen that before.”

But the most serious evidence of Mankind’s damage to the environment are the plastic dead zones in the ocean. Plastic dead zones are spots where ocean currents meet, and essentially push the plastic garbage dumped into the oceans into one area (gyre). There are six gyres in the world today. Because gyres are an area where algae blooms occur, it’s a low-oxygen area where nothing lives. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which Horn passed, is now twice the size of the continental US.

“It’s a problem because it all congeals and you can pick it up, it’s like slush or jelly,” he explains. “And birds and fish, they think it’s squid or jellyfish and they eat it. The thing is, plastics don’t break down. It lasts for 200 years. So one fish eats the plastic, a small piece of polystyrene, and eventually it dies. But that plastic will still stay in the water and another fish eats it. And another. This tiny piece of polystyrene can poison 100 fish.” Often, that plastic ends up in our own bodies, when we eat seafood.

Banning Single-Use Plastics

He strongly advocates a ban on single-use plastics around the world, not only in Singapore where we’ve been debating the issue but in huge cities like Shanghai. “It’s easy for a country like Singapore or Switzerland to do it.” He hopes we will in fact ban single-use plastics, though the government has yet to initiate such a move. Last year, Dr Amy Khor, then Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, said: “We need to engage the stakeholders, which we are doing. And we are also looking at the experiences of other countries, as well as a life cycle assessment study that we are conducting, which will look at the cost and environmental impact of the different types of bags used. This will help us to formulate policies, including on the use of plastic bags… we will share the results of the study, and the decision on whether to implement a charge on plastic bags.” Results will be published in the first quarter of 2018.

Here’s hoping we’ll see stronger actions, such as the enforcement of bioplastic bags or paper packaging instead of plastic. Have bottled water like this. Use bamboo disposable utensils or even better, Bakeys (you can eat the spoon you used to eat your lunch). After all, if Kenya, Rwanda and Bali can enforce a plastic bag ban, surely Singapore can do it.

Darren Ho
Talk to Me About:

Up Next For You

Classic Books That Will Take Travel-Starved Readers Around The World
Manas Sen Gupta
Culture
What You Need To Know About Museum Of Ice Cream Singapore
Richard Augustin
Culture
Yung Raja Is Rapping His Way To The Top Of Hip-Hop
Richard Augustin
Culture
The Lego NASA Space Shuttle Set Is Just What Space Exploration Fans Wanted
Richard Augustin
Culture
Here's your ticket to incisive commentary and insights from the celebrity sphere. Sign up for our newsletter.
×
Where are you?
Tell us so we can display what you want to see.
  • Malaysia
  • Singapore
Malaysia Singapore
Advertise About Privacy Policy Terms & Conditions
© 2021 Copyright Augustman