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What Now … for planet Earth? Notes from Session 4 of TEDWomen 2021

If we’re going to continue to live, breathe and thrive together on this planet, we’re going to have to answer a couple of very important questions: What now for the Earth? And how do we balance the urgency of the climate crisis while still dreaming of a bright future? With actions and answers, six incredible speakers joined Session 4 of TEDWomen 2021, sparking hope, innovating solutions and uplifting humanity.

The event: TEDWomen 2021: Session 4, hosted by TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell, in Palm Springs, California on December 2, 2021

Speakers: Halla Tómasdóttir, Resson Kantai Duff, Sonali Prasad, Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli, Ozawa Bineshi Albert and Katie Paterson

Music: Music curator of TEDWomen and multidisciplinary artist Niama Safia Sandy kicks off the session with a chilling rendition of “Someday We’ll All Be Free” by Donny Hathaway. Powerful vocals and breathtaking lyrics fill the room as Sandy invites the TEDWomen audience to join her in singing.

Special guest: Writer and environmentalist Katharine Wilkinson gives an update on her 2018 TED Talk, where she spoke about empowering women and girls to help stop global warming. In conversation with Pat Mitchell, Wilkinson shares a crucial truth: that the predatory forces keeping transformation at bay still exist yet collective courage is growing, reflected in the surge of youth climate action, Indigenous land defense and actions of frontline communities. Wilkinson also talks about her 2020 book, All We Can Save, that she edited with marine biologist and policy expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, which is an anthology of poetry, essays and art from those leading in climate action.

The talks in brief: 

Halla Tómasdóttir, change catalyst in conversation with TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell

Big idea: Use your vote, your wallet and your voice to act on climate.

How? Halla Tómasdóttir — CEO of the B Team, former presidential candidate of Iceland and longtime friend of TEDWomen — is recently back from the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. She explains that while the generational trust gap on climate is widening, there are some things to be hopeful about coming out of the gathering. First, the climate agenda is becoming more holistic — we’re talking about nature, justice and inclusion now — not just greenhouse gasses. Next, this was the COP where business and finance really showed up, knowing that governments can’t solve the crisis on their own. She also saw some unlikely alliances form, notably between business leaders and the Global South, resulting in massive monetary commitments. And finally, she saw accountants become unlikely change catalysts with the creation of the International Sustainability Standards Board, which aims to change everything about the norms of business. “The most difficult work of our lifetimes has to happen in the next few years,” says Tómasdóttir. She asks us all to not underestimate our power, especially as collectives of employees — and to mobilize and put pressure on CEOs and politicians to act.

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Resson Kantai Duff, conservationist

Big idea: Typically, conservation efforts in Africa have been led by “parachute” conservationists — outsider superheroes who drop in with all the answers, hire locals to implement them and then disappear. Instead, Africans should lead the way in saving wildlife, using their own knowledge and strategies.

Why? The world has lost 68 percent of its wildlife in the last 50 years, says Resson Kantai Duff. This shocking statistic demands new solutions — and they need to be implemented by the people on the frontlines. Too often, Africans have been seen as barriers to conservation, painted as poachers, squatters and encroachers rather than as the stewards of wildlife that they have been for generations, he says. But tribes like the Samburu of Kenya, who have tracked and hunted lions for generations, are their logical stewards. They are the instigators of programs like Warrior Watch, where hunters shadow lion prides not to kill them but to warn other herders away. Most importantly, Resson believes that women must be more than merely involved — as traditional guardians of wildlife, they must spearhead conservation efforts.

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Sonali Prasad, TED Fellow, writer, artist

Big idea: Disaster can strike at any moment, but stories can teach us how to cope with life-changing events we can’t predict and navigate unexpected ruptures in our lives.

How? Sonali Prasad unearths the stories buried in disasters. She says that after a rupture like a weather catastrophe or the recent pandemic, the stories we tell take one of two shapes: they are either hideous or hopeful. In a talk that blurs poetry with narrative storytelling, Prasad returns to the Aceh province in India, an area ravaged by the 2004 tsunami, and speaks to the strangeness that follows a disaster. She recounts the grief and struggle she witnessed among the tsunami’s survivors alongside accounts of fortitude, imagination and hope. Why must we revisit sites of such devastation? she asks. “Because in their dust lies the possibilities for navigation of the fog of ecological disruption.”

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Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli, social entrepreneur and innovator

Big idea: We can create a more affordable, sustainable and just food system by changing how we grow, produce and distribute food.

How? As a social entrepreneur focused on global agriculture, Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli examines the true cost of food. She reports that our current food system is value-destroying — meaning it harms human health, our planet’s climate and the economic viability of small to medium-scale food enterprises. But we can take steps to fix it. First, we must make sure that healthy food is accessible to everyone, especially people from lower-income communities. A healthy diet, one low in processed food and high in fresh produce, supports positive health outcomes which can lower hospitalization rates and medical costs. Next, we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from food waste and shorten our supply chains, so that food doesn’t travel so far from farm to mouth. And last, we need to support entrepreneurs with sustainable food practices, from farmers to seed entrepreneurs, logistics providers and even cooks. Small- and medium-scale enterprises like these create jobs in their communities and make nutritious food more widely available. So the next time you sit down to eat, Nwuneli encourages all of us to think about our food choices and consider the power we wield with our plates.

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Ozawa Bineshi Albert, climate justice organizer

Big idea: When it comes to climate change, we need a drastic shift in leadership.

Why? To date, the majority of viable climate solutions have been crafted and defined by corporations, governments and some scientists, says Ozawa Bineshi Albert. Much of this effort has been seen through the lens of the economy, ensuring the survival of capitalism within climate change rather than the survival of humanity and the planet. That’s why Albert is calling for a full-throated change in leadership, one that centers the wisdom and solutions of those communities most impacted by the climate crisis. People on the frontlines are the actual experts, Albert says: they’ve directly experienced climate disasters for decades and have a deep sense of the urgency of the crisis. With these people at the helm, we could shift focus away from net-zero emissions (a type of “masquerade” for corporate inaction or participation in a few offset programs, Albert says, while they still dump waste into local communities) and instead begin to cut off toxic pollution at the source. “We can’t rely on those who created the problem to fix it,” Albert says. But if we change two things — our sense of urgency and the people leading the solutions — the planet, and everybody on it, will benefit.

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Katie Paterson, conceptual artist

Big idea: Conceptual artwork can help situate human beings in our cosmic timeline and bring distant, primordial landscapes closer to our lives.

How? Short-sightedness may be the greatest threat to humanity, says Katie Paterson. As a conceptual artist, her work engages the concept of deep time: the Earth’s history over millions of years. Her projects include a telephone line connected to a melting glacier, a map of every dead star in our universe and a necklace whose beads are carved from ancient fossils and strung in geological order, epoch by epoch. Whatever the medium, Paterson uses artwork to expand our human sense of scale. She calls her Future Library project a century-long prayer. Every year for the next 100 years, a different author will submit an unread manuscript to the Future Library. In 2114, the library will publish these manuscripts on paper made from a forest of 1,000 spruce trees that Paterson and her team planted on the outskirts of Oslo in 2014. Although 100 years isn’t vast on a cosmic scale, the project reminds us of our invisible ties to future generations. “To be human,” Paterson says, “is to understand that we are part of a long continuum.”

“One with each other”: Notes from Session 1 of TED2019 Fellows talks

The event: Talks and performances from TED Fellows, celebrating the 10th anniversary of this life-changing, world-changing program. Session 1 is hosted by TED Fellows director Shoham Arad and TED Senior Fellow Jedidah Isler.

When and where: Monday, April 15, 2019, 10:30am, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC.

Opening: We begin the day by sharing a powerful moment with Dr. Robert Joseph, a Hereditary Chief of the Gwawaenuk First Nation, and Kristen Rivers of the Squamish Nation, who welcome us to Vancouver with a simple message: Let us be one with each other.

The talks, in brief:

Ashwin Naidu, conservationist and founder of the Fishing Cat Conservancy

• Big idea: Mangroves are crucial to the health of the planet, but they’re endangered by unsustainable aquaculture. What to do? Empower the locals in South and Southeast Asia to conserve mangrove ecosystems by celebrating the charismatic fishing cat.
• How? Naidu’s Fishing Cat Conservancy helps locals find sustainable livelihoods and move away from destructive agriculture practices, giving them strong incentives to protect and restore mangrove swamps — so that the swamps can keep gobbling up CO2 from the atmosphere, offering storm surge protection and serving as a habitat for fish and wildlife. The fishing cat, aka the “tiger of the mangroves,” helps put a charismatic face on this complicated effort. 
• Quote of the talk: “Deforestation, extinction and climate change are global problems that we can solve by giving value to our species and ecosystems, and by working together with the local people who live next to them.”

Jess Kutch, founder of the digital labor organizing platform Coworker.org

• Big idea: Got an idea to make your workplace better? Coworker.org helps employees organize and engage in “productive conflict” with management.
• How? A surprising amount of the time, employees who ask most loudly for workplace improvements are those who love their jobs the most. Using Coworker.org, staffers can plan campaigns to raise wages and advocate for themselves and their colleagues.
• Quote of the talk: “We all need to be challenging and changing the parts of our work lives that are broken.“

Brandon Clifford, ancient technology architect and founder of the design studio and research lab Matter Design

• Big idea: Ancient civilizations’ ability to move massive objects (like Stonehenge’s standing stones or Easter Island’s Mo’ai heads) seems impossible to the point of magic. But we can learn those mechanisms — and apply them to contemporary design and construction.
• How? In public performances, Clifford demonstrates ancient techniques for moving massive objects – like his 16-foot-tall McKnelly Megalith sculpture that “walks” with ropes and the 4,000-pound Janus, which can be manipulated by a single person to spring to life and bob and spin in a dance.
• Quote of the talk: “In an era where we design buildings to last 30, maybe 60 years, I’d love to learn how to create something that can entertain for an eternity.”

Nanfu Wang, documentary filmmaker who tells stories about human rights in China

• Big idea: The human stories behind China’s one-child policy shine a light on the program’s devastating psychological and social effects — and on the power of propaganda.
• How? Wang grew up during the era of the one-child policy; she was ashamed of having a younger brother. Now a documentary filmmaker, she made One Child Nation to investigate the policy’s effects on people in her community, including her village’s midwife, who believes she performed tens of thousands of abortions and sterilizations. In 2019, the film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.
• Quote of the talk: “With each person I filmed, I saw how deeply the hearts and minds of people can be influenced by propaganda and how their willingness to make sacrifices for the greater good can be twisted into something very dark and tragic.”

Taghi Amirani, documentary filmmaker

• Big idea: The true story of Operation Ajax, the 1953 coup staged by the CIA and MI6 to overthrow Iran’s prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, has been shrouded in mystery. Until now.
• How? It’s been 10 years in the making, and literally last week, Taghi Amirani completed Coup 53 with the help of renowned film editor Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, American Graffiti). Together they sifted through 532 hours of footage, video tapes, archival material — and CIA documents — that changed the fate of Iran.
• Quote of the talk: “There’s nothing new in the world except the history you do not know” — Harry Truman

Gangadhar Patil, journalism entrepreneur and founder of 101Reporters

• Big idea: In India, rural reporters are on the front lines of important stories, but their work often goes unnoticed by national news outlets. Connecting local reporters to national publishers can get their stories heard.
• How? Patil’s platform, 101Reporters, trains local reporters and connects them with national outlets. They get paired with experienced editors on each story, helping them build skills, gain credibility — and command higher fees. This empowers rural reporters to pursue tough stories on topics like corruption and poverty. The goal? To get one reporter from each of India’s 5,000 subdistricts into the network.
• Quote of the talk: “In a country like India, transparency is key to ensure justice to everyone — especially the poor, who are often ignored.”

Federica Bianco, urban astrophysicist and professional boxer

• Big idea: Astrophysicists have amazing data analysis skills — why not ask them to analyze other datasets closer to home?
• How? Bianco and her colleagues at the Urban Observatory use astrophysical data analysis methods to study earthbound problems, like measuring urban energy use, air pollution levels, even figuring out what causes prosecutorial delays. And there’s a twist: Bianco flips the mathematical models used to detect urban pollution, for instance, to examine the reflections of star explosions on interstellar dust.
• Quote of the talk: “To study a system as complex as the entire universe, astrophysicists are experts at extracting simple models and solutions from large and complex data sets. So what else can I do with this expertise?”

Marc Bamuthi Joseph, writer and performer

• Big idea: What’s it like to send a child out into the world, knowing they might not come home?
• How? Bamuthi Joseph performs a jazz-inflected spoken-word piece, a black father’s tender and wrenching internal reflection on the pride and terror of seeing his son enter adulthood as he gets his driver’s license at the DMV.
• Quote of the talk: “Sixteen is younger than Trayvon and older than Emmett Till.”

Ivonne Roman, police captain and cofounder of the Women’s Leadership Academy

• Big idea: The benefits of having women in the police force are well documented. But there’s a wide gender disparity in the US: only 13 percent of police officers are female. One simple test could make a difference.
• How? At their local police academies, women fail the standard physical fitness test at rates between 65% and 80%, ending their careers before they begin. Roman Women’s Leadership Academy trains women to prepare for the current physical fitness exams — while simultaneously advocating for fitness tests that take gender differences into account.
• Quote of the talk: “We know that policewomen are less likely to use force or to be accused of excessive force. We know that policewomen are less likely to be named in a lawsuit or a citizen complaint. We know that the mere presence of a police woman reduces the use of force among other officers … yet they’re more successful in diffusing violent or aggressive behavior overall.”

We take an interstitial break to watch a trailer from the new film from Blitz the Ambassador, a TED Senior Fellow: The Burial of Kojo. The visually astonishing film was just released on Netflix after being acquired by Ava DuVernay’s company, Array Releasing. Preview it above.

Arnav Kapur, technologist and inventor of the AI device AlterEgo

• Big idea: What if we could integrate AI into the human body to give voice back to people who have lost their ability to speak?
• How? At MIT Media Lab, Kapur is inventing a wearable AI device with the potential to translate human thought into speech. The device, which looks a bit like a telephone headset, picks up the neural signals formed when a person thinks words to themselves — without actually speaking aloud or opening their mouths. The device could one day help people who have lost their voices (due to ALS, strokes or spinal cord injuries, say) to converse with machines. 
• Quote of the Talk: “What if we reimagine computing, the internet and AI as an internal ‘second self’ of the human condition — as a direct extension of our cognition — freeing us to interact with the world around us instead of unplugging us from our environment?”

Bruce Friedrich, food innovator and founder of the Good Food Institute

• Big idea: People love meat, and they likely aren’t about to stop eating it. But how can we make meat production sustainable? Bypass the cow, and turn plants and cells directly into meat.
• How? The Good Food Institute takes an all-hands-on-deck approach to encouraging governments and corporations – including traditional meat companies – to support a new “clean meat” production industry. There are two solutions in development, both expensive and in early stages: plant-based meat products, like the Impossible Burger, and meat grown directly from cells. Given the serious threats to public health of climate change and antibiotic resistance, now is the time to change the way we produce meat.
• Quote of the talk: “It’s past time to create the next global agricultural revolution.”

Laurel Braitman, writer-in-residence at the Stanford University School of Medicine

• Big idea: Folks in the medical field spend years on clinical training, almost at the expense of all else — including their own mental health. Telling and sharing personal stories through writing can be a first step in alleviating the complex pressures they’re under.
• How: Studies show medical students have high levels of depression and some of the highest suicide rates in the United States. So Braitman encourages medical students and physicians to dig deep to find, write and share their own true and vulnerable personal stories. The result: healthcare professionals can connect more meaningfully with themselves, patients and colleagues — and catalyze empathy for improved mental health.
• Quote of the talk: “Communicating with each other with vulnerability and listening with compassion is, I believe, absolutely the best medicine that we have.”

Amma Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin, scholar and artist who develops theatrical works based on historical documents

• Big idea: America’s ideas of racial superiority and inferiority were deliberately scripted, rehearsed and performed at the 1901 World’s Fair in Buffalo, New York.
• How? Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin’s theatrical work-in-progress, At Buffalo, is based on hundreds of archival documents from the Pan-American Exposition, a World’s Fair held in Buffalo. The musical brings to life the fair’s performances and debates, which produced three conflicting narratives of what it meant to be black in the US at the time — including an important exhibit on contemporary Black life by pioneering sociologist W.E.B. Dubois. Reframing the historical record as entertainment confronts audiences with the disturbing realities of American racism in 1901 – and how they still affect us today.
• Quote of the talk: “The 1901 Fair’s legacies persist in more ways than we can imagine.”