Kerry Escapes Heated Political Environment for Icy Climate

— -- Feeling like you need to get away after this grueling election cycle? Far, far away where you can really unplug?

If so you could join U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Antarctica, Earth's icy desert to the south where on a warm day temperatures may reach 110 degrees below zero.

Kerry became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Antarctica, and the first to travel to all seven continents, when he arrived Friday aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo aircraft. He even had to be fitted for special protective clothing for the extreme cold weather before boarding his departing flight from the Antarctica passenger terminal in New Zealand.

The State Department says Kerry's two-day visit is aimed at learning more about climate change. While there he'll visit McMurdo Station, the largest research station of the U.S. Antarctic Program, as well as surrounding areas on Ross Island, and the U.S. Government’s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, the State Department said.

Today he spoke at the Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area, which at 598,000 square miles is the world’s largest marine protected area.

Speaking there to several hundred scientists and others working on the continent, Kerry said that despite the global climate agreement reached in Paris, “we haven’t won the battle yet.”

Kerry did not comment directly on the election of Republican Donald Trump, who has called climate change a hoax.

But the secretary of state said citizens who care about limiting fossil-fuel emissions may have to march in the streets to demand more aggressive action. “We need to get more of a movement going,” Kerry said. “We need to get more people to engage.”

Kerry is scheduled to deliver a major climate speech at the global climate conference in Morocco next week.