TED Talk - Lewis Pugh: My mind-shifting Everest swim
Rating: ****
In July of 2007, Lewis Pugh swam 1 km in the North Pole in -1.7 degree Celsius water. He did this in hopes of raising awareness for climate change and how the ice in the North Pole is melting. His approach was to get pumped to help him prepare to dive into the freezing arctic water, and this worked for him, coming out of it in a time of 18.50 minutes. After this swim he swore to himself that he would never to do another cold water swim.
This was until 2010, when an issue arose in the Himalayans, The glaciers were starting to melt. This is a problem because millions of people rely on the water that flows from the Himalayan glaciers for drinking water. Lewis Pugh saw this as another opportunity to raise awareness for climate change, so he took the opportunity to swim across the 1 km lake Pumori in Mount Everest at an altitude of 5,300 meters and 2 degrees Celsius.
For this swim he took the same approach that he did for his swim in the north pole, but his first attempt failed because of this. He couldn't breath, and began to drown at some points. His crew had to pull him out and later gave him some advice. He would try again in two days and instead of crawling he would breast stroke, and instead of going aggressively he would take it slow. With these new techniques he conquered the swim and had come to a new realization: just because you have been doing something one way your whole life, doesn't mean you can't change it later on. This applies to his swim, and the way we live today, because we are part of the cause of climate change.
To hear his other "mind-shifting" ideas, you should watch this Ted Talk, I would really recommend it because it is really inspiring.
Resource:
"Lewis Pugh: My mind-shifting Everest swim TED: Ideas worth Spreading. July 2010. Web. 11 Jan. 2014.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lewis_pugh_s_mind_shifting_mt_everest_swim.html
Great review
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