Where on earth are we going ?

It all started rather badly thinking that the talk was starting in a different place at a different time. It was not in the cold, timeless expanse of the Dome, where it is so often permanently dark or permanently light, but in the warmer climes of the Pavilion Theatre. Hot footed we arrived.

Gabriele Walker was one of those expansive, stimulating presenters that opened up new horizons, with her warm engaging style; she was anything but frigid. Caroline Lucas chaired this discussion excellently with many thoughtful but sympathetic questions, which offered opportunities for lateral thinking that transported us to another ethereal dimension.

Gabriele Walker has one of those CV’s that ensure there are no trivial questions. She has degrees at Oxford and Cambridge, where she has also lectured, is a writer of several books, she is broadcaster on Radio 4, a climate change expert and author of Antarctica. She is probably a 3 *** Michelin Chef, astronaut, a chess grandmaster, captain of England’s women’s cricket team, while supporting a family of 5 in her spare time. Certainly she is eloquent, while her hand movements are so articulate that her conducting of delightfully, old fashioned slides made language almost redundant.

I came to this talk somewhat arrogantly. I thought that as I had seen the Frozen Planet, with its extraordinary photography and the authoritative monologue of David Attenborough, that there would be little new to learn. How wrong can you be?

Yes, there were the expected descriptions of the tranquillity of being there, away from e-mails, mobile phones meetings and the media. But it was not an overwhelming sense of isolation that was conveyed but one of being at harmony and community with colleagues of all nationalities in different camps, whose potential rivalry was overwhelmed by the power and the majesty of the continent. .

Fascinatingly this strength was not through a process of homogenisation, or the melting pot theory, but somewhere that cultural identities were celebrated – the Italians with the best clothes, the French with the best cuisine, the Americans at the centre of everything, and the British – well we did not hear this- but may be the best conversationalists on the different kinds of weather. There was strength in diversity and great strength in cooperation together. It took me back to the humble and apparently prosaic allotments that also have their own beauty, diversity and communities.

Her description of losing all sense of being and of space in the “white outs”, where shadows are banished and contrasts in colours and texture merge into the space around you, was an extra-ordinary narrative on a physical and metaphysical experience.

Penguins could not be kept out of the conversation, though I was not expecting her to tell us that that Ernest Shackleton and penguins shared many things in common and were her local heros. No it was not that Penguins and Shackleton’s team were loveable animals, cuddling together to keep warm and survive, nor was it that they shared the importance of being Earnest. It was not that penguins ( and people) would push and whack people (and penguins) out of the way, it was not even that there was a synergy with carefully controlled tourism that protected penguins from predatory Scuas.

Their similarity was that though Shackleton and Penguins show extraordinary strength in coping with the extremes of climate, they both knew when to cut their losses and adopt a new strategy. Not many of us know that before Captain Scott’s tragic journey to the South Pole, Shackleton had been within 100 miles of the Pole but turned around as his calculations showed he would not have enough supplies to return safely. Similarly male penguins know when to give up incubating eggs, if the mother penguin fails to return after months away feeding and the males are close to starvation. Furthermore they both had this extraordinary ability to navigate precisely over thousands of miles in the most extreme of weathers.

There were of course odd snippets of new unexpected information.

*That snow petrols are not white angels but fight each other, sometimes to the death, for nesting sites with foul smelling spit, claws and beaks.

*That the Russians took major risks of polluting pristine under ice lakes by drilling into them and taking short cuts so that they (and Putin) could triumph as a nation.

* That the water and ice, two miles deep, includes frozen air that was trapped millions of years ago when the continent was inhabited by dinosaurs.

* That, under the pressure of the ice, some rivers flow uphill.

*That the Antarctic it is the prime location in the world for Moon rock, Mars bars, Milky ways and Galaxies. (Quite a confectionary shop).

Before I eulogise too much, the one niggle that brought me down to earth was Gabriel Walker saying so often that a question was good. It was somewhat patronising even though there were many good questions from this well informed audience.

However what I probably enjoyed most was the debunking of many myths and the lack of clichés or sweeping generalisations. Antarctica was not at risk, she argued eloquently, it was we who were at risk as so much ice is breaking away. Icebergs were often the size of the Titanic but some were the size of the city, Belfast, in which the Titanic was built.

The Antarctic has an immense amount of ice and we were under threat even if only a fraction of this ice melts. Gabriel Walker was not particularly concerned about mineral exploitation, as (despite our arrogance) this was very unlikely as the continent has such immense strength in the magnitude of its defence systems that she described in detail.

We came away with a warm feeling and set off for the Earth and Stars to enjoy the guest ciders – one that had matured in old, dark rum barrels. These barrels of cider would not survive long in Antarctica but they were certainly heavenly, taking me to outer space. .

PS Look out for gardening events on the Earth and under the Stars in the Fringe festival at Preston Park on Sunday!

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