One Quick Story

"I just hope that my swim has brought home the message that we have to do all we can to tackle climate change." Lewis Pugh

News that environmentalist, Lewis Pugh has completed his challenge to swim the length of the Thames. I have been following this story for a couple of weeks now, and meant to post updates on his progress, however, he's finished before I have even started. Oops. This was the first reference I read about his endeavour to swim the length of the Thames, some 200 miles, in order to raise awareness about climate change, related to a WWF (see links) campaign. It's from about three weeks ago in the Independent.

British-born Pugh has completed several endurance swims, and was the first person to undertake a long-distance swim in each of the five major oceans earlier this year. This journey began in Kemble, Gloucestershire and opened on foot, running the first 19 miles, since there wasn't enough water to swim. He then travelled downstream, aiming to reach the North Sea at Southend- on-Sea in Essex.

On Thursday, he broke his journey in order to pop into central London to visit Tony Blair. Here's the BBC's article about his visit, describing his brief chat with the PM and the message he delivered. Blair restated his commitment to empowering people to reduce carbon emissions, however, Pugh suggested that the head should go to the poles to see first hand the damage being done: 'I told him I wanted him to come to the Arctic or Antarctic one day because I think a world leader shold go there. He said he would love to come.' This to me seems a rather dubious course of action in trying to reduce CO2 emissions: encouraging long-haul flights? I don't see any need for our policy-makers to see the damage first-hand. That's why we have elected scientists to inform us. In any case, Pugh also told Blair about how cumbersome his journey had been made by the unexpected drought and hot weather, not least of all the lack of water forcing him to walk frequently.

On finishing the journey today, he claimed that it was the toughest of all the endurance swims he's attempted. Here's coverage of that proud moment. Here's a link to his own website, this is WWF's page dedicated to Pugh's swim.

2-minute catch-up

Just a quick post to keep the blog ticking over. I'm sorry not to have been able to post for a week or so, and I don't think I'll have much chance over the coming weeks either, but I haven't stopped thinking about the blog and reading the articles that I think should be covered, so I will try at some stage to write a proper post.

In the meantime, it's a fair amount of bad news. The heatwave has continued to cause disruption and environmental chaos, including fires; the Middle East's catastrophe has caused serious damage to the Syrian coast due to an oil spill from Israeli bombardments on a Lebanese power plant; bad news for Vancouver Island as logging gets the go-ahead in UNESCO area; China has suffered a typhoon since I last wrote; a pesticide spill in Australia has killed many fish and damaged the natural area; BBC's been covering reports on the potential damage to the British coast of dredging in terms of erosion; the media has been attached for its treatment of climate change as scare-mongering; there has been indignation as a bishop has labelled environmental destruction as sinful; another breed of whales looks set to face extinction; and cars in the States seem to be less fuel efficient than they were a decade ago. I'll come back and look at some of these stories properly soon, and flag up useful links too.

Maybe next time I write, there will be more cause for optimism, let's hope there are a few more positive stories this week...