Jacques Cousteau’s advice to his protégé Robert Swan was simple: If you’re going to inspire people to change their ways, you’re going to need a story.

And though it didn’t prove easy for the British polar explorer and motivational speaker, Mr. Swan took the words to heart, making his life the anecdote in an argument for renewable energy.

On Saturday, he brought his story, complete with slideshow and a list of first-ever accomplishments, to the Chilmark Community Center as part of his Voyage for Cleaner Energy, a lecture series with 67-foot solar sailboat in tow to inspire others to more sustainable energy practices.

It was part autobiographical call for change and part how-to leadership guide.

“Twenty years ago, I witnessed personally what people are now engaged with, and that is climate change and ice caps melting,” Mr. Swan said before his speech, referring to the Arctic and Antarctic explorations that made him the only person in history to walk to both the north and south poles. “I saw this with my own eyes.”

His story is one of overcoming economic and physical obstacles to chase a dream that started at age 11, when he became fascinated with the idea that no one owns Antarctica. From 1979 he spent five years raising $5 million to travel to the South Pole. He and his two teammates walked for 70 days across a continent roughly twice the size of Australia dragging behind them 350-pound sleds. By the time he reached the pole, Mr. Swan had lost 68 pounds.

But something else happened to him. His eyes changed color and his skin burnt away, the effects of the hole in the ozone layer that was largely unknown at the time.

He remembered with disgust that when he got home and went on talk shows, he was asked stupid questions, not about the effects of pollution.

“Got to ask you, Bob,” he said, imitating an annoying British interviewer. “Was it cold?”

On his way to the North Pole in 1989 he witnessed unseasonable melting that created a body of water where there should have been a vast expanse of ice.

“What we were seeing was global warming,” he said. “What I was seeing was death.”

When Mr. Swan returned, Jacques Cousteau, his patron, asked him to use his story for the preservation of the Antarctic. Acting on that promise, Mr. Swan is on a self-declared 50-year mission that ends in 2041, when the protection provided by the Madrid protocol which bans mining and mineral exploration in Antarctica runs out.

In April of this year, Mr. Swan launched the Voyage for Cleaner Energy, a lecture series at 22 universities on the West Coast and places such as Martha’s Vineyard, New York city and Washington, D.C., on the east coast.

At every stop, he is followed by his aptly named yacht, the 2041, which pulled into Edgartown at the beginning of last week. Powered by solar, biodiesel and wind, the boat is a floating mascot for sustainable energy.

“We’re there to get people’s attention,” said the boat’s captain, Mark Kocina. “To show that it’s possible. Sort of walk the walk.”

The boat’s motor has been converted to run on vegetable oil and other biofuels. Its wind generators and solar panels provide enough energy to power its television, lights, refrigerator and equipment.

“We are entirely independent of fossil fuels,” said Jake Barrett, a 22-year-old member of the 2041’s crew. “Except for the barbecue. Propane is our major downfall.”

The yacht can sleep 10, but they usually maintain a crew of three to five. The beds are like shelves in the wall, the rooms are like cubbies. ‘Watch your head’ signs are posted around the cabin.

“It’s cozy,” Mr. Barrett put it.

That the boat has the first sail made out of bottle caps and the first solar-paneled sail, is consistent with Mr. Swan’s affinity with historical achievement.

He was the first person in history to live in Antarctica using only renewable energy. And he did so quite comfortably, he said.

“If we can do it there, why can’t we do it here?”

Mr. Swan leads trips to his education base in Antarctica in a program called Leadership on the Edge. They are intended to educate local “champions” from different countries about climate change and train them to take their stories back to their communities and teach others.

These trips are costly, roughly $20,000 per person, and part of Mr. Swan’s intentions in giving his speeches is to also ask people to sponsor local champions — students, teachers and community leaders.

“People on Martha’s Vineyard probably get rather sick of people coming in raising money and then leaving without doing anything locally,” Mr. Swan said before his speech. “I hope we don’t make the same mistake.”

He said he came to Martha’s Vineyard because 150 years ago the Island was the center of a massive energy-producer: whale oil. Whales were on the edge of extinction and people found a new form of energy and made a switch.

“We can do it again,” he said before the speech.

“America is the most wealthy country in the world,” he told the crowd, adding that the U.S. spends $2 billion a day importing oil. “C’mon guys, it’s now time to say America can provide it’s own energy.”