Life Examined cover image

Life Examined

Antarctic expedition: A treatise on climate change and motherhood

Dec 9, 2023
42:29

Elizabeth Rush, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth, describes her voyage to the most remote place on earth, Antarctica, to see the Thwaites Glacier, a crumbling sheet of ice the size of Florida. It’s melting so fast that it's known as the "doomsday glacier.” 

“The only thing I could think of as a metaphoric likeness was the wall in Game of Thrones,” says Rush. She shares her thoughts on individual climate action, carbon footprints, and how her experience in Antarctica framed her own dilemma on motherhood in a rapidly warming world. 

“If I'm gonna wish a child into this world, I have to wish this world upon that child, so I better be part of the change,” Rush says.

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