Ah, swimmers! The 'other white meat'!
Posted on 05/28/2007 10:10:14 AM PDT by Zakeet
A British adventurer is planning to highlight the effects of global warming by becoming the first person to swim at the North Pole and break his own record for the coldest swim.
Sporting just a cap, trunks and goggles, Lewis Gordon Pugh will swim 1 km (0.6 miles) in water at a temperature of minus 1.8 degrees Celsius on July 15, a dip he expects to last 21 minutes.
Such a swim would have been impossible as little as 10 years ago because the water would have been frozen, Pugh says.
"Most people have no idea that you can find patches of open sea at the North Pole in summer," said Pugh, who set the record for the coldest human swim off Antarctica at 0 degrees Celsius.
"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. I hope it will ... put pressure on the leaders of the G8 summit to cut carbon emissions dramatically," he said in a statement.
Climate change is expected to be high on the agenda at a meeting of the Group of Eight leading industrial countries in Germany next month.
Last year Pugh broke his own world record for the longest ice water swim by covering 1.2 km in a fjord in the Norwegian mountains, staying in the water for 23 minutes 50 seconds.
Any normal person would hyperventilate, suffer extreme shock and drown within minutes of jumping into near freezing water, but Pugh -- nicknamed the Polar Bear because of his ability to withstand freezing temperatures -- is made of sterner stuff.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
what a moron. Sad part is that the general population of the planet is sooooooo uneducated that they will believe ANYTHING they are presented.
Stupidity is deadly.
17 years ago in April (not July), we had an exercise in the arctic, which included trips over the pole. There were plenty of leads open in the ice then.
In fact, we had to go rescue some Norwegians who thought it would be great fun to walk to the pole. The ice broke up enough where they panicked and called for help.
Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.
Polar Bear Club and groupies do this every year in Lake George, NY. They’re not in the water for very long, that’s for sure.
PBC has members in Alaska, too. New York doesn't have a corner on stupid. Most times, even in summer, the water is just enough above freezing to keep it from freezing. HOWEVER... I suspect that the melting ice in the Arctic has provided enough fresh water in some areas to raise the temperature to freezing, or just above.
(Silly me: If I use salted water to freeze my ice cream, I'm sure not going to try swimming in it...)
That's nothing! I can top that! I can walk around West Texas where there use to be ocean!
There is a north pole webcam if you want to watch the progress of this year's north pole melt. I don't trust the enhanced-software-generated graphics from the satellites that have been put out by the global warming crowd. I only trust real pictures or my own two eyes now.
Looks pretty cold at the north pole today.
Yes, as well as dozens of others over the last 50 years since the Nautilus did so in 1958.
Here's a picture of the USS Skate and USS Seadragon in 1962. Notice the open water to the left of the picture... in 1962.
A classic understatement.
Does anybody expect that this jomoke will actually do what he says he’ll do? He’s already gotten the publicity he wanted. He’ll be given a tv crew to accompany him up north and broadcast his ravings, then when he funks it they’ll give him more free publicity.
It’s the same old story.
The bus ticket alone must cost a fortune.
That`s a pretty neat picture.
One brave photographer.
Shackelton got pretty close to the South Pole in a sailing
ship,must have been some open water in 1914.
Not since the Northwest Passage froze over at the beginning of the Little Ice Age. It's getting back to what it was, although who knows if the trend will continue until the Northwest Passage is open again.
Now's a good time to do it, in case it turns out to be Global Cooling instead.
“He’ll probably be devoured by a polar bear.
Why would a polar bear want A stiff, frozen human when there are tasty live seals to munch on.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.