Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot delivers powerful message to Vladimir Putin at TED2023

In an electric talk at Session 4 of TED2023, Pussy Riot founding member Nadya Tolokonnikova delivered a powerful message to Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding his war in Ukraine: “You have already lost. You know it … The world is with Ukraine.”

“Courage is contagious, and it’s a strength we all have inside us,” Tolokonnikova says. In 2011, she cofounded the Russian protest and performance art group Pussy Riot in opposition to Vladimir Putin’s oppressive regime. After a string of protests and arrests, she and her fellow members were sentenced to two years in prison for their “Punk Prayer,” performed in a central Moscow cathedral. She was 22 years old at the time, wondering, “Can one person change the world? … Am I going to be able to achieve my dreams, or am I inevitably going to be smashed by the system?” 

Since her release from the Siberian penal colony in late 2013, Tolokonnikova has continued her fight. She founded the investigative news agency Mediazona, a rare independent media organization in Russia. Her other initiative, UnicornDAO, is supports female artists. Now living in exile, Tolokonnikova stands as a leading voice in the fight for freedom in Russia and was named a top enemy of Putin simply because, in her words, “Courage is contagious.” She calls for everyone to embrace the courage within themselves.

 

 

 

 

Climate challenges and solutions: The talks from the TED Countdown London Session 2022

Countdown, TED’s climate action initiative founded in partnership with Leaders’ Quest, launched three years ago with a focus on accelerating solutions to climate change. The goal: to build a better future by cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 in the race to a zero-carbon world — a world that’s safer, cleaner and fairer for everyone.

Countdown set off to London to tackle the many challenges of confronting climate change — but also to present the many solutions. Nine speakers (and two performers) took us inside their innovative work, from the power of socially engaged art and the importance of centering Indigenous expertise to the latest on direct air capture technology and the potential of establishing a multi-billion-dollar carbon removal industry.

The event: Talks from TED Countdown London Session 2022, hosted by TED’s Bruno Giussani and Logan McClure Davda

When and where: Monday, October 3, 2022, at the Barbican Centre in London

Speakers: Xavier Cortada, Jade Begay, Colin Averill, George Monbiot, Huma Yusuf, Heidi Sørensen, Ksenia Petrichenko, Jan Wurzbacher, Stacy Kauk

Music: From artists MyVerse and Kristen Warren, who perform their original song “Mother’s Mind” — a rousing message told from the perspective of Mother Earth.

The talks in brief:

Xavier Cortada, eco-artist

Big idea: Art can help people engage with the future consequences of climate change.

How? It took a voyage to Antarctica for artist Xavier Cortada to appreciate just how dire the situation was in his home city of Miami. When he returned home, he founded the Underwater Homeowners Association: an art project designed to get his fellow Miamians to think about where all that melting Antarctic ice is going to end up. Using Cortada’s “ice paintings” as a backdrop, participants created signs displaying their homes’ height above sea level. These weren’t political signs — they were simple elevation markers — yet their unsettling message quickly excited controversy. Many realtors and homeowners were terrified the signs would affect property values. Even when the city reconsidered its support for the project, the Underwater HOA continued to meet and strategize. Cortada’s work provides a blueprint for how socially engaged art can generate a sense of collective responsibility and agency.

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Jade Begay, Indigenous rights expert

Big idea: Our obsession with carbon footprints isn’t getting us any closer to net zero emissions. Climate work should focus on people and communities, not carbon.

Why? Jade Begay works with the people affected “first and worst” by the climate crisis: Indigenous communities from the Arctic to the Amazon. And these communities tell her that the carbon markets aren’t working to reduce the devastating impacts of climate change. Begay wants to better align the climate solutions designed in corporate buildings and government halls with the needs of those on the frontlines. She offers two starting points. First, we must understand how climate change impacts Indigenous peoples’ lives and identities and conduct surveys to fill in gaps in our understanding. Second, we should allow Indigenous expertise to guide our climate actions in a way that builds trust and centers native voices without co-opting their knowledge.

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Colin Averill, forest microbiologist

Big idea: If we want to understand the environment, we should be looking deeper underground. 

How? Most trees have a symbiotic partnership with what’s known as mycorrhizal fungi — microscopic networks that help plants access soil resources with their roots. If we knew which of these fungi were most beneficial to forest health, explains Colin Averill, we could reintroduce the necessary microorganisms into forest soil, enhancing tree growth and helping fight climate change. Averill has been studying soil microorganisms for years, using DNA sequencing to understand what lives in the soil of various forests and how that life relates to forest health, particularly tree growth rate and carbon capture. After identifying which fungi are most likely to enhance these metrics, his team started a randomized controlled field trial in Wales, with 27 acres of newly planted trees. Since planting in spring 2021, they’ve found that adding a small handful of soil that’s rich with high-performing fungal communities upon seeding has helped to accelerate tree growth and carbon capture aboveground by 30 to 70 percent, depending on the tree species. These results are early, but the data suggests that there’s potential to increase yields and carbon capture in managed timber forestry systems, as well as food agriculture systems. By rewilding the soil with its natural fungal biodiversity, we could improve our management of the land and, in the process, help fight climate change.

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George Monbiot, journalist

Big idea: By ending our dependence on traditional (and destructive) farming practices, we can solve two of our great existential problems: mass extinction and the risk of global food collapse.

How? Can we find a way to feed ourselves that won’t destroy the planet? Environmental writer George Monbiot says we can, but we’ll have to radically reimagine food production. Currently, crops and pasture for farmed animals occupy 38 percent of the planet’s land — in contrast, all of our homes, businesses and infrastructure occupy just one percent. This makes farming the single greatest cause of habitat destruction, wildlife loss and extinction. Our global food system isn’t just bad for the planet, Monbiot says — it’s also vulnerable to collapse. Four corporations control 90 percent of the global grain trade, by one estimate, and much food trade passes through vulnerable chokepoints like the Suez and Panama Canals. The good news is there are solutions: developing technologies that can improve our food system’s resilience and reduce environmental impact. One of the most promising, according to Monbiot, is a technique called precision fermentation: a refined form of brewing that can produce protein-rich foods using a tiny fraction of the land, water and fertilizer required to raise either crops or animals.

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Huma Yusuf, columnist

Big idea: Pakistan is drowning in the wake of catastrophic, biblical flooding. We need a new era of climate diplomacy and a new recognition that we, as a global society, are in this together.

How? One-third of Huma Yusuf’s native Pakistan is currently underwater due to climate injustice: an exceptional monsoon coupled with flash-flooding due to the accelerated melting of Himalayan glaciers has led to vast devastation. To put it in perspective, the area that’s now underwater is larger than the entirety of Britain. Three million people have been stripped of homes and livelihoods. Hundreds have died, and survivors are dying from disease. What does the future hold? Food insecurity, famine, climate migration and conflict, says Yusuf. Pakistan needs billions in relief funds, and G20 countries (responsible for 80 percent of global greenhouse emissions, compared to Pakistan’s less-than-one-percent contribution) that have profited from fossil fuel development should be the ones to foot the bill when climate disaster strikes climate-vulnerable countries. “Let’s be clear: developing countries are not asking for charity,” says Yusuf. “Having polluted only marginally, they are climate creditors, and that credit is now due.” To move in the direction of justice, an expanded definition of reparations is the only logical, albeit politically complicated, way forward. But in order to truly make headway, the global south must acknowledge its own shortcomings and struggles with poor governance, inadequate planning, corruption and lack of infrastructure and accountability. Together is the only way to make progress, and it will take countries rising to the occasion to achieve true climate justice. ”Are we ready for a new social contract within countries and between countries?” Yusuf asks.

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Heidi Sørensen, climate bureaucrat

Big idea: Confronting climate change is about creating better cities for everyone.

How? Picture a construction site, except without the noise pollution because the machinery and the trucks are all electric. That’s what a climate-conscious worksite sounds like in Oslo, Norway. With the goal of removing 95 percent of carbon emissions by 2030, Heidi Sørensen is spearheading Oslo’s green future, making sure the necessary infrastructure and policies are in place. From a carbon-capturing facility set to launch in 2026 to electric transport, Sørensen details the measures taken so far and shares five lessons to becoming an emissions-free city. First, climate measures upgrade quality of life for everyone. Second, set ambitious goals. Third, keep all stakeholders accountable. Fourth, never underestimate what you can change as a demanding customer — the market is adaptable. And last, incentivize green mobility. Sørensen invites all cities to join Oslo in creating a future of cleaner, better cities.

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Ksenia Petrichenko, energy efficiency policy analyst

Big idea: Buildings are responsible for more than one-third of global carbon dioxide emissions, but we can transform how buildings consume energy to reduce their high environmental impact.

How? Ksenia Petrichenko has a three-tiered strategy for reducing direct emissions from the buildings where we live and work. First, she says we need to improve our buildings’ energy efficiency through better insulation, more efficient windows and appliances that require less energy for heating, cooling, cooking and lighting. Second, we need a massive shift towards electricity. And, third, of course that electricity needs to be clean, powered by wind, solar and other low-carbon energy sources. Petrichenko envisions a future where energy resources aren’t concentrated around a single power plant, and where buildings have roof-top solar panels or wind turbines that help produce some of the energy they consume. We have the technology to create smarter grids, implement peer-to-peer electricity sharing and start improving buildings’ efficiency, she says. Next up? “We need the policies, the investments, the will and a new way to look at buildings not as passive energy users but as active players in the energy system,” she says.

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Jan Wurzbacher, carbon removals entrepreneur

Big idea: The carbon removal industry is still in its infancy, but think of early smartphones — technology that started out clunky, inefficient and expensive ultimately became sleek, affordable and ubiquitous, changing everything. Jan Wurzbacher thinks nascent carbon capture technologies could be on that same trajectory.

How? While it still needs to scale by many orders of magnitude in order to make a significant impact, carbon capture plants like Orca in Iceland, built by Jan Wurzbacher’s company Climeworks, will become a crucial part of our carbon reduction toolkit. The technology is relatively easy to understand — suck in a bunch of air, filter the carbon out, store it (for now, mostly in rocks underground) and then put the carbon-free air back into the atmosphere. This is expensive, and there are other obstacles to scaling and implementation. CO2 is present in low concentration in the air — one CO2 molecule out of every 2,500 in the atmosphere. And materials used to absorb carbon are also tough to find, and they need to last a long time. Nature offers us some solutions — forests and oceans — but it needs help, and there isn’t enough area to plant entire continents of forests. Carbon removal technology is a “must-have” tool to scrub carbon from our atmosphere.

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Stacy Kauk, innovation accelerator

Big idea: We need to make carbon removal a multi-billion-dollar industry.

How? How much money does removing carbon from the atmosphere actually cost, and how do we create a profitable carbon removal market? As the lead for sustainability at Shopify, Stacy Kauk wanted to not simply pay “carbon credits” that force someone to pollute less to mitigate the mess someone else already created. In addition to cutting emissions, we must also take carbon out of the atmosphere. But creating a global carbon removal industry is incredibly expensive. Borrowing an idea created by the vaccine industry, Shopify (in partnership with Meta, Alphabet, Stripe and McKinsey) have created Frontier — a $925 million Advanced Market Commitment (AMC) to grow future carbon markets through purchase guarantees. This approach faces obstacles: clean power currently doesn’t exist at the scale to accompany carbon removal; there hasn’t been much deployment at this stage of carbon removal technology; and existing manufacturing facilities for the technology can’t keep pace with the scale the market requires. Nonetheless, Frontier is an important first step to making carbon removal a future multi-billion-dollar industry.

The Big Rethink: Notes from Session 3 of TEDSummit 2019

In an incredible session, speakers and performers laid out the biggest problems facing the world — from political and economic catastrophe to rising violence and deepfakes — and some new thinking on solutions.

The event: TEDSummit 2019, Session 3: The Big Rethink, hosted by Corey Hajim and Cyndi Stivers

When and where: Tuesday, July 23, 2019, 5pm BST, at the Edinburgh Convention Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland

Speakers: George Monbiot, Nick Hanauer, Raghuram Rajan, Marco Tempest, Rachel Kleinfeld, Danielle Citron, Patrick Chappatte

Music: KT Tunstall sharing how she found her signature sound and playing her hits “Miniature Disasters,” “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” and “Suddenly I See.”

The talks in brief:

George Monbiot, investigative journalist and self-described “professional troublemaker”

Big idea: To get out of the political mess we’re in, we need a new story that captures the minds of people across fault lines.

Why? “Welcome to neoliberalism, the zombie doctrine that never seems to die,” says George Monbiot. We have been induced by politicians and economists into accepting an ideology of extreme competition and individualism, weakening the social bonds that make our lives worth living. And despite the 2008 financial crisis, which exposed the blatant shortcomings of neoliberalism, it still dominates our lives. Why? We haven’t yet produced a new story to replace it — a new narrative to help us make sense of the present and guide the future. So, Monbiot proposes his own: the “politics of belonging,” founded on the belief that most people are fundamentally altruistic, empathetic and socially minded. If we can tap into our fundamental urge to cooperate — namely, by building generous, inclusive communities around the shared sphere of the commons — we can build a better world. With a new story to light the way, we just might make it there.

Quote of the talk: “We are a society of altruists, but we are governed by psychopaths.”

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Nick Hanauer, entrepreneur and venture capitalist.

Big idea: Economics has ceased to be a rational science in the service of the “greater good” of society. It’s time to ditch neoliberal economics and create tools that address inequality and injustice.

How? Today, under the banner of unfettered growth through lower taxes, fewer regulations, and lower wages, economics has become a tool that enforces the growing gap between the rich and poor. Nick Hanauer thinks that we must recognize that our society functions not because it’s a ruthless competition between its economically fittest members but because cooperation between people and institutions produces innovation. Competition shouldn’t be between the powerful at the expense of everyone else but between ideas battling it out in a well-managed marketplace in which everyone can participate.

Quote of the talk: “Successful economies are not jungles, they’re gardens — which is to say that markets, like gardens, must be tended … Unconstrained by social norms or democratic regulation, markets inevitably create more problems than they solve.”

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Raghuram Rajan, economist and former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India

Big idea: As markets grow and governments focus on solving economic problems from the top-down, small communities and neighborhoods are losing their voices — and their livelihoods. But if nations lack the tools to address local problems, it’s time to turn to grass-roots communities for solutions.

How? Raghuram Rajan believes that nations must exercise “inclusive localism”: giving communities the tools to turn themselves around while establishing standards tp prevent discrimination and corruption. As local leaders step forward, citizens become active, and communities receive needed resources from philanthropists and through economic incentives, neighborhoods will thrive and rebuild their social fabric.

Quote of the talk: “What we really need [are] bottom-up policies devised by the community itself to repair the links between the local community and the national — as well as thriving international — economies.”

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Marco Tempest, cyber illusionist

Big idea: Illusions that set our imaginations soaring are created when magic and science come together.

Why? “Is it possible to create illusions in a world where technology makes anything possible?” asks techno-magician Marco Tempest, as he interacts with his group of small flying machines called quadcopters. The drones dance around him, reacting buoyantly to his gestures and making it easy to anthropomorphize or attribute personality traits. Tempest’s buzzing buddies swerve, hover and pause, moving in formation as he orchestrates them. His mind-bending display will have you asking yourself: Was that science or magic? Maybe it’s both.

Quote to remember: “Magicians are interesting, their illusions accomplish what technology cannot, but what happens when the technology of today seems almost magical?”

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Rachel Kleinfeld, democracy advisor and author

Big idea: It’s possible to quell violence — in the wider world and in our own backyards — with democracy and a lot of political TLC.

How? Compassion-concentrated action. We need to dispel the idea that some people deserve violence because of where they live, the communities they’re a part of or their socio-economic background. Kleinfeld calls this particular, inequality-based vein of violence “privilege violence,” explaining how it evolves in stages and the ways we can eradicate it. By deprogramming how we view violence and its origins and victims, we can move forward and build safer, more secure societies.

Quote of the talk: “The most important thing we can do is abandon the notion that some lives are just worth less than others.”

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Danielle Citron, professor of law and deepfake scholar

Big idea: Deepfakes — machine learning technology used to manipulate or fabricate audio and video content — can cause significant harm to individuals and society. We need a comprehensive legislative and educational approach to the problem.

How? The use of deepfake technology to manipulate video and audio for malicious purposes — whether it’s to stoke violence against minorities or to defame politicians and journalists — is becoming ubiquitous. With tools being made more accessible and their products more realistic, what becomes of that key ingredient for democratic processes: the truth? As Danielle Citron points out, “Not only do we believe fakes, we are starting to doubt the truth.” The fix, she suggests, cannot be merely technological. Legislation worldwide must be tailored to fighting digital impersonations that invade privacy and ruin lives. Educational initiatives are needed to teach the media how to identify fakes, persuade law enforcement that the perpetrators are worth prosecuting and convince the public at large that the future of democracy really is at stake.

Quote of the talk: “Technologists expect that advances in AI will soon make it impossible to distinguish a fake video and a real one. How can truths emerge in a deepfake ridden ‘marketplace of ideas?’ Will we take the path of least resistance and just believe what we want to believe, truth be damned?”

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Patrick Chappatte, editorial cartoonist and graphic journalist

Big idea: We need humor like we need the air we breathe. We shouldn’t risk compromising our freedom of speech by censoring ourselves in the name of political correctness.

How? Our social media-saturated world is both a blessing and a curse for political cartoonists like Patrick Chappatte, whose satirical work can go viral while also making them, and the publications they work for, a target. Be it a prison sentence, firing or the outright dissolution of cartoon features in newspapers, editorial cartoonists worldwide are increasingly penalized for their art. Chappatte emphasizes the importance of the art form in political discourse by guiding us through 20 years of editorial cartoons that are equal parts humorous and caustic. In an age where social media platforms often provide places for fury instead of debate, he suggests that traditional media shouldn’t shy away from these online kingdoms, and neither should we. Now is the time to resist preventative self-censorship; if we don’t, we risk waking up in a sanitized world without freedom of expression.

Quote of the talk: “Freedom of expression is not incompatible with dialogue and listening to each other, but it is incompatible with intolerance.”

A first glimpse at the TEDSummit 2019 speaker lineup

With TEDSummit 2019 just two months away, it’s time to unveil the first group of speakers that will take to the stage in Edinburgh, Scotland, from July 21-25.

Three years ago, more than 1,000 members of the TED global community convened in Banff, Canada, for the first-ever TEDSummit. We talked about the fracturing state of the world, the impact of technology and the accelerating urgency of climate change. And we drew wisdom and inspiration from the speakers — and from each other.

These themes are equally pressing today, and we’ll bring them to the stage in novel, more developed ways in Edinburgh. We’ll also address a wide range of additional topics that demand attention — looking not only for analysis but also antidotes and solutions. To catalyze this process, half of the TEDSummit conference program will take place outside the theatre, as experts host an array of Discovery Sessions in the form of hands-on workshops, activities, debates and conversations.

Check out a glimpse of the lineup of speakers who will share their future-focused ideas below. Some are past TED speakers returning to give new talks; others will step onto the red circle for the first time. All will help us understand the world we currently live in.

Here we go! (More will be added in the coming weeks):

Anna Piperal, digital country expert

Bob Langert, corporate changemaker

Carl Honoré, author

Carole Cadwalladr, investigative journalist

Diego Prilusky, immersive media technologist

Eli Pariser, organizer and author

Fay Bound Alberti, historian

George Monbiot, thinker and author

Hajer Sharief, youth inclusion activist

Howard Taylor, children safety advocate

Jochen Wegner, editor and dialogue creator

Kelly Wanser, geoengineering expert

Ma Yansong, architect

Marco Tempest, technology magician

Margaret Heffernan, business thinker

María Neira, global public health official

Mariana Lin, AI personalities writer

Mariana Mazzucato, economist

Marwa Al-Sabouni, architect

Nick Hanauer, capitalism redesigner

Nicola Jones, science writer

Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland

Omid Djalili, comedian

Patrick Chappatte, editorial cartoonist

Pico Iyer, global author

Poet Ali, Philosopher, poet

Rachel Kleinfeld, violence scholar

Raghuram Rajan, former central banker

Rose Mutiso, energy for Africa activist

Sandeep Jauhar, cardiologist

Sara-Jane Dunn, computational biologist

Sheperd Doeleman, black hole scientist

Sonia Livingstone, social psychologist

Susan Cain, quiet revolutionary

Tim Flannery, carbon-negative tech scholar

Tshering Tobgay, former Prime Minister of Bhutan

 

With them, a number of artists will also join us at TEDSummit, including:

Djazia Satour, singer

ELEW, pianist and DJ

KT Tunstall, singer and songwriter

Min Kym, virtuoso violinist

Radio Science Orchestra, space-music orchestra

Yilian Cañizares, singer and songwriter

 

Registration for TEDSummit is open for active members of our various communities: TED conference members, Fellows, past TED speakers, TEDx organizers, Educators, Partners, Translators and more. If you’re part of one of these communities and would like to attend, please visit the TEDSummit website.