Arctic Ocean, to the North Pole, but the team abandoned the effort 135 km from the start. The aim was to further highlight the melting sea ice. The expedition coincided with some scientists predicting that the North Pole could be free of sea-ice in the summer of 2008, for the first time in thousands of years. Pugh stated that despite several attempts, they were unable to find a gap in the ice. In his autobiography Pugh wrote: "Ironically, global warming played no small part in undermining the entire expedition. We believed that the greater melting of summer ice would open up large areas of sea and allow us to paddle north at good speed. What we did not fully appreciate was that to the north of us there was a widespread melting of sea ice off the coast of Alaska and the New Siberian Islands and the ice was being pushed south towards us ... The evidence of climate change was stark. Fourteen months before I'd sailed north and I'd seen a preponderance of multi-year ice about three metres thick north of Spitsbergen, but this time most of the ice was just a metre thick." Public speaking Pugh has twice spoken at the TED Global Conference and is described on their website as a "master story-teller". The Financial Times reported that his speech at TEDGlobal in 2010 was "the perfect TED talk". And his speech on environmental leadership at the 2008 Business Innovation Forum Conference in the USA was voted as one of the "7 Most Inspiring Videos on the Web" by Mashable, the social media guide. Pugh has addressed the World Economic Forum at their annual meeting in Davos. He also gave the keynote addresses at Coca-Cola's 125th anniversary in 2011, Lloyd's Agency Network's 200th anniversary in 2011, and Swiss Re's 150th anniversary in 2013. Environmental campaigning During his youth Pugh visited many National Parks in South Africa, following his father's desire to teach him to love and respect nature after what he had witnessed whilst serving in the Royal Navy. His father was present at the first British atomic bomb test in 1952 and a number of subsequent tests. In 2003 Pugh left his maritime law practice to campaign full-time for the protection of the oceans. He often addresses Heads of State and business leaders on the topics of climate change, overfishing and pollution and the need for