The Third Pole

The Third Pole PDF

Author: Mark Synnott

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2022-04-05

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 1524745596

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

***NPR Books We Love selection*** “If you’re only going to read one Everest book this decade, make it The Third Pole. . . . A riveting adventure.”—Outside Shivering, exhausted, gasping for oxygen, beyond doubt . . . A hundred-year mystery lured veteran climber Mark Synnott into an unlikely expedition up Mount Everest during the spring 2019 season that came to be known as “the Year Everest Broke.” What he found was a gripping human story of impassioned characters from around the globe and a mountain that will consume your soul—and your life—if you let it. The mystery? On June 8, 1924, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine set out to stand on the roof of the world, where no one had stood before. They were last seen eight hundred feet shy of Everest’s summit still “going strong” for the top. Could they have succeeded decades before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay? Irvine is believed to have carried a Kodak camera with him to record their attempt, but it, along with his body, had never been found. Did the frozen film in that camera have a photograph of Mallory and Irvine on the summit before they disappeared into the clouds, never to be seen again? Kodak says the film might still be viable. . . . Mark Synnott made his own ascent up the infamous North Face along with his friend Renan Ozturk, a filmmaker using drones higher than any had previously flown. Readers witness first-hand how Synnott’s quest led him from oxygen-deprivation training to archives and museums in England, to Kathmandu, the Tibetan high plateau, and up the North Face into a massive storm. The infamous traffic jams of climbers at the very summit immediately resulted in tragic deaths. Sherpas revolted. Chinese officials turned on Synnott’s team. An Indian woman miraculously crawled her way to frostbitten survival. Synnott himself went off the safety rope—one slip and no one would have been able to save him—committed to solving the mystery. Eleven climbers died on Everest that season, all of them mesmerized by an irresistible magic. The Third Pole is a rapidly accelerating ride to the limitless joy and horror of human obsession.

Water Quality in the Third Pole

Water Quality in the Third Pole PDF

Author: Chhatra Mani Sharma

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2019-11-12

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 0128175249

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Water Quality in the Third Pole: The Roles of Climate Change and Human Activities offers in-depth coverage of water quality issues (natural and human-related), the monitoring of contaminants, and the remediation of water contamination. The book's chapters assess years of research on water quality and climate change in this fascinating and scientifically important region. Topics addressed include climate change impacts on water qualities of freshwater bodies, such as glaciers, lakes, rivers and precipitation. In addition, the book explains the growing concerns over water quality, such as mercury, trace elements, major ions, persistent organic pollutants and their circulation. As such, it is an essential reference for academics and policymakers interested in the water quality of natural bodies. Identifies key issues and problems, focusing on water quality in the Third Pole region under the changing scenarios of global climate change Provides updated information on water quality in a compiled form, mainly from climatically and lithologically distinct Himalayan regions Highlights the local and long-range transported inputs of pollutants in water bodies

Protecting the Third Pole

Protecting the Third Pole PDF

Author: Simon Marsden

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1786437414

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This highly topical book considers the important question of how best to protect the environment of the Third Pole – the area comprising the Hindu Kush Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau – using the tool of international law. Following detailed analysis of the weaknesses in the current legal protections according to comparative legal theory, Simon Marsden recommends three potential options for implementation by policy and lawmakers.

Polar Environments and Global Change

Polar Environments and Global Change PDF

Author: Roger G. Barry

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-08-09

Total Pages: 445

ISBN-13: 1108423167

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Surveys atmospheric, oceanic and cryospheric processes, present and past conditions, and changes in polar environments.

Protection of the Three Poles

Protection of the Three Poles PDF

Author: Falk Huettmann

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-03-19

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 4431540067

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The Arctic, the Antarctic, and the Hindu Kush-Himalayas form a trio of terrains sometimes called “the three poles”. Mainly composed of rock, snow, and ice, these precious regions, which are home to many unique species such as the polar bear, the emperor penguin, and the snow leopard, contain the primary water resource of this planet and directly shape our climate. This book presents a first-ever global assessment and progressive review of the three poles and demonstrates the urgent need for their protection. Sins of the past have irrevocably harmed and threatened many of the unique qualities of these regions, and the future looks bleak with the global population forecast to reach 9 billion by 2060, and with climate change on the rise. Presented here is a wide-reaching and coherent overview of the three poles’ biodiversity, habitats, and ongoing destruction. Failed protection and social targets set by the United Nations and other bodies are exposed while economic growth, unconstrained or inappropriate development, and urban sprawl are promoted unabated. Polar regions play a major role in the global agenda as they are rich in oil and other resources, marking them for contamination, overfishing, and further degradation. Tourism in the Antarctic has benefited from enlightened self-regulation, but there are signs that this is changing, too. The chapters of this book are written by experts in their fields, and their evidence leaves no doubt that we already live beyond our carrying capacity on a finite but decaying space. A global protection role model and several outlook scenarios are proposed to help set in motion polar protection priorities that are actually valid. Humanity has demonstrated through international treaties such as the Antarctic Treaty and the Madrid Protocol that we can put the interests of the planet as a whole first. This must become the norm, not the exception.

The Water Kingdom

The Water Kingdom PDF

Author: Philip Ball

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-05-05

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 022647092X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

From the Yangtze to the Yellow River, China is traversed by great waterways, which have defined its politics and ways of life for centuries. Water has been so integral to China’s culture, economy, and growth and development that it provides a window on the whole sweep of Chinese history. In The Water Kingdom, renowned writer Philip Ball opens that window to offer an epic and powerful new way of thinking about Chinese civilization. Water, Ball shows, is a key that unlocks much of Chinese culture. In The Water Kingdom, he takes us on a grand journey through China’s past and present, showing how the complexity and energy of the country and its history repeatedly come back to the challenges, opportunities, and inspiration provided by the waterways. Drawing on stories from travelers and explorers, poets and painters, bureaucrats and activists, all of whom have been influenced by an environment shaped and permeated by water, Ball explores how the ubiquitous relationship of the Chinese people to water has made it an enduring metaphor for philosophical thought and artistic expression. From the Han emperors to Mao, the ability to manage the waters ? to provide irrigation and defend against floods ? was a barometer of political legitimacy, often resulting in engineering works on a gigantic scale. It is a struggle that continues today, as the strain of economic growth on water resources may be the greatest threat to China’s future. The Water Kingdom offers an unusual and fascinating history, uncovering just how much of China’s art, politics, and outlook have been defined by the links between humanity and nature.

The Gallows Pole

The Gallows Pole PDF

Author: Benjamin Myers

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-02-21

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1526611147

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

____________________ The inspiration for the BBC TV series, directed by Shane Meadows and starring Tom Burke, George MacKay and Thomas Turgoose WINNER OF THE 2018 WALTER SCOTT PRIZE ____________________ 'Powerful, visceral writing, historical fiction at its best. Benjamin Myers is one to watch' - Pat Barker 'Phenomenal' - Sebastian Barry 'Superb' - The Times ____________________ From his remote moorland home, David Hartley assembles a gang of weavers and land-workers to embark upon a criminal enterprise that will capsize the economy and become the biggest fraud in British history. They are the Cragg Vale Coiners and their business is 'clipping' – the forging of coins, a treasonous offence punishable by death. When an excise officer vows to bring them down and with the industrial age set to change the face of England forever, Hartley's empire begins to crumble. Forensically assembled, The Gallows Pole is a true story of resistance and a rarely told alternative history of the North. ____________________ 'One of my books of the year ... It's the best thing Myers has done' - Robert Macfarlane, Big Issue Books of the Year

North Pole, South Pole

North Pole, South Pole PDF

Author: Gillian Turner

Publisher: The Experiment

Published: 2011-01-11

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1615191321

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This “fantastic story” of one of physics’ great riddles takes us through centuries of scientific history (Simon Lamb, author of Devil in the Mountain). Why do compass needles point north—but not quite north? What guides the migration of birds, whales, and fish across the world’s oceans? How is Earth able to sustain life under an onslaught of solar wind and cosmic radiation? For centuries, the world’s great scientists have grappled with these questions, all rooted in the same phenomenon: Earth’s magnetism. Over two thousand years after the invention of the compass, Einstein called the source of Earth’s magnetic field one of greatest unsolved mysteries of physics. Here, for the first time, is the complete history of the quest to understand the planet’s attractive pull—from the ancient Greeks’ fascination with lodestone to the geological discovery that the North Pole has not always been in the North—and to the astonishing modern conclusions that finally revealed the true source. Richly illustrated and skillfully told, North Pole, South Pole unfolds the human story behind the science: that of the inquisitive, persevering, and often dissenting thinkers who unlocked the secrets at our planet’s core. “In recent years, many very good books for interested non-scientists have been published: Richard Dawkins’s Climbing Mount Improbable and The Ancestor’s Tale, Stephen Jay Gould’s The Lying Stones of Marrakech, and Dava Sobel’s Longitude and The Planets, to name some of them. North Pole, South Pole . . . is a worthy addition to that list . . . Turner has a great story to tell, and she tells it well.” —The Press (New Zealand)

The Impossible Climb

The Impossible Climb PDF

Author: Mark Synnott

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2019-03-05

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 1101986654

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES MONTHLY BESTSELLER One of the 10 Best Books of March, Paste Magazine A deeply reported insider perspective of Alex Honnold’s historic achievement and the culture and history of climbing. “One of the most compelling accounts of a climb and the climbing ethos that I've ever read.”—Sebastian Junger In Mark Synnott’s unique window on the ethos of climbing, his friend Alex Honnold’s astonishing free solo ascent of El Capitan’s 3,000 feet of sheer granite is the central act. When Honnold topped out at 9:28 A.M. on June 3, 2017, having spent fewer than four hours on his historic ascent, the world gave a collective gasp. The New York Times described it as “one of the great athletic feats of any kind, ever.” Synnott’s personal history of his own obsession with climbing since he was a teenager—through professional climbing triumphs and defeats, and the dilemmas they render—makes this a deeply reported, enchanting revelation about living life to the fullest. What are we doing if not an impossible climb? Synnott delves into a raggedy culture that emerged decades earlier during Yosemite’s Golden Age, when pioneering climbers like Royal Robbins and Warren Harding invented the sport that Honnold would turn on its ear. Painting an authentic, wry portrait of climbing history and profiling Yosemite heroes and the harlequin tribes of climbers known as the Stonemasters and the Stone Monkeys, Synnott weaves in his own experiences with poignant insight and wit: tensions burst on the mile-high northwest face of Pakistan’s Great Trango Tower; fellow climber Jimmy Chin miraculously persuades an official in the Borneo jungle to allow Honnold’s first foreign expedition, led by Synnott, to continue; armed bandits accost the same trio at the foot of a tower in the Chad desert . . . The Impossible Climb is an emotional drama driven by people exploring the limits of human potential and seeking a perfect, choreographed dance with nature. Honnold dared far beyond the ordinary, beyond any climber in history. But this story of sublime heights is really about all of us. Who doesn’t need to face down fear and make the most of the time we have?

To the Edges of the Earth

To the Edges of the Earth PDF

Author: Edward J. Larson

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2018-03-13

Total Pages: 453

ISBN-13: 006256451X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, a "suspenseful" (WSJ) and "adrenaline-fueled" (Outside) entwined narrative of the most adventurous year of all time, when three expeditions simultaneously raced to the top, bottom, and heights of the world. As 1909 dawned, the greatest jewels of exploration—set at the world’s frozen extremes—lay unclaimed: the North and South Poles and the so-called “Third Pole,” the pole of altitude, located in unexplored heights of the Himalaya. Before the calendar turned, three expeditions had faced death, mutiny, and the harshest conditions on the planet to plant flags at the furthest edges of the Earth. In the course of one extraordinary year, Americans Robert Peary and Matthew Henson were hailed worldwide at the discovers of the North Pole; Britain’s Ernest Shackleton had set a new geographic “Furthest South” record, while his expedition mate, Australian Douglas Mawson, had reached the Magnetic South Pole; and at the roof of the world, Italy’s Duke of the Abruzzi had attained an altitude record that would stand for a generation, the result of the first major mountaineering expedition to the Himalaya's eastern Karakoram, where the daring aristocrat attempted K2 and established the standard route up the most notorious mountain on the planet. Based on extensive archival and on-the-ground research, Edward J. Larson weaves these narratives into one thrilling adventure story. Larson, author of the acclaimed polar history Empire of Ice, draws on his own voyages to the Himalaya, the arctic, and the ice sheets of the Antarctic, where he himself reached the South Pole and lived in Shackleton’s Cape Royds hut as a fellow in the National Science Foundations’ Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. These three legendary expeditions, overlapping in time, danger, and stakes, were glorified upon their return, their leaders celebrated as the preeminent heroes of their day. Stripping away the myth, Larson, a master historian, illuminates one of the great, overlooked tales of exploration, revealing the extraordinary human achievement at the heart of these journeys.