27 November 2020

Popstar Lorde calls for climate change action after visit to Antarctica

New Zealand popstar Lorde has called for urgent action on climate change after visiting Antarctica.

Her comments come after she announced earlier this week that she was preparing to release a 100-page book called Going South based on her experiences there.

Lorde is preparing to release a book about her time in Antarctica

(EMPICS Entertainment)

“I envisioned Antarctica slowly turning to slush, flooding the Southern ocean," she said in New Zealand’s Metro magazine.

"The urgency I had once felt about making the trip south returned. I made phone call after phone call, got several dozen booster shots, and then it was happening – this dreamy musician was hitching a ride to the end of the world."

Lorde’s desire to go to Antarctica was fuelled by her concern over Donald Trump withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, but she admits to  having reservations about the trip.

"Being in Antarctica isn’t always fun, exactly," she added. "It’s thrilling and spiritually intense, but as the days go on, I find it hard to shake the thought that I really shouldn’t be here.

"It’s so clearly not an environment fit for humans to inhabit. The sheer effort it takes me to stay alive for five days while the continent does its best to expel me is exhausting.

"Being in Antarctica has clarified how deeply vulnerable, how in need of protection, it is. But it took coming here for that knowledge to galvanise – and in coming here, I have also been a small part of its deterioration."

A postgraduate scholarship created by Antarctica New Zealand will receive all proceeds from Lorde’s book.

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