Or not. Climate Change could also cause more snow to fall in the himalayas thereby covering them in great giant glaciers when the coming ice age really gets rolling.

I don't get it. Does he think Evil Global Warming will melt the ice cap on the mountain faster than the tectonic plates can raise the mountain up? Or is it that the poor mountain is endangered by the constant line of folks trekking up and down it ... oh the agony, somebody please protect this poor chunk of rock and ice!! Either way it sounds like a load of chum to me.

And whose "heritage" are we talking about anyway? His? The mountain has been around a few million years but nobody had ever been to the top before him. That was when, 1954 or so? And in the meantime perhaps a couple hundred, maybe a couple thousand people have followed. So the "heritage" is perhaps 50 years old. Still sounds like a load of chum. Bah!

Other possible interpretations:

3) Melting ice caps makes climbing the mountain too hazardous?

4) Global warming causes increased precipitation, which will wear the mountain down in just a few hundred million years?

5) The old guy's mind is gone. Didn't he first climb that mountain in the 30's? That would make him at least 90.

I'd like to hear an interview with his Sherpa. (You know, the native guy that also climbed the mountain - while carrying Sir Edmund's gear.)

Q. "What do you think of global warming?"

A. "Global what? It's f*cking cold up in these mountains."

Q. "We mean how burning fuels makes the world warmer."

A. "In that case, please burn more!"