TED talk: Roz Savage - Why I'm rowing across the Pacific (April 2010)

Rating: ***

Roz Savage was working as a management consultant in London, and in her mid 30s, started to really question if this is what she wanted to be doing for the rest of her life. She could live a normal life in this job, have a family perhaps, and be relatively happy. On the other hand, she could live the life of adventure and go out with a bang. She chose the second option.

In 2005, Savage rowed across the Atlantic ocean with only minor injuries and a big smile on her face. But this wasn't enough. She then went on to brave the Pacific ocean, which proved to be a bit more of a challenge. From the view from space of the Pacific, it covers nearly the whole area that you can see of that side of the globe. That's a lot of water. Savage decided she would split up the journey in three parts. First, to Hawaii, second, to Tarawa and then to Australia . Her first try ended in many capsizes causing her to abort the mission and try again in about 9 months. The second try was a little more successful although she was starting to run out of fresh water. Luckily there was another boat nearby sailing for the same reason as her, to raise awareness of the North Pacific garbage patch. It's an island in the Pacific twice the size of Texas with about 3.5 million tons of garbage in it. They ended up meeting up and trading some water for some food.

She ended up making it to Tarawa in 2009, and then continued her journey to Australia in 2010, making her a very passionate environmental campaigner.

Although this particular TED talk wasn't very exciting to watch, it brought up some vital points about our planet which is slowly deteriorating from human mistakes. For example, the fish in o ur oceans are becoming polluted just like the water. There were plastic pieces found in their stomachs which of course will flow toxic chemicals into their bodies. This toxic fish then makes its way to our dinner table. I agree very strongly about the message brought across from this video, which is that the use of plastic, whether it be bags or whatever else, should be strongly discouraged.