Cold (eBook)

Extreme Adventures at the Lowest Temperatures on Earth

Ranulph Fiennes (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2013 | 1. Auflage
496 Seiten
Simon & Schuster UK (Verlag)
9781471127854 (ISBN)

Infos

Few humans have evolved who can survive and thrive in the bitter cold. Below a certain temperature, death is inevitable. This book is about this aspect of our environment and about Sir Ranulph Fiennes' own life experiencing the extreme cold, from his adventuring apprenticeship 40 years ago on the Greenland Ice Cap to masterminding over the past 5 years the crossing of the Antarctic during winter, the 'coldest journey on Earth', where temperatures will regularly plummet to minus 92C.
Cold has altered history on many great occasions. Hannibal crossed the high Alps under conditions of extreme cold, soldiers of the mighty armies of Hitler and Napoleon died in their thousands on the frozen Russian steppes from frostbite gangrene. In the past 150 years men and women have also seen the cold as a natural challenge as adventurers and explorers from all over the world have attempted to conquer the coldest regions of the globe.
Today, parts of the world subject to extreme cold are the focus of intense geopolitical pressure, as President Putin claims Arctic coastal waters to be Russian, in readiness for the predicted melting of sea-ice, sending submarines to plant Russian flags on the seabed as a warning to would-be non-Russian mineral prospectors, and similar claims are made on the Antarctic. And yet a few degrees of climate change in Antarctica could easily trigger the detachment of huge ice sheets which would slide into the Southern Ocean. As sea levels rise some of the biggest coastal cities in the world would be submerged - a catastrophe that would render insignificant the most devastating of past tsunamis.
Sir Ranulph Fiennes has spent a lifetime working in conditions of extreme cold - his frostbitten fingers are a testament to the horrors that man can experience in such temperatures, but he also knows that the life he has led owes a great deal to the cold. Both scientifically rigorous, historically questioning and intensely personal, this book is both a warning of the dangers we face with our rela

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There are only few human beings who can adapt, survive and thrive in the coldest regions on earth. And below a certain temperature, death is inevitable. Sir Ranulph Fiennes has spent much of his life exploring and working in conditions of extreme cold. The loss of many of his fingers to frostbite is a testament to the horrors man is exposed to at such perilous temperatures. With the many adventures he has led over the past 40 years, testing his limits of endurance to the maximum, he deservedly holds the title of 'the world's greatest explorer'. Despite our technological advances, the Arctic, the Antarctic and the highest mountains on earth, remain some of the most dangerous and unexplored areas of the world. This remarkable book reveals the chequered history of man's attempts to discover and understand these remote areas of the planet, from the early voyages of discovery of Cook, Ross, Weddell, Amundsen, Shackleton and Franklin to Sir Ranulph's own extraordinary feats; from his adventuring apprenticeship on the Greenland Ice Cap, to masterminding over the past five years the first crossing of the Antarctic during winter, where temperatures regularly plummeted to minus 92C. Both historically questioning and intensely personal, Cold is a celebration of a life dedicated to researching and exploring some of the most hostile and brutally cold places on earth.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 7.11.2013
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Essays / Feuilleton
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Themenwelt: Reisen ► Reiseberichte
• ISBN-13: 9781471127854 / 9781471127854