Journey to the end of the Earth Summary in English || Class 12 English

Journey to the End of the Earth

Summary in English

 The author visited Antartica on a Russsian research ship called Akademik Shokalskiy. He started from Chennai. They had to cross nine time zones, six checkpoints, three water bodies, and three ecospheres. The whole journey took him 100 hours. When he landed on the Antartica, he was spellbound by its vastness, isolation and uninterrupted horizon. He wondered how there could have been a time when India and Antartica were part of the same landmass Gondwana.
Gondwana: About 650 million years ago, Gondwana was supercontinent. It was warm and many species of flora and fauna prospered there, But there were no humans then. But around the time when dinosaurs were wiped out, Gondwana began to break up. India pushed against Asia and buckled its crust to form the Himalayas. South America drifted to join North America, opening up the Drake Passage. It created a cold current that went around the South Pole. It left the Antartica cold and isolated.

Importance of Antartica: The Antartica is now a part of that history. It helps us to understand where we came from and where we are going. It helps us to understands the significance of Cordilleran folds and Precambrian and extinction. Antartica has remained unspoiled by humans. Its ice-cores hold half-a-million-year-old carbon record. it helps us to examine Earth's past, present, and future.

Antarctica is a huge expanse of ice. It is all barren. There are no human markers. There are no trees, buildings or billboards. There are huge icebergs. There are blue whales. But there are very tiny things too. There are no mornings, noons, evening and nights. It is a 24-hour day. There is silence everywhere. So you lose all earthly sense of time and space there.

Human civilization is only 12000 years old. It is only a few seconds old on the geological clock. But during this short period, man has caused much confusion. he has built towns and cities. He has wiped out many other species to grab limited natural resources. By burning fossil, man has created a blanket of carbon dioxide around the world. This is raising the global Temperature. 
 This rise in temperature has caused climate changes. It is the most hotly debated question. Many scientists foretell disaster.
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Antarctica is the place to see the impact of these changes. Because it has a simple ecosystem, a little change in the environment can trigger a big effect. Take, for an example the microscopic phytoplankton. They are single-celled plants. Through photosynthesis, they assimilate carbon to form organic compounds. They sustain the entire food chain in the southern oceans. They regulate the global carbon cycle. Any further depletion of an ozone layer will cripple phytoplankton. If they did not function, the entire food chain and global carbon cycle would collapse.
Students on Ice is a programme headed by Canadian Geof Green. he has chosen to take students to the end of the world, the Antarctica. he wants to provide young students with an opportunity to understand and respect the planet. Students are young. They are ready to learn and act. They can actually see the effect of global warming. They see glaciers retreating and ice shelves collapsing. They cannot remain unaffected. They can see the threat is real. They are the future policymakers. They have idealism. They will act.

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Just near the Antarctic circle, the research ship shokalskiy was caught between white stretches of ice. It could go no further. So, the captain decided to turn round and go north. But before doing that he ordered everybody to climb down the gangplank and walk on the ocean. So all the 52 of them walked on ice. Beneath the ice, there was a living ocean. They saw seals sunning themselves on ice floes. They looked like stray dogs lying in the shade of a banyan tree. 

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