Amory Lovins: It's Time For Humans To Reinvent Fire

It’s TED Talk Tuesday on 350orbust. Today’s featured presenter is Amory Lovins is an American physicist, environmental scientist, writer, and Chairman/Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute.

In this intimate talk filmed at TED’s offices, energy theorist Amory Lovins lays out the steps we must take to end the world’s dependence on oil (before we run out). Some changes are already happening — like lighter-weight cars and smarter trucks — but some require a bigger vision.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/ZHOyfyGwpes]

Listening to Nature’s Operating Instructions: Chef Dan Barber

For TED Talk Tuesday on 350orbust, Chef Dan Barber tells an eloquent and surprising parable of foie gras.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvrgD0mAFoU]

“The most ecological choice for food is also the most ethical choice for food whether we’re talking about brussel sprouts or foie gras. And it’s almost always – I haven’t found evidence of this being otherwise – the most delicious choice.”

Perspective Is Everything

It’s TED Talk Tuesday on 350orbust, and Rory Sutherland the Ad Man is back. His message is essentially the same as in his 2009 TED Talk, but it bears repeating that our perception of an event or a circumstance is more important than the “reality”:

The circumstances of our lives may matter less than how we see them, says Rory Sutherland. At TEDxAthens, he makes a compelling case for how reframing is the key to happiness.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iueVZJVEmEs]

Conflict: What’s Really At Stake And How To Move From No To Yes

It’s TED Talk Tuesday on 350orbust. In this talk, author William Ury, co-founder of  Harvard’s Program on Negotiation and Senior Fellow of the Harvard Negotiation Project, discusses resolving human conflict by walking from “no” to “yes”,  drawing from his own wide experience of conflict situations. Truly inspiring!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc6yi_FtoNo]

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William Ury: Helping People Get To Yes

In A Capitalist Economy, the True Job Creators Are Middle Class

Nick Hanauer, entrepreneur and one percenter, exposes the fallacy that it’s the super rich who create jobs. He makes a strong case for taxing the rich to create benefits for the entire society, including growing the middle class. It’s good policy for everyone.

Hanauer asserted that TED refused to post this video on-line on the grounds that it was too politically controversial. It’s now available on-line. You be the judge:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bBx2Y5HhplI]

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More links:

TED and inequality: The Real Story

To read the transcript of Hanauer’s talk, go to National Journal.com

Addressing Climate Change Requires Reclaiming Our Creativity That’s Been “Strip-Mined” By Our Education

Our children’s future, we now know, will include the effects of a warming planet, although how much the planet will warm depends on all of us right now.  This different planet,  “Eaarth”, as Bill McKibbon points out, will require the best of human ingenuity and creativity to help humans change and adapt.

In the video below, Sir Ken Robinson speaks at the 2006 TED Conference about whether schools kill creativity.  Robinson is a former professor of arts education at the University of Warwick who has written a number of books on the subject, including “Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative” and “Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything”.  It is an entertaining and profound presentation, and I hope you find 20 minutes to sit down and watch it.  Robinson concludes his talk with this admonition:

What I think it comes to is this: Al Gore spoke the other night about ecology and the revolution that was triggered by Rachel Carson. Our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology. One in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds the way we have strip-mined the earth; for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won’t service. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we are educating our children. There was a wonderful quote by Jonas Salk, who said, “If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.” And he’s right.

What TED celebrates is the gift of the human imagination. We have to be careful now that we use this gift wisely, and that we avert some of the scenarios that we’ve talked about. And the only way we’ll do it is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are, and seeing our children for the hope that they are. And our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future — by the way, we may not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY]

More links:

Sir Ken Robinson’s Website

Written transcript of “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”

TED (Technology-Environment-Design) home: Ideas Worth Spreading

*Thanks to Joanne, from my Wednesday night Creative Writing class, for sharing this video*