Swimming the North Pole –A Cautionary Tale

There is no doubt in my mind that the earth is going to hell in a hand-basket faster than I can say “Watch An Inconvenient Truth”. But for some out there, the doubt is still high in their minds, and they will try and prove it with any factoid they can find or create.

But after Lewis Gordon Pugh is done with his next adventure, we can only hope that some of those doubters finally hang up their qualms and jump on board the need to do something. Pugh, a British adventurer of much renown, plans to set about breaking his own record on July the 15th. The record? Coldest swim by a human. Location? The North Pole!

Yeah, that’s right; he’s going to swim at the North Pole. This raises so many questions for people it just isn’t funny. “You can swim at the North Pole?” is the first question many will ask. And the answer ‘yes’ is only applicable within the last ten or so years. Many North Pole expeditions are finding themselves having to abandon their quest simply because there are giant seas opening up across the polar ice-cap. So that there is water at the North Pole is already an issue we have to take seriously because, well, really people… it’s supposed to be ice!

But the real kick in the pants is that a human being is actually planning on doing this, and with full doctor’s approval. Normally the human body would hyperventilate, suffer extreme shock and drown within minutes of jumping into near freezing water. However, for the man who has swum in 0 degrees Celsius water in Antarctica and a fjord in the Norwegian mountains, his body has already adapted to such inhospitable temperatures.

In preparation though, Pugh has begun to eat 6 meals a day, increasing his body weight from 87kg to 105kg, and has been training in a specially designed ice pool.

The expected temperature for his swim of 21 minutes is minus 1.8 degrees Celsius. "This is the coldest water any human being will have swum in and Lewis has been extraordinarily dedicated," Professor Tim Noakes of the University of Cape Town, an expert on the effect of cold water on the human body, said in the statement released by Pugh of his own record breaking swim.

In the same statement, Pugh declared that he couldn’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. I hope it will ... put pressure on the leaders of the G8 summit to cut a deal.

Posted by Josh Hill

Video of Global Warming at North Pole

Comments

[Dave K. Welch]

That the climate is changing is not debatable. It has changed before and it will change again, with or without the existence of the human being. The evidence is everywhere. 55 million years ago the temperature in the arctic was an average 74f degrees and there was a run away CO2 event in progress. http://wcbstv.com/topstories/topstories_story_151144321.html

Unfortunately too many people are using the hysteria created by this for their own agenda, and it appears to be polarizing groups like the "enviromentalists" against.... hmmm, what would you call the other major group in this case? The problem here is the enviromental movement would like to come off appearing that they are battling big industry and saving the world for 'everyone', when to 'everyone' they come off like they are against the human being at all when the options as they seem to want to show them are 'nature' or 'us'. My step-daughter is a biologist in a university in the U.S. She is a classical enviromentalist. She thinks that the human condition is a temporary scar upon the world, that the world itself is more important than the human being. It's a surprisingly popular notion. They are appalled by mankinds arrogance. The other side of the equation is amused by such self loathing, and more than a little annoyed by the enviromentalists who ride upon the shirt tails of human acheivement; scheming from within their warm apartments while their clothes are going thru a spin cycle, tossing their barbs and occassional paint bomb from their holier than thou precipice.

[claudio]

True.
Climate changes always existed and are exactly below our noses/feets (artica-antartica).

How heavy is the human influence on climate is rather difficult to assess.

We need energy and clean energy is NOT yet available in sufficient quantity for us to develop and survive.

What would you chose between survival of human kind and survival of the planet ( provided and NOT demonstrated that we are the main reason for the planet to die) ???
I would chose humans.

Sorry for the environmentalist sister of the writer.

Regards
Claudio