Journalist Orlando P. Bailey and TED’s Lindsay Levin and David Biello speak at Session 1 of TED Countdown Summit on July 11, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
TED Countdown Summit 2023 kicked off in Detroit, Michigan, with a wide-ranging, solution-filled session of TED Talks and performances meant to inspire action on the world’s toughest challenge: climate change. Over the course of four days, the Summit seeks to change the conversation on climate change and tell a new, true story about how a bright, clean, just, environmentally bountiful world isn’t just possible — it’s already here.
The event: Talks from Session 1 of TED Countdown Summit 2023, hosted by TED’s Lindsay Levin and David Biello with journalist Orlando P. Bailey
When and where: Tuesday, July 11, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan
Speakers: Simon Stiell, Julio Friedmann, Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, Changhua Wu, Paul Hawken, Anika Goss, Al Gore, Maxim Timchenko
The Detroit Youth Choir performs at Session 1 of TED Countdown Summit on July 11, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Music: Detroit Youth Choir rocked the house with an energetic performance of “Hey Look Ma, I Made It” by Panic! At The Disco and “Believer” by Imagine Dragons, putting their creative skills and talents on full display.
Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Simon Stiell speaks at Session 1 of TED Countdown Summit on July 11, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Transformational climate action is closer than we think, says Simon Stiell, who leads the UNFCCC — the UN’s entity supporting the global response to climate change. Drawing a parallel to the meteoric growth of text messaging in the 1990s and 2000s, Stiell outlines why climate action is set up to transition from a linear to exponential pace — so long as each of us applies our particular skill sets to push the world towards its “green tipping points.” “If you act, the exponential change that is needed will happen,” he says.
Scientist, writer and carbon wrangler Julio Friedmann speaks at Session 1 of TED Countdown Summit on July 11, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
How do we meet the energy needs of 10 billion people — sustainably and affordably? According to carbon removal expert Julio Friedmann, there are three key ingredients to cooking up a bright, clean future for everyone: infrastructure (think: transmission lines, roads and seaports) to make energy accessible; globally aligned (and actually affordable) innovation, like turning electricity into fuel; and more systemic, multi-tiered investment strategies on a global level. “Collective action, building together, is what makes the difficult possible and nourishes the soul through mission and purpose,” he says.
Director of the Office of Science at the US Department of Energy Asmeret Asefaw Berhe speaks at Session 1 of TED Countdown Summit on July 11, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Jasmina Tomic / TED)
The Biden Administration has set the ambitious goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. But the US still gets 80 percent of its energy from fossil fuels. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s famous “moonshot” speech in 1962, the Biden Administration is now funding “Earthshots” to accelerate breakthroughs in abundant, affordable and reliable clean energy solutions. If the US is going to meet its climate goals, slashing emissions isn’t enough, says soil scientist and national science leader Asmeret Asefaw Berhe. That’s why her team at the Department of Energy is working to employ new technologies, inspired by organic carbon-capture, to sequester carbon from the atmosphere.
Policy analyst Changhua Wu speaks at Session 1 of TED Countdown Summit on July 11, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Policy analyst Changhua Wu says that today China is undergoing a green revolution. The country has accelerated electric vehicle adoption, increased usage of solar and other renewables (with the goal of producing one kilowatt of solar energy per capita by 2030) and is promoting a circular economy that recycles raw materials to enable sustainable growth. To avoid climate catastrophe, Wu says, the US should moderate its foreign policy and learn from China’s efforts to promote sustainability on a massive scale.
Environmentalist Hong Hoang’s TED Idea Search: Southeast Asia submission video plays at Session 1 of TED Countdown Summit on July 11, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Activists are leading the charge into a sustainable future, but their work is never easy and rarely fully appreciated. After being invited to speak at TED Countdown Summit, environmental activist Hong Hoang (a winner of TED Idea Search: Southeast Asia 2022) was detained in her native Vietnam for her efforts to call global attention to Vietnam’s environmental abuses. Before a moment of silence in her honor, TED shared Hoang’s Idea Search submission video, where she emphasized the need her create climate activism in politically challenging contexts.
Environmentalist and author Paul Hawken speaks at Session 1 of TED Countdown Summit on July 11, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
We pay plenty of attention to the role industry plays in the destruction of our ecosystems and in the emission of greenhouse gasses. But what about the role of industrial agriculture? According to environmentalist Paul Hawken, industrial agriculture (the “fossil food industry,” as he calls it) is the world’s biggest culprit in environmental degradation. Modern factory farms reduce the nutritional content of soil, encourage erosion, ooze toxic runoff and kill off microbial fungi that naturally sequester carbon. Hawken paints a picture of a transition to regenerative agriculture: farming that embraces ancient techniques to renew the soil and insure fertility for generations. He explains how it would create farms that soak up more water, nurture healthier crops and recreate habitats for indigenous species — restoring biodiversity and mitigating the worst impacts of climate change.
City visionary Anika Goss speaks at Session 1 of TED Countdown Summit on July 11, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Climate change tests the social and economic fabric of cities like Detroit with rising temperatures that stretch power grids and “500-year” floods that leave mold and destruction in their wake. City visionary Anika Goss says financial stability is critical for Detroit’s survival in the face of the mounting climate crisis, and that the city must rebuild resilience in order to protect its citizens, who are overwhelmingly people of color already facing social inequity. By fostering entrepreneurship, restoring infrastructure and reviving abandoned urban spaces, she believes Detroit can overcome the unique challenges posed by the collapse of its manufacturing sector, creating thriving neighborhoods that embrace justice, sustainability and social connectivity.
Nobel Laureate, climate advocate and TED legend Al Gore speaks at Session 1 of TED Countdown Summit on July 11, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
Fossil fuel companies claim to be in favor of climate-friendly solutions, but do their efforts have any real impact? Nobel Laureate and climate advocate Al Gore returns to the TED Countdown stage to break down the data proving that the greed of fossil fuel executives has thwarted their attempts to support climate action. He reveals two obstacles to lowering global emissions — namely, how oil and gas companies deliberately slow down global efforts to move capital away from fossil fuels, and the ineffectiveness of carbon capture technology — and reminds everyone that “the will to act is itself a renewable resource.”
Ukrainian energy executive Maxim Timchenko shares how DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, has diversified the country’s power structures to survive Russian attacks, highlighting the resilience of renewable energy (such as wind turbines, which are a smaller, more difficult target for bombers). He outlines how they’ve expanded renewable energy production throughout the war with Russia, becoming a testing ground in the global fight against climate change and the future of energy independence.
Attendees at Session 1 of TED Countdown Summit on July 11, 2023, at the Fillmore Detroit in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED)
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Legendary artist and stage designer Es Devlin takes us on a tour of the mind-blowing sets she’s created for Beyoncé, Adele, U2 and others. She speaks at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 18, 2019 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. (Photo: Bret Hartman / TED)
Day 4 of TED2019 played on some of the more powerful forces in the world: mystery, play, connection, wonder and awe. Some themes and takeaways from a jam-packed day:
Sleep is the Swiss Army knife of health. The less you sleep, the shorter your life expectancy and the higher your chance of getting a life-threatening illness like Alzheimer’s or cancer, says sleep scientist Matt Walker. It’s all about the deep sleep brain waves, Walker says: those tiny pulses of electrical activity that transfer memories from the brain’s short-term, vulnerable area into long-term storage. He shares some crazy stats about a global experiment performed on 1.6 billion people across 70 countries twice a year, known to us all as daylight savings time. In the spring, when we lose an hour of sleep, we see a 24 percent increase in heart attacks that following day, Walker says. In the autumn, when we gain an hour of sleep, we see a 21 percent reduction in heart attacks.
Video games are the most important technological change happening in the world right now. Just look at the scale: a full third of the world’s population (2.6 billion people) find the time to game, plugging into massive networks of interaction, says entrepreneur Herman Narula. These networks let people exercise a social muscle they might not otherwise exercise. While social media can amplify our differences, could games create a space for us to empathize? That’s what is happening on Twitch, says cofounder Emmett Shear. With 15 million daily active users, Twitch lets viewers watch and comment on livestreamed games, turning them into multiplayer entertainment. Video games are a modern version of communal storytelling, says Shear, with audiences both participating and viewing as they sit around their “virtual campfires.”
We’re heading for a nutrition crisis. Plants love to eat CO2, and we’re giving them a lot more of it lately. But as Kristie Ebi shows, there’s a hidden, terrifying consequence — the nutritional quality of plants is decreasing, reducing levels of protein, vitamins and nutrients that humans need. Bottom line: the rice, wheat and potatoes our grandparents ate might have contained more nutrition than our kids’ food will. Asmeret Asefaw Berhe studies the soil where our food grows — “it’s just a thin veil that covers the surface of land, but it has the power to shape our planet’s destiny,” she says. In a Q&A with Ebi, Berhe connects the dots between soil and nutrition: “There are 13 nutrients that plants get only from soil. They’re created from soil weathering, and that’s a very slow process.” CO2 is easier for plants to consume — it’s basically plant junk food.
Tech that folds and moves. Controlling the slides in his talk with the swipe on the arm of his jean jacket, inventor Ivan Poupyrev shows how, with a bit of collaboration, we can design literally anything to be plugged into the internet — blending digital interactivity with everyday analog objects like clothing. “We are walking around with supercomputers in our pockets. But we’re stuck in the screens with our faces? That’s not the future I imagine.” Some news: Poupryev announced from stage that his wearables platform will soon be made available freely to other creators, to make of it what they will. Meanwhile Jamie Paik shows folding origami robots — call them “robogami” — that morph and change to respond to what we’re asking them to do. “These robots will no longer look like the characters from the movies,” she says. “Instead, they will be whatever you want them to be.”
Inside the minds of creators. Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt has gotten more than his fair share of attention in his acting career (in which, oddly, he’s played two TED speakers: tightrope walker Philippe Petit and whistleblower Edward Snowden). But as life has morphed on social media, he’s found that there’s a more powerful force than getting attention: giving it. Paying attention is the real essence of creativity, he says — and we should do more of it. Legendary artist and stage designer Es Devlin picks up on that theme of connection, taking us on a tour of the mind-blowing sets she’s created for Beyoncé, Adele, U2 and others; her work is aimed at fostering lasting connections and deep empathy in her audience. As she quotes E.M. Forster: “Only connect!”
We can map the universe — the whole universe. On our current trajectory, we’ll map every large galaxy in the observable universe by 2060, says astrophysicist Juna Kollmeier, head of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). “Think about it. We’ve gone from arranging clamshells to general relativity to SDSS in a few thousand years,” she says, tracing humanity’s rise in a sentence. “If we hang on 40 more, we can map all the galaxies.” It’s a truly epic proposition — and it’s also our destiny as a species whose calling card is to figure things out.
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“Soil is just a thin veil that covers the surface of land, but it has the power to shape our planet’s destiny,” says Asmeret Asefaw Berhe at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 18, 2019, at Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: (Bret Hartman / TED)
To kick off day 4 of TED2019, we give you (many more) reasons to get a good night’s sleep, plunge into the massive microbiome in the Earth’s crust — and much, more more.
The event: Talks from TED2019, Session 8: Mystery, hosted by head of TED Chris Anderson and TED’s science curator David Biello
When and where: Thursday, April 16, 2019, 8:45am, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC
Speakers: Andrew Marantz, Kristie Ebi, Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, Edward Tenner, Matt Walker and Karen Lloyd
The talks in brief:
Andrew Marantz, journalist, author who writes about the internet
“Free speech is just a starting point,” says Andrew Marantz onstage at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, April 18, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED
Kristie Ebi, public health researcher, director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment
Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, scientist and “dirt detective” studying the impact of ecological change on our soils
Host David Biello speaks with soil scientist Asmeret Asefaw Berhe and public health researcher Kristie Ebi during Session 8 of TED2019: Bigger Than Us. April 18, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Bret Hartman / TED
Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, Kristie Ebi and Joanne Chory in conversation with TED’s science curator David Biello
Speaking from the audience, Joanne Chory joins the conversation with soil scientist Asmeret Asefaw Berhe and public health researcher Kristie Ebi at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, April 18, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED
Edward Tenner, writer and historian
Matt Walker, sleep scientist
Karen Lloyd, microbiologist
Before his talk, historian Edward Tenner reviews his notes one last time backstage at TED2019: Bigger Than Us, on April 18, 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photo: Lawrence Sumulong / TED
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