|
|
|
|
Important Questions
Fri Sep 12, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook. Jack Williams, meteorologist, and editor of the
USA Today Weather Page, is out with a new book: The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Arctic and
Antarctic.
BRYAN: What's the one vision you might have for a layperson just picking up this book and
reading it?
JACK: Boy, one - the polar regions are a lot more complicated that you might think. You
know, there are polar bears in the north and penguins in the south but, also, a lot of other
interesting things. How life manages to survive in the oceans, these very cold oceans. And,
also, the people who do the research, both in the Arctic and in the Antarctic, what it's like.
Another part is the native peoples in the Arctic. In Alaska they call themselves Eskimos. In
Greenland and Canada they call themselves Inuit. But these people learn how to live in the
roughest climate on earth with some amazing stone-age technology.
BRYAN: So why should people go and buy this book? What's new and exciting?
JACK: A lot more than the science, but I have a chapter on "If you want to be a tourist."
How to go on a venture or trip to the South Pole or the cheap way to get to the Arctic Circle.
I have a chapter that has information on how to get a job in Antarctica and what it's like
down there. And I answer the big question everybody has "How do you go to the bathroom in
Antarctica?"
BRYAN: And the answer to that is ...?
The Weather Notebook is produced in New Hampshire by the Mount Washington Observatory, with
funding from Subaru of America and The National Science Foundation.
|
|
