Last Looks

Ma Li, a Chinese traveler, has spent the last 20 years visiting 125 countries and regions around the world, including Mt. Qomolangma (Everest) and the North and South Poles. She has done the world's highest bungy jump (216 meters) in Tsitsikamma, South Africa. She has tried parachute jumping in the Namib Desert, in Namibia and Angola. The Cape of Good Hope, Cape Point, the North Cape in Norway and the East Cape in New Zealand are also extreme points where she has left her footprints.

"I am neither a scientist nor a researcher; I am just an ordinary person. In my eyes the world is just awesome, but I worry about it as I have encountered kinds of extreme weather caused by global warming," says Ma, and lists them. "Tornadoes, dust storms, forest fires, droughts, mudslides, cold snaps and mountain floods." She feels she has a responsibility to tell more people that actions to tackle climate change will brook no delay.

Ma is the first Chinese woman to have swum at the North Pole, but has mixed feelings toward this experience: "A decade ago the North Pole was completely covered by thick ice, thanks to global warming, not anymore. Ordinary people like me can swim at the North Pole now. I don't know if I should feel happy or sad about that."

"I took pictures of polar bears stranded on ice floes when I was on a ship," says Ma. As Arctic ice diminishes, which it is doing at an ever faster rate, the distances between land masses becomes greater. Although these creatures are well adapted to the water, longer swims can reduce their body temperature to dangerous lows and make them more vulnerable. If there is a violent storm, they will likely drown in an ocean from which there is little escape.

A report from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) forecasts that two-thirds of the world's polar bears could disappear by 2050 because of thinning sea ice from global warming. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) points out that currently the existence of about 44,800 species on the earth are threatened, out of which at least 16,900 species, representing 38 percent, are near extinction.