The men had no communications equipment or backup support. The expedition, called In the Footsteps of Scott was led by Robert Swan and it was the longest unassisted walk in human history.
It took 70 days to reach the South Pole; and then they learned that barely three minutes earlier, their rescue ship, Southern Quest was crushed by pack ice and sank.
Three years later, Swan assembled another team for another expedition, Icewalk, this time to the North Pole, and became the only man ever to have walked to both poles.
Robert Swan is many things: motivational speaker, lecturer, adventurer, explorer, sailor and yachtsman, conservationist, writer, thinker, but most of all an ideologue for clean energy and the planet.
In 1992, he was the keynote speaker at the UN Earth Summit in Rio, when he committed himself to a global environmental mission involving youth, business and industry.
Four years later, his South Pole Challenge brought together 35 young adventurers from 25 nations. Their mission: to remove and recycle 1,500 tonnes of waste from the Antarctica. It took over eight years.
The garbage was gone; and, for the first time in nearly 50 years, the penguins had a home again. And it was here, in the wintry wasteland of Antarctica that Swan set up his first e-base, a self-sustaining, ecologically independent educational and research station.
Swan’s 67-foot racing yacht is christened 2041, as his website (www.2041.com). The reference is to the year in which the Madrid Protocol, which protects the Antarctica, is scheduled for debate.
The yacht is no indulgence. It is the icon of a bullet-proof idea: of our planet in peril, of the need to act. The yacht is remarkable: it is probably the only vessel with sails once made entirely of recycled PET products.
2041 voyaged to Johannesburg, supporting an AIDS charity. It raced from the Cape to Rio, circumnavigated Africa, participated in the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. From 2008 through 2012, the yacht sails around the world to promote renewable energy. Today, refitted, it operates entirely on wind, solar and biodiesel.
Last year, the 56-year-old Swan turned his attention to India and did so with the ferocity and impatience that define him. In November 2011, he launched the Ganges Expedition from Gangotri to the Goumukh Glacier. He set up a second e-base in Pench in Madhya Pradesh, with state-of-the-art gear powered entirely by renewable energy, to be used in tiger conservation.
Anyone else who has achieved half as much as Swan - he is today a special envoy to UNESCO’s Director-General and received an OBE in 1995 - might be tempted to leave it to others. Sir Robert’s voyages are far from over. As he puts it, “The last great exploration is to survive on earth.”
Excerpts from an e-mail Q&A a few days ago:
On your South Pole expedition, three minutes before you reached your goal, your rescue vessel sank. After 70 days and 900 miles over that terrain, this must have been a moment of indescribable despair. Yet you seem only to have found greater inspiration and resolve. What drives you?
Swan: Personal leadership is simple. One should think very very carefully before making a commitment, but once you make that commitment you should deliver on your word. Time and again, this simple code has pulled us through. I promised Jacques Cousteau and Sir Peter Scott, founder of the WWF, that we would leave Antarctica clear of rubbish and equipment. It took an extra year and much sacrifice but we delivered.
But what you do is surely too daunting for the average individual; and explorations of this kind are essentially solitary. Is it reasonable to expect the achievements of one exceptional explorer to inspire an entire movement?
Swan: The last great exploration left on earth is to survive on earth, as a species. My mission is to inspire the heroines and heroes of that exploration. This exploration requires commitment, holding on to a dream, and delivering. Using the story of our efforts, walking to the Poles, helps deliver that message. After all, we are the only people that can lead ourselves.
What do you believe is needed to establish an enduring movement for ecological conservation?
Swan: Education and inspiration. Here, in India, I see that it is really important that the youth are inspired not to import the unhappiness of the west. To be solely consumed by consuming is not the way. I also think that the education system is too narrowly focused on academics and not the whole person.
Your project 2041 has one springboard, but many hopes. Your initiatives range from the e-base in Antarctica to another in Pench, to the Ganges, on AIDS in South Africa, the ‘Wounded Warrior’ initiative for which you ran the Washington marathon. Aren’t you fighting on too many fronts to make any one of them viable?
Swan: There is, with all respect, one theme that runs through all these projects and that is the promotion and testing of renewable energy. To save Antarctica, if we use more renewables there will be no need to go there to exploit fossil fuels.
The Antarctic and Pench Ebases run only on renewables. The tiger is a great way to catch the youth of India. The wounded warriors come from the American Marine Corps, who are using and promoting the use of renewables - a spokesperson for 2041 who lost an arm or leg in Iraq for oil is powerful.
The AIDS campaign in South Africa 10 years ago was to find a relevant mission through which to talk to African youth on the Environment. My work in the Middle East is also for these reasons. The ultimate goal is to preserve the Antarctic in 2041 and, on the way, help people use more renewables - and thus ensure our survival on earth.
Many say that India’s commitment to conservation is weak and lacks sincerity; that India has no regard for its past or its future. How do you see India?
Swan: India sadly suffers from MAFA - Mistaking Articulation For Action. My small effort is to shock and inspire people to action. Of course 8% growth is India’s target. If that happens without regard to sustainability then you will have growth but without water, forests, air and no social or economic stability. I try to inform companies that their overseas customers will start to demand that they have engaged in sustainability. If the world’s largest company - Walmart - asks that question to its supply chains, that becomes the trend.
One thing which is hard to take here is that the majority of rich hide behind the poor and say “India only has one ton of carbon per person”. Yes, the 900 million have nothing. However the rich here have as bad a footprint, if not worse, than those in USA. The wealthy need to think about what they are doing, to look in the mirror.
On BBC’s Desert Island Discs in August 2000, you listed a mix of recordings: John Mills, Verdi and Puccini, Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Good Thing by FYC and your then favourite, Better Off Alone by Alice DeeJay. Eleven years on, what would you add to this list?
Swan: Infinity 2008 (Klaas Vocal Mix), 3:33, Guru Josh Project, Cream Future Trance [Disc 1] and Electronica 21.
In 1986, three men hauled 350-pounds of gear over 900 miles of frozen desolation, the terrifying terrain of Antarctica. The weather was brutal, the temperature mind-numbing, often below - 60 celsius even in the Antarctic summer.
The men had no communications equipment or backup support. The expedition, called In the Footsteps of Scott was led by Robert Swan and it was the longest unassisted walk in human history.
It took 70 days to reach the South Pole; and then they learned that barely three minutes earlier, their rescue ship, Southern Quest was crushed by pack ice and sank.
Three years later, Swan assembled another team for another expedition, Icewalk, this time to the North Pole, and became the only man ever to have walked to both poles.
Robert Swan is many things: motivational speaker, lecturer, adventurer, explorer, sailor and yachtsman, conservationist, writer, thinker, but most of all an ideologue for clean energy and the planet.
In 1992, he was the keynote speaker at the UN Earth Summit in Rio, when he committed himself to a global environmental mission involving youth, business and industry.
Four years later, his South Pole Challenge brought together 35 young adventurers from 25 nations. Their mission: to remove and recycle 1,500 tonnes of waste from the Antarctica. It took over eight years.
The garbage was gone; and, for the first time in nearly 50 years, the penguins had a home again. And it was here, in the wintry wasteland of Antarctica that Swan set up his first e-base, a self-sustaining, ecologically independent educational and research station.
Swan’s 67-foot racing yacht is christened 2041, as his website (www.2041.com). The reference is to the year in which the Madrid Protocol, which protects the Antarctica, is scheduled for debate.
The yacht is no indulgence. It is the icon of a bullet-proof idea: of our planet in peril, of the need to act. The yacht is remarkable: it is probably the only vessel with sails once made entirely of recycled PET products.
2041 voyaged to Johannesburg, supporting an AIDS charity. It raced from the Cape to Rio, circumnavigated Africa, participated in the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. From 2008 through 2012, the yacht sails around the world to promote renewable energy. Today, refitted, it operates entirely on wind, solar and biodiesel.
Last year, the 56-year-old Swan turned his attention to India and did so with the ferocity and impatience that define him. In November 2011, he launched the Ganges Expedition from Gangotri to the Goumukh Glacier. He set up a second e-base in Pench in Madhya Pradesh, with state-of-the-art gear powered entirely by renewable energy, to be used in tiger conservation.
Anyone else who has achieved half as much as Swan - he is today a special envoy to UNESCO’s Director-General and received an OBE in 1995 - might be tempted to leave it to others. Sir Robert’s voyages are far from over. As he puts it, “The last great exploration is to survive on earth.”
Excerpts from an e-mail Q&A a few days ago:
On your South Pole expedition, three minutes before you reached your goal, your rescue vessel sank. After 70 days and 900 miles over that terrain, this must have been a moment of indescribable despair. Yet you seem only to have found greater inspiration and resolve. What drives you?
Swan: Personal leadership is simple. One should think very very carefully before making a commitment, but once you make that commitment you should deliver on your word. Time and again, this simple code has pulled us through. I promised Jacques Cousteau and Sir Peter Scott, founder of the WWF, that we would leave Antarctica clear of rubbish and equipment. It took an extra year and much sacrifice but we delivered.
But what you do is surely too daunting for the average individual; and explorations of this kind are essentially solitary. Is it reasonable to expect the achievements of one exceptional explorer to inspire an entire movement?Swan: The last great exploration left on earth is to survive on earth, as a species. My mission is to inspire the heroines and heroes of that exploration. This exploration requires commitment, holding on to a dream, and delivering. Using the story of our efforts, walking to the Poles, helps deliver that message. After all, we are the only people that can lead ourselves.
What do you believe is needed to establish an enduring movement for ecological conservation?
Swan: Education and inspiration. Here, in India, I see that it is really important that the youth are inspired not to import the unhappiness of the west. To be solely consumed by consuming is not the way. I also think that the education system is too narrowly focused on academics and not the whole person.
Your project 2041 has one springboard, but many hopes. Your initiatives range from the e-base in Antarctica to another in Pench, to the Ganges, on AIDS in South Africa, the ‘Wounded Warrior’ initiative for which you ran the Washington marathon. Aren’t you fighting on too many fronts to make any one of them viable?Swan: There is, with all respect, one theme that runs through all these projects and that is the promotion and testing of renewable energy. To save Antarctica, if we use more renewables there will be no need to go there to exploit fossil fuels.
The Antarctic and Pench Ebases run only on renewables. The tiger is a great way to catch the youth of India. The wounded warriors come from the American Marine Corps, who are using and promoting the use of renewables - a spokesperson for 2041 who lost an arm or leg in Iraq for oil is powerful.
The AIDS campaign in South Africa 10 years ago was to find a relevant mission through which to talk to African youth on the Environment. My work in the Middle East is also for these reasons. The ultimate goal is to preserve the Antarctic in 2041 and, on the way, help people use more renewables - and thus ensure our survival on earth.
Many say that India’s commitment to conservation is weak and lacks sincerity; thatIndia has no regard for its past or its future. How do you see India?
Swan: India sadly suffers from MAFA - Mistaking Articulation For Action. My small effort is to shock and inspire people to action. Of course 8% growth is India’s target. If that happens without regard to sustainability then you will have growth but without water, forests, air and no social or economic stability. I try to inform companies that their overseas customers will start to demand that they have engaged in sustainability. If the world’s largest company - Walmart - asks that question to its supply chains, that becomes the trend.
One thing which is hard to take here is that the majority of rich hide behind the poor and say “India only has one ton of carbon per person”. Yes, the 900 million have nothing. However the rich here have as bad a footprint, if not worse, than those in USA. The wealthy need to think about what they are doing, to look in the mirror.
On BBC’s Desert Island Discs in August 2000, you listed a mix of recordings: John Mills, Verdi and Puccini, Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Good Thing by FYC and your then favourite, Better Off Alone by Alice DeeJay. Eleven years on, what would you add to this list?Swan: Infinity 2008 (Klaas Vocal Mix), 3:33, Guru Josh Project, Cream Future Trance [Disc 1] and Electronica 21.
The men had no communications equipment or backup support. The expedition, called In the Footsteps of Scott was led by Robert Swan and it was the longest unassisted walk in human history.
It took 70 days to reach the South Pole; and then they learned that barely three minutes earlier, their rescue ship, Southern Quest was crushed by pack ice and sank.
Three years later, Swan assembled another team for another expedition, Icewalk, this time to the North Pole, and became the only man ever to have walked to both poles.
Robert Swan is many things: motivational speaker, lecturer, adventurer, explorer, sailor and yachtsman, conservationist, writer, thinker, but most of all an ideologue for clean energy and the planet.
In 1992, he was the keynote speaker at the UN Earth Summit in Rio, when he committed himself to a global environmental mission involving youth, business and industry.
Four years later, his South Pole Challenge brought together 35 young adventurers from 25 nations. Their mission: to remove and recycle 1,500 tonnes of waste from the Antarctica. It took over eight years.
The garbage was gone; and, for the first time in nearly 50 years, the penguins had a home again. And it was here, in the wintry wasteland of Antarctica that Swan set up his first e-base, a self-sustaining, ecologically independent educational and research station.
Swan’s 67-foot racing yacht is christened 2041, as his website (www.2041.com). The reference is to the year in which the Madrid Protocol, which protects the Antarctica, is scheduled for debate.
The yacht is no indulgence. It is the icon of a bullet-proof idea: of our planet in peril, of the need to act. The yacht is remarkable: it is probably the only vessel with sails once made entirely of recycled PET products.
2041 voyaged to Johannesburg, supporting an AIDS charity. It raced from the Cape to Rio, circumnavigated Africa, participated in the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. From 2008 through 2012, the yacht sails around the world to promote renewable energy. Today, refitted, it operates entirely on wind, solar and biodiesel.
Last year, the 56-year-old Swan turned his attention to India and did so with the ferocity and impatience that define him. In November 2011, he launched the Ganges Expedition from Gangotri to the Goumukh Glacier. He set up a second e-base in Pench in Madhya Pradesh, with state-of-the-art gear powered entirely by renewable energy, to be used in tiger conservation.
Anyone else who has achieved half as much as Swan - he is today a special envoy to UNESCO’s Director-General and received an OBE in 1995 - might be tempted to leave it to others. Sir Robert’s voyages are far from over. As he puts it, “The last great exploration is to survive on earth.”
Excerpts from an e-mail Q&A a few days ago:
On your South Pole expedition, three minutes before you reached your goal, your rescue vessel sank. After 70 days and 900 miles over that terrain, this must have been a moment of indescribable despair. Yet you seem only to have found greater inspiration and resolve. What drives you?
Swan: Personal leadership is simple. One should think very very carefully before making a commitment, but once you make that commitment you should deliver on your word. Time and again, this simple code has pulled us through. I promised Jacques Cousteau and Sir Peter Scott, founder of the WWF, that we would leave Antarctica clear of rubbish and equipment. It took an extra year and much sacrifice but we delivered.
But what you do is surely too daunting for the average individual; and explorations of this kind are essentially solitary. Is it reasonable to expect the achievements of one exceptional explorer to inspire an entire movement?Swan: The last great exploration left on earth is to survive on earth, as a species. My mission is to inspire the heroines and heroes of that exploration. This exploration requires commitment, holding on to a dream, and delivering. Using the story of our efforts, walking to the Poles, helps deliver that message. After all, we are the only people that can lead ourselves.
What do you believe is needed to establish an enduring movement for ecological conservation?
Swan: Education and inspiration. Here, in India, I see that it is really important that the youth are inspired not to import the unhappiness of the west. To be solely consumed by consuming is not the way. I also think that the education system is too narrowly focused on academics and not the whole person.
Your project 2041 has one springboard, but many hopes. Your initiatives range from the e-base in Antarctica to another in Pench, to the Ganges, on AIDS in South Africa, the ‘Wounded Warrior’ initiative for which you ran the Washington marathon. Aren’t you fighting on too many fronts to make any one of them viable?Swan: There is, with all respect, one theme that runs through all these projects and that is the promotion and testing of renewable energy. To save Antarctica, if we use more renewables there will be no need to go there to exploit fossil fuels.
The Antarctic and Pench Ebases run only on renewables. The tiger is a great way to catch the youth of India. The wounded warriors come from the American Marine Corps, who are using and promoting the use of renewables - a spokesperson for 2041 who lost an arm or leg in Iraq for oil is powerful.
The AIDS campaign in South Africa 10 years ago was to find a relevant mission through which to talk to African youth on the Environment. My work in the Middle East is also for these reasons. The ultimate goal is to preserve the Antarctic in 2041 and, on the way, help people use more renewables - and thus ensure our survival on earth.
Many say that India’s commitment to conservation is weak and lacks sincerity; thatIndia has no regard for its past or its future. How do you see India?
Swan: India sadly suffers from MAFA - Mistaking Articulation For Action. My small effort is to shock and inspire people to action. Of course 8% growth is India’s target. If that happens without regard to sustainability then you will have growth but without water, forests, air and no social or economic stability. I try to inform companies that their overseas customers will start to demand that they have engaged in sustainability. If the world’s largest company - Walmart - asks that question to its supply chains, that becomes the trend.
One thing which is hard to take here is that the majority of rich hide behind the poor and say “India only has one ton of carbon per person”. Yes, the 900 million have nothing. However the rich here have as bad a footprint, if not worse, than those in USA. The wealthy need to think about what they are doing, to look in the mirror.
On BBC’s Desert Island Discs in August 2000, you listed a mix of recordings: John Mills, Verdi and Puccini, Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Good Thing by FYC and your then favourite, Better Off Alone by Alice DeeJay. Eleven years on, what would you add to this list?Swan: Infinity 2008 (Klaas Vocal Mix), 3:33, Guru Josh Project, Cream Future Trance [Disc 1] and Electronica 21.
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Keynote Motivational Speakers
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