"Climate change hugely underestimated: we’ve lost more than half the Arctic summer sea ice cover decades ahead of predictions"

Most courageous & greatest swimmer, to swim beyond extreme, bearing excruciating pain, not for gold medals but for fragile Nature. "I have chosen to swim. It’s my way of drawing attention to the oceans, & the fragile state of our nature," Lewis Gordon Pugh said, "we’ve lost more than half the Arctic summer sea ice cover decades ahead of predictions, showing climate change has been hugely underestimated. We must insist our leaders take urgent action..sea ice is melting fast.." "I have done very, very cold swims in the North Pole which was so cold that your life is on the line and it took me four months to feel my hands again." "I can’t think of a better way to show that climate change is a reality than by swimming in a place that should be totally frozen over." "This is not just about protecting a pristine environment, it's about saving ourselves."

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Lewis Gordon Pugh is the first swimmer in history to complete a long distance swim in all 5 oceans of the world, a feat which many had considered to be the "holy grail" of swimming. He also became the first person to complete a long distance swim in both the Arctic and the Antarctic.

"The water was absolutely black. It was like jumping into a dark, black hole. It was frightening. The pain was immediate and felt like my body was on fire. I was in excruciating pain from beginning to end and I nearly quit on a few occasions. It was without doubt the hardest swim of my life." This from a man who has already swum the entire 204 km length of Norway's longest fjord and splashed around the Barents Sea, Spitsbergen and Petterman Island, Antarctica.

So why did he do it? "I hope my swim will inspire world leaders to take climate change seriously," he says. "I am obviously ecstatic to have succeeded, but this swim is a triumph and a tragedy - a triumph that I could swim in such ferocious conditions but a tragedy that it’s possible to swim at the North Pole."

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Photos courtesy of Melody Deas / Hirt & Carter, Ananova, NASA, The London Speaker Bureau, and New Scientist

Original Source: Reader’s Digest, The London Speaker Bureau, Ananova, and New Scientist