Robert Swan is the first person to walk to the north and south poles.
Swan reached the South Pole on January 11, 1986, after 70 days of travel without any radio communication aid. Though he "did it for the excitement of being able to explore", the expeditions woke him up to massive environmental degradation taking place.
In 1986, he made the longest unassisted walk ever to the South Pole. Three years later he went onto the North Pole and by the age of 33, he became first person in history to walk to both North and South Pole.
He has been awarded the Polar Medal by her Majesty the Queen and today is special envoy for youth for the United Nations
During this treacherous walk across the Antarctic, Swan's once ice blue eyes changed color to become light grey. He later discovered that this was owing to the hole in the ozone layer that lies above the continent.
Throughout the 70-day walk that claimed nearly all of their lives, he made a promise to the frozen world that surrounded him. A promise that if she protected them and let them live, then he would repay her somehow. Begging for his life at the time, the promise was a mere offering to the polar gods to grant him and his team a safe passage home. Only later did he realize that the weight of that promise would sit on his shoulders for the rest of his life.
In Swan's own words: "The greatest danger to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it ... The last great exploration on earth is to survive on earth." So as I gaze out the window into my future, I hope to see Antarctica in my midst. I only hope that our children's children will see it in theirs too. When you gaze out of the window into your future, what do you see?
"The places I go to, are trying to tell us something," he says. After 28 years of several such expeditions in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions, Swan feels there is little time to waste. He is trying to engage school and college students across the world in mitigating these impacts.
"No one is going to save the world for us. I have seen polar bears die because the ice has melted away. When I went to the Arctic even 20 years ago, the entire ice cap had melted. It's remarkably disturbing," he adds.
But even alarming trends such as these have failed to shake nations out of slumber. "The attitude toward environmental degradation in the West is retarded. This inspired me to come here. I have hope because I have great access to young people who love me and will listen to me," he says.
Swan is on a 50-year mission. The Madrid Protocol provides additional protection for the Antarctic Treaty and designates the continent as a 'natural reserve land for science and peace'. It also bans mining and mineral exploration in the region for 50 years. But this moratorium expires in 2041. "I want to make sure that this one place on earth is left alone. If we start using renewable energy, people will not exploit Antarctica for resources in future," he says.
He is currently preparing for another major expedition to the South Pole in 2015, 30 years after his first. Swan says that it may be his last trip to the poles after which he will pass the responsibility for another 50-year Antarctica mission to his son and other youngsters. For now, he desperately hopes that the world will spare the 'last great wildernesses' for posterity
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"We are the most dangerous species of life on the planet, and every other species, even the earth itself, has cause to fear our power to exterminate. But we are also the only species which, when it chooses to do so, will go to great effort to save what it might destroy" -- Wallace Stegner
"Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money" -- Cree Prophesy
Let us all hope that we never bear witness to this day, for it be unimaginably sad. Let us instead react and respond to the myriad of problems facing our world and strive towards a more positive future where we live in greater equilibrium with our planet, our home, for she is all that we have.
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - Chinese philosopher Laozi
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