Zitat des Tages von Lewis Gordon Pugh:
I can't think of anything more important than the environment we leave to our children and our children's children.
The problem with climate change is that it's quite complicated for the ordinary person to understand.
Swimming has been a very effective medium for telling a story about the state of our planet.
In the cold, all the blood rushes to your core to protect your heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, and brain. When you leave the water, the blood rushes back to your arms and legs, absorbs that freezing cold, and brings it back to the heart.
When I was born, the world's population was 3.5 billion. There are now 6.8 billion people on the planet. By 2050, that's expected to rise to 9.4 billion. What's more, the Earth's resources aren't growing; they're decreasing - and rapidly.
I think that I was slightly naive. I thought that if I showed people the beauty of the Arctic and the beauty of the polar bears that they would care so much that they would stand up and try to make a change.
I've been on swims where people have freaked out about sharks. You have to think about something else, otherwise it will absolutely paralyze you. I do math problems, anything.
I learned two basic lessons on Everest. First, just because something has worked in the past does not mean it will work today. Second, different challenges require different mindsets.
The human body is not designed for swimming in minus 1.7 degree centigrade water.
On my second swim at Deception Island, the water was very clear and I was looking at hundreds of whale bones beneath me. It was a graveyard from the whaling some time in the 1920s-30s.
I wish politicians would put the environment at the centre of every agenda.
We need to save the Arctic not because of the polar bears, and not because it is the most beautiful place in the world, but because our very survival depends upon it.
The days of exploration of Shackleton and Scott are long gone. Everything has been climbed, crossed, done. Now what we're exploring are the full boundaries of human endeavour. It's not physical - it's all in the head.
