TED Talks

Mark Boyle is a well-spoken critic of the industrial capitalist system. Like a modern Henry David Thoreau, he set out to ask if it was possible to live outside of it. He offers valuable insight on the world of money in which we live. If you like this talk, you will love his 2019 book, The Way Home.

A story of transforming a small town by transforming the landscape that people live in.

We’ve had 30 years of pep talking and selling positive ideas, and I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work because if it would have, the emissions would have gone down by now. They haven’t.

Greta Thunberg says it like it is. She’s a high school student from Sweden, speaking truth to global power. If you haven’t heard, she’s been skipping school to protest for action on climate.

“Some people say that I should be in school instead. Some people say that I should study to become a climate scientist so that I can solve the climate crisis. But the climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change. Why should I be studying for a future that soon will be no more, when no one is doing anything whatsoever to save that future? And what is the point of learning facts in this school system when the most important facts given by the finest science of that same school system clearly means nothing to our politicians and our society.”

“Whatever I do, I do from a deep love… a very deep love for life and all its gifts and bounties. And it’s that love that replenishes me and recharges me to go on. I’m not doing a job for anybody. Nobody is paying me a salary—this much nine-to-five and a little bonus if you do more. No, this is about living. It is about the joy of living. And if that joy of living requires that those who are robbing the planet of its life, those who are robbing people of their lives have to be resisted and questioned, I will do that too. That too is part of my resistance.”

Among young people, ideas like colonizing Mars are enticing. Lucinanne Walkowicz urges us to reconsider notions that we could escape environmental crisis on Earth. Even the most inhospitable deserts and ice caps on Earth are still more habitable than Mars.

As one of the happiest nations on Earth, Bhutan is leading the way in alternative thinking about our shared destiny as humans. What would it look like to have a country that prioritized happiness above all else and considered deeply future generations? Tshering Tobgay shares some of his vision.

The author of Green is the New Red looks into the wealth and power behind environmental politics.

“Indigenous cultures are not failed attempts at modernity, let alone failed attempts to be us. They are unique expressions of the human imagination and heart, unique answers to a fundamental question: What does it mean to be human and alive? When asked this question, the peoples of the world respond in 7,000 different voices, and these collectively comprise our human repertoire for dealing with all the challenges that will confront us as a species over the coming centuries.”

In the isolated United States, we are telling a single story not just about other cultures, but also about ourselves and what we should be working towards.

How can one person make a difference in the world? As a wise man told Por Phonamnuai, plant some trees right where you are. So he transformed his urban environment of Chiang Mai, Thailand by planting thousands of trees—fighting the growing urban heat bubble, creating a sense of civic engagement, and getting ordinary people to take ownership for the environment they live in.

Pete Adeney (a.k.a. Mr. Money Mustache) does the math for people to show them how living within our means financially and cutting unnecessary consumption is a stepping stone to early retirement, happiness, and a better world. He’s an online finance blogger, but says:

“I don’t give a shit about your personal finances. What I care about is how much better a world we all get to live in if we become a little more rational with our money.”

“If you can get yourself financially independent, not only can you eliminate most of the bullshit from your life, but it forces your life’s work to become more truthful. Now this shit really matters. Because in the world today, there are people who grind away like little gears until they die, and then there are people who do pretty well for themselves but leave nothing more than a trail of conspicuous consumption: empty champagne bottles, depreciated luxury cars and yachts and vacation homes. And then there are people who leave a lasting difference. A society grows great only when the old people plant trees even though they know they won’t be around to enjoy the shade of those trees.”

In great eloquence, our friend P’Jo (Jon Jondai) lays out his philosophy for life and his simple, undeniable refutation of the superiority of modern “culture.” The most important parts of life are easy when you have a group of friends and family doing them with you, and the Earth provides for us. Our modern lives seem crazy when compared to nature: a bird builds her nest in two days yet we work in uncomfortable, stressful jobs for 30 years to pay for ours. It might take a little longer than two days to build a house, but P’Jo offers solutions at Pun Pun Farm that are viable alternatives to the path we are on.

Photographer Garth Lenz uses his images of beauty and devastation to take us inside the most damaging fossil fuel extraction operation on Earth: mining in the Alberta Tar Sands. The tar sands represent a net loss of energy. With high oil prices though, it’s profitable to burn more oil than you produce, pollute the land and water, and call it job creation.

Chef Dan Barber takes us into his search for an answer to a big question: in an era of fishery collapse, how can he serve fish on his menu without causing harm to the world. His journey to Spain is inspiring, going beyond the question of sustainable fisheries and into our basic assumptions about food production and our relationship with the natural world.

Ron Finley—self-proclaimed food gangsta—seeks to transform food deserts and urban poverty through gardens in public places.

“Growing your own food is like printing your own money.”

Martín Prechtel shares his spiritual perspective on the interconnected web of problems facing the world today. This is part 1 of a 3-part talk—we trust you can find the rest on youtube.