NEW YORK- UN Patron of the Ocean’s, Lewis Pugh, flew in a team including: a personal chef, masseuse, photographer, and PR specialist on jumbo jets from across the world to save the ocean. Pugh began each day of his 315-mile swim down the Hudson River with a salmon omelet. Fueled by animal agriculture and photographed by drones in the Adirondacks, Pugh tells public and UN someone else should take action to protect our waters. “My team needed fossil fuels to get here and I fueled my swim with animal protein because enough is enough. The UN must act to protect our oceans from diets like mine.” Said Pugh upon concluding his swim at Battery Park for Climate Week. “We must work together and collaborate for large scale governmental action to keep animal protein on the table and individual action off the table.”

While British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak did not attend Climate Week, he commented, “I’m inspired by Lewis’s swim and couldn’t agree with him more. A multi-sector, collaborative approach to climate change is imperative. With the UK delaying our net zero climate pledge, we urgently need other governments to take the action we don’t want to do ourselves.”

While Pugh is a pioneer of swimming for climate awareness, his Hudson River swim is not the only climate swim fueled on animal agriculture this year. New Zealand swimmer and environmentalist Jono Ridler swam 99km while eating meatballs to raise awareness about the health of the Gulf of Hauraki. His partners at the conservation charity, LiveOcean, posted billboards to get the attention of the New Zealand government, “We delivered Jono meatballs. Jono delivered his swim. Where is the action for the Gulf?” Ridler commented of his grueling 33-hour swim, “Nutrition is everything. With the meatballs from my crew’s dinner as fuel, I was able to send the message that we really need our government to take action so individuals don’t have to.” By proving it is easier to swim 99km than eat a plant-based diet, Ridler hopes the government will do something to protect the Gulf from the devastating effects of animal agriculture.

In another endurance swimming feat, a relay team of six swimmers completed a 24-hour swim in Lake Superior to raise awareness that they are climate martyrs too. “People think we just like swimming. But we also like getting attention. If we don’t get attention, how will anyone know about climate change?” one team member said to the local press. “Lake Superior is warming. I’m not willing to eat a plant-based diet- but I am willing to go on TV,” said another. “Climate change is an existential crisis and we’ve all got to do what we can.”

Not to be outdone in the quest for media attention in the name of conserving our planet’s waters, fitness influencer Ross Edgley made a second attempt at breaking Sarah Thomas’s world record for longest lake swim. While his attempt again fell embarrassingly short of Thomas’s record, Edgley stated, “I’m proud of all the social media content my team was able to make. Because people know and care that our sea levels and temperatures are rising, I’ve been able to make so much money on Instagram swimming for ocean conservation.” Edgley is confidant he can drink enough whey protein shakes to recover and make more content on his next failed record attempt in partnership with PhD Nutrition and Parley for the Oceans.