Kim Stanley Robinson “The Worst Trip in the World”, INCS 2020 “GREEN” USC conference in Los Angeles, 03/06/20

Robinson's speech Friday recounted three explorers' perilous journey in 1911 through the Antarctic regions of Ross Island, as well as his own trek in 2016 to see the sites of their struggle, their huts and their artifacts. He spoke frankly, as if we were all huddled around a fire rather than sitting in a conference ballroom. Photos of vast snow landscapes and frozen faces, his own and those of the explorers, reinforced the effect. Although The Worst Journey in the World (1922), written by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the youngest member of the trio for over a decade, details the absurdity and potentially deadly nature of a mission to find eggs of penguin, according to Robinson's reading. , the trip was motivated as much by falling in love with the world as by science. While that seems incredible in the face of temperatures well below zero, Robinson's palpable enthusiasm had the audience enthused. Like young Cherry-Garrard, captivated and ready to go, University of Southern California undergraduates attended the conference and enthusiastically participated in the question-and-answer session. Robinson, a Hugo Award-winning science fiction writer, attracted not only a new audience of young people to INCS, but also Los Angeles residents and members of the USC community who purchased daily passes in a spirit of public humanity.

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