Green Thing Blog

One of Green Things co-founders Andy Hobsbawm spoke at TED earlier this year and the video has just been put online. Check it out...

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There's been so much going on here I haven't really had time to blog my thoughts properly. Perhaps I'll do a retrospective Green-eye view of TED after it all ends. Meanwhile, I'm off to bed so here's a selection of green-related tweets so far during the conference.

1. #ted TED Prize winner Sylvia Earle: "for every lb of fish you eat as much as 10 or even 100lbs have been caught and discarded as by-catch." about 6 hours ago


2. #ted Shai Agassi - phenomenally impressive vision of how to run a country without oil - electric cars @ 2c/mile for 99% of pop. Wow. about 9 hours ago


3. #ted Shai Agassi quotes Nissan CEO-"hybrids r like mermaids: when you want a fish you get a woman and when you need a woman you get a fish" about 9 hours ago


4. #ted Kevin Surace founder of EcoWall gives an inspiring 3min invention story about re-inventing drywall material to reduce co2 by 80% about 9 hours ago


5. #ted Google energy vp checks his HH energy use on laptop and calls his 13yr old to say she left the light on in her bedroom:"She hates that" about 10 hours ago


6. #ted Louise Fresco quotes Ghandi: "to those who have to go without 2 meals a day, God can only appear as bread." most basic food for 10k yrs about 12 hours ago
   


7. #ted Louise Fresco - v. thought-provoking on tension between idealised views of local food production vs. reality of global food demands. about 12 hours ago


8. #ted YouTube star Matt 'where in the hell is matt' Harding choreographes a TED dance. He must have a co2 footprint the size of ayers rock! 3:00 AM yesterday


9. #ted Ray Anderson: "someday people like me will go to jail because theft is a crime & theft of our children's future will 1 day be a crime." 1:47 AM yesterday 


10. #ted "recovering plunderer" Interface Inc CEO Ray Anderson: "design by sustainability is an unexpected wellspring of innovation" 1:39 AM yesterday


11. #ted Captain Charles Moore: "the throwaway society has gone global...only we humans make waste that nature can't digest." 7:52 PM Feb 4th


12. #ted Captain Moore: "all the kings horses & all the kings men will never gather up all the plastic and put our oceans back together again." 7:49 PM Feb 4th

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1. #ted Willie Smits' impressive mix of head (sugar palms as fire buffers) and heart (orangutan sanctuary) to protect and re-grow forrests about 8 hours ago
      
   
   


2. Wow, Dickenson Despommier's vision #ted of closed loop, zero waste farm systems using 70% less water, no f-fuels, pesticides or herbicides about 8 hours ago 
      
   
   


3. #ted Dickenson Despommier proposes ingenuios concept of vertical, soiless farming to solve global food crisis and protect the environment. about 8 hours ago
      
   
   


4. #ted couple of powerful, actionable ideas at TED lunch for Sylvia Earle's wish to ignite support for ocean conservation, some less so about 10 hours ago
      
   
   


5. #ted virus hunter Nathan Wolfe reminds us global air travel spreads viruses: "what happens in central Africa doesn't stay in central Africa" about 11 hours ago

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OK, this isn't about the environment but it is about creativity, and since Green Thing's mantra is 'Creativity Vs. Climate Change I thought it was fair game.

I hugely enjoyed this TED talk last week and thought you might too. Insightful, intellectually stimulating and beautifully spoken stuff, whether or not you agree with everything she says (I know some who don't).

The stories about American poet Ruth Stone and Tom Waits are fabulous.

In a word: Ole!

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This TED talk completely blew me away last month. I urge you to watch it. You might even allow yourself to feel optimistic about our ability to solve seemingly insoluble environmental challenges.

A barel of laughs he 'aint, but Willie Smits is a truly extraordinary man. He managed to re-grow and rejuvenate a destroyed ecosystem in Borneo by taking an incredibly sophisticated, multi-disciplinary approach involving education, engineering, economics, agriculture, biology...

The brilliance of his systems thinking, his sheer ingenuity, the breadth of knowledge needed to spin together such a complex web of interconnected elements and bring a patch of rainforest back from the dead is utterly breathtaking.

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