-
Let's go south.
-
All of you are actually going south.
-
This is the direction of south, this way,
-
and if you go 8,000 kilometers
out of the back of this room,
-
you will come to as far south
as you can go anywhere on Earth,
-
the Pole itself.
-
Now, I am not an explorer.
-
I'm not an environmentalist.
-
I'm actually just a survivor,
-
and these photographs
that I'm showing you here are dangerous.
-
They are the ice melt
of the South and North Poles.
-
And ladies and gentlemen,
-
we need to listen to what
these places are telling us,
-
and if we don't, we will end up
with our own survival situation
-
here on planet Earth.
-
I have faced head-on these places,
-
and to walk across a melting ocean of ice
-
is without doubt
the most frightening thing
-
that's ever happened to me.
-
Antarctica is such a hopeful place.
-
It is protected by
the Antarctic Treaty, signed in 1959.
-
In 1991, a 50-year agreement
was entered into
-
that stops any exploitation in Antarctica,
-
and this agreement could be altered,
-
changed, modified, or even abandoned
-
starting in the year 2041.
-
Ladies and gentlemen,
-
people already far up north
from here in the Arctic
-
are already taking advantage
-
of this ice melt,
-
taking out resources from areas
already that have been covered in ice
-
for the last 10, 20, 30,000,
-
100,000 years.
-
Can they not join the dots
-
and think, "Why is the ice
actually melting?"
-
This is such an amazing place,
-
the Antarctic, and I have worked hard
-
for the last 23 years on this mission
-
to make sure that what's happening
up here in the North
-
does never happen,
cannot happen in the South.
-
Where did this all begin?
-
It began for me at the age of 11.
-
Check out that haircut.
It's a bit odd. (Laughter)
-
And at the age of 11,
I was inspired by the real explorers
-
to want to try to be the first
to walk to both Poles.
-
I found it incredibly inspiring
-
that the idea of becoming a polar traveler
-
went down pretty well with girls
at parties when I was at university.
-
That was a bit more inspiring.
-
And after years, seven
years of fundraising,
-
seven years of being told no,
-
seven years of being told
by my family to seek counseling
-
and psychiatric help,
-
eventually three of us found ourselves
marching to the South Geographic Pole
-
on the longest unassisted march
ever made anywhere on Earth in history.
-
In this photograph,
we are standing in an area
-
the size of the United States of America,
-
and we're on our own.
-
We have no radio
communications, no backup.
-
Beneath our feet,
90 percent of all the world's ice,
-
70 percent of all the world's fresh water.
-
We're standing on it.
-
This is the power of Antarctica.
-
On this journey, we faced
the danger of crevasses,
-
intense cold,
-
so cold that sweat turns
to ice inside your clothing,
-
your teeth can crack,
-
water can freeze in your eyes.
-
Let's just say it's a bit chilly.
(Laughter)
-
And after 70 desperate days,
we arrive at the South Pole.
-
We had done it.
-
But something happened to me
on that 70 day journey in 1986
-
that brought me here, and it hurt.
-
My eyes changed color
-
in 70 days through damage.
-
Our faces blistered out.
-
The skin ripped off
and we wondered why.
-
And when we got home,
we were told by NASA
-
that a hole in the ozone
had been discovered
-
above the South Pole,
-
and we walked underneath it
-
the same year it had been discovered.
-
Ultraviolet rays down, hit the ice,
-
bounced back, fried out the eyes,
-
ripped off our faces.
-
It was a bit of a shock,
-
and it started me thinking.
-
In 1989, we now head north.
-
Sixty days, every step away
from the safety of land
-
across a frozen ocean.
-
It was desperately cold again.
-
Here's me coming in from washing
-
naked at minus-60 Celsius,
-
and if anybody ever says to you,
-
"I am cold,"
-
if they look like this, they are cold,
-
definitely.
-
(Applause)
-
And a thousand kilometers,
-
a thousand kilometers, away
from the safety of land,
-
disaster strikes.
-
The Arctic Ocean melts beneath our feet
-
four months before it ever had in history,
-
and we're a thousand
kilometers from safety.
-
The ice is crashing around us, grinding,
-
and I'm thinking, "Are we going to die?"
-
But something clicked
in my head on this day,
-
as I realized we, as a world,
-
are in a survival situation,
-
and that feeling has never gone away
for 25 long years.
-
Back then, we had to march or die.
-
And we're not some TV survivor program.
-
When things go wrong for us,
it's life or death,
-
and our brave African-American Daryl,
-
who would become the first American
to walk to the North Pole,
-
his heel dropped off from frostbrite
-
200 clicks out.
-
He must keep going, he does,
-
and after 60 days on the ice,
-
we stood at the North Pole.
-
We had done it.
-
Yes, I became the first person in history
-
stupid enough to walk to both poles,
-
but it was our success.
-
And sadly, on return home,
-
it was not all fun.
-
I became very low.
-
To succeed at something's often harder
-
than actually making it happen.
-
I was empty, lonely,
financially destroyed.
-
I was without hope,
-
but hope came in the form
of the great Jacques Cousteau,
-
and he inspired me to take on
-
the 2041 mission.
-
Being Jacques, he gave me
clear instructions:
-
engage the world leaders,
-
talk to industry and business,
-
and above all, Rob, inspire young people,
-
because they will choose the future
-
of the preservation of Antarctica.
-
For the world leaders, we've been
to every Earth World Summit,
-
all three of them,
with our brave yacht "2041,"
-
twice to Rio, once in '92, once in 2012,
-
and for the Earth Summit in Johannesburg,
-
we made the longest overland voyage
-
ever made with a yacht,
-
13,000 kilometers around
the whole of southern Africa
-
doing our best to inspire
over a million young people in person
-
about 2041 and about their environment.
-
For the last 11 years,
-
we have taken over a thousand people,
-
people from industry and business,
women and men from companies,
-
students from all over the world,
-
down to Antarctica,
-
and during those missions,
we've managed to pull out
-
over 1,500 tons of twisted metal
left in Antarctica.
-
That took eight years,
and I'm so proud of it because
-
we recycled all of it back here
in South America.
-
I have been inspired
ever since I could walk
-
to recycle by my mum.
-
Here she is, and my mum,
-
my mum is still recycling,
and as she is in her 100th year.
-
Isn't that fantastic.
-
(Applause)
-
And when -- I love my mum.
-
(Laughter)
-
But when mum was born,
-
when mum was born,
the population of our planet
-
was only 1.8 billion people,
-
and talking in terms of billions,
-
we have taken young people
from industry and business
-
from India, from China.
-
These are game-changing nations,
and will be hugely important
-
in the decision about
the preservation of the Antarctic.
-
Unbelievably, we've engaged
and inspired women
-
to come from the Middle East,
-
often for the first time
they've represented
-
their nations in Antarctica.
-
Fantastic people, so inspired.
-
To look after Antarctica,
-
you've got to first engage people
-
with this extraordinary place,
-
form a relationship, form a bond,
-
form some love.
-
It is such a privilege
to go to Antarctica,
-
I can't tell you.
-
I feel so lucky,
-
and I've been 35 times in my life,
-
and all those people who come with us
return home as great champions,
-
not only for Antarctica,
-
but for local issues
back in their own nations.
-
Let's go back to where we began,
-
the ice melt of the North and South Poles,
-
and it's not good news.
-
NASA informed us six months ago
-
that the Western Antarctic Ice Shelf
-
is now disintegrating.
-
Huge areas of ice
-
-- Look how big Antarctica is
even compared to here --
-
Huge areas of ice are breaking off
-
from Antarctica,
the size of small nations.
-
And NASA have calculated
that the sea level will rise,
-
it is definite,
-
by one meter in the next hundred years,
-
the same time my mum
has been on planet Earth.
-
It's going to happen, and I've realized
-
that the preservation of Antarctica
-
and our survival here on Earth are linked.
-
And there is a very simple solution.
-
If we are using more renewable energy
in the real world,
-
if we are being more efficient
with the energy here,
-
running our energy mix in a cleaner way,
-
there will be no financial reason
-
to go and exploit Antarctica.
-
It won't make financial sense,
and if we manage our energy better,
-
we also may be able to slow down,
-
maybe even stop,
-
this great ice melt that threatens us.
-
It's a big challenge, and what
is our response to it?
-
We've got to go back one last time,
-
and at the end of next year,
-
we will go back to the
south geographic pole,
-
where we arrived 30 years ago on foot,
-
and retrace our steps of 1,600 kilometers,
-
but this time only using
renewable energy to survive.
-
We will walk across those icecaps
-
which far down below are melting,
-
hopefully inspiring some
solutions on that issue.
-
This is my son, Barney.
-
He is coming with me.
-
He is committed to walking
side by side with his father,
-
and what he will do is
to translate these messages
-
and inspire these messages
to the minds of future young leaders.
-
I'm extremely proud of him.
-
Good on him, Barney.
-
Ladies and gentlemen,
-
a survivor, and I'm good,
-
a survivor sees a problem
-
and doesn't go, "Whatever."
-
A survivor sees a problem
and deals with that problem
-
before it becomes a threat.
-
We have 27 years
-
to preserve the Antarctic.
-
We all own it.
-
We all have responsibility.
-
The fact that nobody owns it maybe means
that we can succeed.
-
Antarctica is a moral line in the snow,
-
and on one side of that line
we should fight,
-
fight hard for this one beautiful,
pristine place left alone on Earth.
-
I know it's possible.
-
We are going to do it,
-
and I'll leave you with
these words from Goethe.
-
I've tried to live by them.
-
"If you can do,
-
or dream you can,
-
begin it now,
-
for boldness has genius,
power, and magic in it."
-
Good luck to you all.
-
Thank you very much.
-
(Applause)
Yasushi Aoki
163
00:11:21,080 --> 00:11:22,427
I can't tell you.
=>
I can tell you.