A 19-Year-Old Adventurer Is Trekking to the South Pole to Study Climate Change

For most teenagers, long and arduous treks across the world’s polar regions aren’t high on the bucket list. But Parker Liautaud is something else. At age 15, the intrepid young explorer attempted to become the youngest person ever to walk to the North Pole. Extreme weather conditions derailed that mission, but Liautaud went back the next year and finally made it, becoming the first person ever to check in on Foursquare from the top of the world.

Now 19 years old and a geology student at Yale, Liautaud has successfully accomplished three North Pole expeditions, and is about to embark on his most extreme mission yet: A 379-mile trek across Antarctica to gather data about changing climate conditions and raise awareness about global warming. Towing a 180-pound sleigh, Liautaud and his partner, polar explorer Doug Stoup, will ski from the Ross Ice Shelf across the Trans-Arctic Mountain Range to the South Pole, traveling 18 miles a day in temperatures as low as negative 60 degrees Celsius.  If successful, Liautaud will set a world record for the fastest unsupported trip across Antarctica and become the youngest male ever to reach the world’s southern-most tip.

Along the way, Liautaud and Stoup will conduct a series of scientific experiments to test the impact of climate change on the Antarctic continent, including testing a lightweight weather station that collects meteorological data every 30 minutes, and gathering snow samples to study the isotopic composition of the ice sheet at various locations. But the science is secondary to a more lofty, if idealistic, goal: Saving the world from global climate change.

But while Liautaud’s polar ambitions are certainly infused with an element of youthful hubris, he has also already had remarkable success in raising awareness about climate change. In addition to starting his own climate change advocacy website, The Last Degree, Liautaud has been profiled in Vanity Fair and The New York Times, sat on panels with Bob Geldof and Kofi Annan, and given a TED talk. And in September, Liautaud earned praise from the world’s most famous climate change evangelist, former Vice President Al Gore.

To find out more about the climate-change wunderkind, Motherboard caught up with Liautaud last week, as he was preparing for his November 17 departure for Antarctica. Here’s some of what he had to say:

MOTHERBOARD: You're about to leave for your fifth polar expedition. What is it about lugging a huge sled across polar ice sheets for weeks at a time that keeps you going back for more?

Liautaud: I'm not really an athlete. I didn't get into any of this to test any limits or to do it from an athletic point of view. This was really a climate change story from the beginning. I got involved in expeditions early on, when I was 13 or 14 years old, through the lens of climate change.

When I was 14, I did an Antarctic trip, my first polar trip, with an explorer called Robert Swan. He's also a really climate-focused person, and that was really the beginning of looking at how the polar regions can be discussed as a mechanism for bringing attention to the importance of the changes that are occurring, not just in the polar regions but around the whole world, and creating a story that people will want to be involved in. Because otherwise nobody cares about climate change. The idea is to create a connection that will inspire people to care.

Most 13-year-old kids aren't very interested in climate change, not to mention trekking to the North Pole. What made you different?  

I didn't really think about my age at the time. The reality is that climate change is a massively under-discussed topic. No one is talking about it. For people who work in this field, looking from the inside out, it seems like everyone is talking about. But really no one is talking about it. That was basically what started it for me: No one is my generation had any idea what climate change was. And you know, my generation is filled with a lot of very smart people, but the reality is that no one really knew, no one really cared, no one really made that much of an effort. For an issue that was seemingly very important for the future, no one was involved in it. And that's what got me interested.

The expeditions were kind of a test at the beginning. I thought, what if we can reignite the dialogue through a story that people could follow and want to be involved in, and communicate from these places that are being hit the hardest in the world?

What inspired your upcoming expedition to the South Pole?  

I felt like what I was doing was not big enough—it didn't have enough impact, I wasn't doing enough scientifically. I felt like there was a higher level that could be achieved. This expedition is is just a much, much bigger version of previous expeditions. It's an evolved version. This expedition is to the South Pole, which is a completely different part of the world. It's 640 kilometers, much longer than any other expedition, it's going to take a lot more days, it's a much more robust scientific program. Also, it's more focused. It's always been an idea in the back of my mind, because Antarctica is a good place for climate research and it’s a very powerful environment from which to communicate from.

What kind of effect do you want this trip to have on people outside of the science community?

I don't know for sure. I don't know what impact this expedition is going to have because I try not to limit myself in terms of the way I think about the expedition. That's an important mental tool for actually succeeding in these types of environments, in the polar regions. What I want to do eventually is absolutely revolutionize the way we talk about climate science because it's just not something that we communicate very well right now. And that's causing the scientific community and the public to be very divided.

Let me rephrase that: The scientific community is not divided on what we need to do about climate change. The public is divided and it doesn't reflect the views of the scientific community on this scientific issue. One of the most important ways that we need to change that is to better communicate, in language that is broadly understandable and also actionable, what's really going on in the climate system and why, because that will lead to a unified and Informed public.

At least then there can be a basis for policy change—a strong case for action. The reason why nothing is being done right now is because there isn't really any public support. Once we get to a situation where the general public is informed about the reality of climate changes and what it means, when the public really starts to organize and push for concrete action, that's when I think we're going to see the biggest impact.

How do you prepare for this kind of trek?

The preparation for this expedition, or for any expedition—it dominates your entire life. Every minute of every day. There are so many different aspects. Physically, you have to do hours of training every day, and then there's the mental preparation. And just shipping everything—you couldn't imagine how difficult it is to organize freight shipping from a dorm room. This expedition is more logistically intense than anything I've ever had to deal with in the past. There are permits that we had to get, because Antarctica is a very difficult environment to get permission to do anything in, it's tightly controlled by several different governments. In order to put something like this together, I have to be fully immersed in it.

I think you really have to love the idea of the expedition and working towards it. There are so many little things that need to be done that if it weren't for something that I really care about, it would bring me down really quickly. I have to put myself in a mindset where I don't just assume that something is not possible.