Below is my response to a listener of NPR’s "Morning Edition Sunday" program. It is in reference to my previous post about the "Climate Connections" story about Robert Falcon Scott. This was written to NPR:
I must comment to a listener’s comment on your story about Robert Falcon Scott, the Antarctic explorer, on your March 30th program. The host claimed that there were many comments about the story and I was certainly surprised by the one you used. Valerie Spain’s comments really had nothing to do with the story itself. Spain wanted to make the statement that Scott’s actions in the quest for the South Pole were based purely on arrogance and stupidity.
I did not interpret Daniel Zwerdling’s “Climate Connections” story to be about judging Scott’s final expedition against Amundsen’s. The story was not about how the British government and press exploited Scott’s death. It was about both of Scott’s expeditions as pioneering attempts to conduct research in Antarctica. The second expedition was the attempt for pole and conducting further research in 1911.
Roald Amundsen should be commended for the expedition he carried out. It was done with efficiency and economy. He chose to use dogs to haul his sledges all the way to the pole for instance; Scott did not. Amundsen, the native Norwegian, had the insight for instance to live with Inuits (Eskimos) and learn the ways of extreme cold survival from them. One needs to be honest though that Amundsen was only after the pole. He had no intent of conducting scientific research.
I felt that Daniel Zwerdling’s story was more about how research and living in Antarctica had changed in the century since Scott’s time. Perhaps the book, The Last Place on Earth by Roland Huntford had jaundiced Valerie Spain. Huntford had it out to tear down Scott’s heroic legacy in little bits and pieces. It was a very good book in many ways in laying out all the events between the two expeditions and some about other polar explorers such as Nansen, Peary and Cook. However, Huntford’s poisoned pen laces the work with character assassination of Scott. Other books since then have had a more balanced approach. One of my favorites is The Coldest March, by senior NOAA researcher Susan Solomon. Her book looks at how the climatic conditions on the march back for Scott’s men were out of the norm, even for Antarctica. While taking into account Scott’s abilities, she uses real science and concludes that no matter the quality of preparation with the given resources of that era would have prevented their final fate.
I would urge Valerie Spain and others interested in the subject to read The Coldest March and other works on the subject for a more balanced view.
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