David Mayer de Rothschild

David Mayer de Rothschild (born August 25, 1978 in London ) is a British adventurer, ecologist and head of Adventure Ecology , an expedition group to raise awareness of climate change .

Life

Rothschild is the youngest of three children of Victoria Schott (* 1949) and Evelyn de Rothschild (* 1931) of the London branch of the Rothschild banking dynasty.

He studied politics and computer science at Oxford Brookes University and took a correspondence course in naturopathy at the London College of Naturopathic Medicine . In 2005 he founded Adventure Ecology. In 2006, he crossed the Arctic from Russia to Canada in around 100 days, which so far only a few people have managed. This made him the youngest Briton to reach both the North Pole and the South Pole . In addition, he was a member of the group that set a world record for the fastest crossing of the Greenland ice desert during the double crossing. In 2007 he received the GQ Award as Man of the Year in the Engagement category . In 2011 he was awarded the honorary prize of the German Sustainability Prize.

Expedition Plastiki

On April 28, 2009, the anniversary of the Kon-Tiki expedition, Rothschild planned to sail the Pacific Ocean from North America to Australia with a raft made of plastic bottles and recycled materials . At the beginning of March 2010 his catamaran Plastiki was finally ready after three years of preparation . On March 21st at 9:30 a.m. local time, the Plastiki with Rothschild and his crew set out for Sydney in Sausalito , California .

The trip of the Plastiki expedition was supposed to take about four months. An expedition to the so-called garbage vortex is also planned. This garbage vortex in the Pacific has reached the dimensions of Texas . With his trip he wants to demonstrate against the pollution of the oceans with plastic waste .

The garbage is washed into the sea via rivers. In many cases, landfill sites and wild rubbish dumps are also being dumped in the wasteland on rivers, swamps or sea coasts. Fishing is the largest polluter, accounting for 10%. Since plastic waste does not decompose, but only disintegrates into smaller and smaller pieces, it poses a major threat to marine fauna. The pollutants in the plastic parts reach people again via the fish's food chain .

On July 27, 2010 the Plastiki successfully reached Sydney and thus ended her Pacific crossing.

Works

• The Live Earth - Global Warming Survival Handbook , 2007, English, ISBN 978-1-59486-781-1
• Earth Matters ... An Encyclopedia Of Ecology , 2008, English, ISBN 978-1-4053-1888-4

Web links

• HVB Europe Forum 2007 : David de Rothschild
• David de Rothschild at Zeitgeist Europe 2007 (Youtube video).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Winner of the German Sustainability Award . German Sustainability Award Foundation. Archived from the original on April 6, 2014. Retrieved February 15, 2019.
2. ↑ Utopia.de: Traumschiff aus Plastikflaschen , March 1, 2010. Retrieved April 29, 2010.
3. ↑ FAZ.NET : Sailing trip for the environment. On 12,000 plastic bottles to Australia , March 21, 2010. Retrieved April 29, 2010.
4. ↑ Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety : "The garbage in the oceans" ( Memento of the original August 26, 2014 Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link is automatically inserted and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , January 10, 2013. Retrieved April 3, 2013.