Everyone loves a good TED Talk. Here’s one of our favorites:
We are at war with ourselves, according to Achim Steiner, a global leader in sustainability and international development at the UN Development Programme. In this inspiring TED Talk, Steiner argues we are engaged in a different kind of war. The dominant risk to our own survival is ourselves.
By many indicators, humans are wealthier, healthier, and more educated than ever before, but we have lost our balance with the earth. In fact, scientists believe we have entered the anthropocene era, where humans, not the planet, are shaping the biosphere and the atmosphere.
Steiner argues that humanity has achieved many radical things like closing a giant hole in the ozone layer, ending nuclear proliferation and smallpox, but we have also taken the Earth to the brink.
It’s not rational that one third of all food produced globally goes to waste while one in ten people goes hungry. Or that 26 people control as much wealth as 50 percent of the world’s population. Or that 7 million people die each year from air pollution while 7 million trees, the very plants that produce oxygen and clean the air, are cut down every few hours. We spend more on subsidizing the fossil fuel industry than we do on all renewable energy.
Sadly, this year, global poverty is set to rise for the first time in 30 years.
As an economist, Steiner says these numbers don’t add up. What he’s learned over the years is that systems don’t change systems, people change systems.
COVID-19 has not changed the world but it has revealed deep flaws in our present. It has shown us that it’s not about trade-offs, choosing between people and trees, but choosing to do things differently.
Here are a few examples. Costa Rica abolished its army and used the money to invest in health and education. Today, the government pays people to protect trees and forests have regenerated.
Denmark has chosen to purchase all of its energy from renewable sources by 2050 and has already passed the halfway mark.
The King of Bhutan chooses to measure progress by Gross Domestic Happiness not Gross Domestic Product.
Powering the economy with renewable energy used to be science fiction. Ten years ago, it was too expensive to be viable, but today it is cheaper than fossil fuels and creates more jobs than the fossil fuel industry in many parts of the world.
These people, the first generation of the Anthropocene, are writing the next chapter for people and the planet. With each choice we make, we choose the future we want.
In conclusion, Steiner reminds us that all people on the planet are part of the same body, different but united and calls on humanity to come together to serve our collective self-interest.