"I think that I was slightly naive"

An article on a guy's swim in 29 degree salt water is here.

Excerpt:

Following a route designated by flags planted along the ice, he made his 0.6 mile swim in a little more than 18 minutes, enough distance to qualify for an international record. (Others had briefly jumped into the polar water, but none had come close to traveling far enough to qualify as an official "swim.") Pugh suffered no long-term ill effects, though the fingers on one of his hands remained numb for several months afterward.
...
While his feat briefly made world headlines, Pugh laments that it hasn't had the impact he had hoped. He thought that by showing that someone could swim at the heart of the Arctic, the most northern place on Earth, world leaders would have been shaken into taking action against global warming.

Looking back, he says, "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."