Lewis Gordon Pugh

The days of exploration of Shackleton and Scott are long gone. Everything has been climbed, crossed, done. Now what we're exploring are the full boundaries of human endeavour. It's not physical - it's all in the head.

When I was born, the world's population was 3.5 billion. There are now 6.8 billion people on the planet. By 2050, that's expected to rise to 9.4 billion. What's more, the Earth's resources aren't growing; they're decreasing - and rapidly.

We need to save the Arctic not because of the polar bears, and not because it is the most beautiful place in the world, but because our very survival depends upon it.

Normally I don't race other people; I challenge the environment and my own limitations.

In the cold, all the blood rushes to your core to protect your heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, and brain. When you leave the water, the blood rushes back to your arms and legs, absorbs that freezing cold, and brings it back to the heart.

I can't think of anything more important than the environment we leave to our children and our children's children.

I think that I was slightly naive. I thought that if I showed people the beauty of the Arctic and the beauty of the polar bears that they would care so much that they would stand up and try to make a change.

The problem with climate change is that it's quite complicated for the ordinary person to understand.

Climate change is the Everest of all problems, the thorniest challenge facing humankind.

The human body is not designed for swimming in minus 1.7 degree centigrade water.

I just never, ever want to give up. Most battles are won in the 11th hour, and most people give up. If you give up once, it's quite hard. If you give up a second time, it's a little bit easier. Give up a third time, it's starting to become a habit.

On my second swim at Deception Island, the water was very clear and I was looking at hundreds of whale bones beneath me. It was a graveyard from the whaling some time in the 1920s-30s.