British endurance swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh, aka "the Polar Bear", will swim 1km. in water at a temperature of minus 1.8 degrees Celsius on July 15, a dip he expects to last 21 minutes. He is doing this to highlight the impact of climate change--such a swim would have been impossible as little as 10 years ago because the water would have been frozen. Climate change and rising temperatures are threatening the Arctic; species such as the polar bear, walrus and bowhead whale are under serious threat. Experts predict that by 2040, the Arctic may be nearly devoid of sea ice during the late summer unless greenhouse gas emissions are significantly curtailed. In preparation Pugh has increased his body weight from 87 kg to 105 kg by eating six meals a day, and has trained in a specially designed ice pool. He will spend his last month of training at a Norwegian glacial lake with Jorgen Amundsen, a relative of Roald Amundsen, the first man to reach the South Pole in 1911. The two of them will ski the last 10 km to the North Pole before the swim. Pugh has a bit of an obsession with endurance swimming: he is the first person to have completed a long-distance swim in both the Arctic and Antarctic waters, he swam the length of the river Thames ( 325km) and was the first to complete a long distance swim in all 5 oceans of the world. He says "This will be, by far, the hardest swim I've ever undertaken. I hope it will help illustrate the incredible seriousness of climate change and put pressure on the leaders of the G8 summit to cut carbon emissions dramatically." :: Reuters

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