The reality of climate change

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. David Puttnam looks at Climate Change through different lenses, all of which reveal the unsustainable ways in which we are living. Climate Change is real, but throughout history humans have failed to set political and economic concerns aside for our greater good. Will we ignore this latest warning? 

Lord David Puttnam.

Lord David Puttnam produced award-winning films including Chariots of Fire, Bugsy Malone, and The Mission. 

He now works at the intersection between education, media, and policy. In 2007 he was appointed Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Draft Climate Change Bill.

Watch the TEDx Dublin talk by David Puttnam - “The reality of climate change”.

Society's advances won't counter threats - Dan Lipinski

U.S. Congressman, Dan Lipinski (left), said:

 

“Yet, despite our many advances, our environment is still threatened by a range of problems, including global climate change, energy dependence on unsustainable fossil fuels, and loss of biodiversity.”

Global agriculture and food system 'unsustainable'

T

he global agriculture and food system in its current form is unsustainable.

Farming practices cause environmental damage such as water pollution, soil degradation and GHG emissions, while producing food of a controversial quality.

At the same time, agriculture can be a major provider of jobs, goods and environmental services.

Major shifts at all scales – international, national and sub-national – and in all sectors, from food production to consumption, are essential to improve the situation and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals related to poverty, food and nutrition security, health, rural development and the environment.

Read the Sustainable Development Goals story - “National Transformation Pathways for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems.”

A simple equation, that being misunderstood will change the world

Gail Tverberg.

The energy equation is simple, but few, it seems, understand it.

It is about the amount of energy expended, or investment, to achieve return on that investment – it’s about energy returned on energy invested (EROI).

And of course, since the agricultural revolution, an effect accelerated when we understood how to exploit fossil fuels, we have replaced human energy with the immensely energy-rich fossil fuels and built a way of life that is clearly unsustainable.

Writing on “Our Finite World”, a member of the American Academy of Actuaries, Gail Tverberg, who is also an M. S. from the University of Illinois, Chicago in Mathematics, fears for the collapse of society.

Her latest piece: “Diminishing returns, energy return on energy invested, and collapse” helps us understand global financial dynamic is unfolding.

In conclusion she says: “We cannot simply go backward, because methods that worked in the past, such as using draft horses and buggy whips, will no longer be available without a long development period.

“We are truly facing and unprecedented situation – on that is very hard to prepare for”, she writes.