Transcriber: TED Translators admin Reviewer: Ellen Maloney
Good afternoon.
First of all, I'm not that great.
I'm just a chemist.
I'm the person who knows about materials,
but I don't know so much.
And I am pretty mediocre.
For example, I don't do any sports, or I cannot dance,
I never take any cold showers for example.
And I cannot do all these nice exercises.
But I want to ask you something: do you like organic food?
Can you raise your hand who likes organic food?
Yeah, you are the problem.
Because, every morning I fall into deep depression for ten seconds.
Because, I sit on the toilet-
(Straining sounds)
and then, basically, I'll show you what it means.
I make excrement.
Like a baby.
And that's what you do as well.
But isn't it amazing?
That's not one organic label which allows,
my excrements are included, not one,
whatever you do when-
(Strains)
never allows me to be involved.
And that's a problem.
So, we are in deep shit, because we don't respect shit.
(Laughter)
We can do a lot of innovations,
we can look at things, and make them differently.
We can reduce our ecologic footprint.
For example, people say,
"Please protect the environment; don't make so much waste."
Please protect the environment, don't use so much water;
"Please protect the environment; don't use your car so often."
So this is what we're calling "environmental protection".
When we destroy a little less.
That's the same as if you say, "Please, protect your child;
beat your child only three times, instead of five times."
We think we protect when we destroy less.
But it's not protecting, it's only minimizing the destruction.
And this is where we are.
We make waste all over the planet, and it looks crazy.
Why can't we make a different thing?
Why can't we make a footprint which is beneficial?
But this is what we do.
We try to be less bad.
For example, I can do something,
I can cut my hair short to minimize my shampoo consumption.
I can reduce my footprint by, for example, taking the elevator.
Because when you take the elevator, you can be five time less bad
Because it takes, for a vegetarian, five times more energy
to lift somebody by taking the stairs, than taking the elevator.
In calories, it's five times more energy intensive than taking the elevator.
So, whenever you want to protect the environment, take the elevator,
because it takes so much less energy when you have an elevator,
because you use calories so much.
We can do a lot, for example, never drink sparkling water.
Because it's three litres of carbon dioxides.
We can do a lot; we call it "sustainability".
When I ask you, "How is your relationship with your girlfriend?
What would you say? Sustainable.
(Laughter)
Then, I am really sorry for you.
(Laughter)
So, this is not about minimizing being bad; it's about being good.
We talk about reducing carbon dioxide emissions;
but two thirds of all the carbon is in soil?
Not in oil, not in coal, two thirds of all the carbon is in top soil.
So, we want to be carbon neutral,
but why don't we make a footprint
which is beneficial, instead of carbon neutral?
People try to be "less bad".
You will say, "Oh yes! 'm 90% bad, 80% bad,
I make all zeroes carbon neutral".
For example, Europe has a goal to be carbon neutral in 2050.
You can only be carbon neutral when you don't exist.
This is the only way.
Just by thinking, you are not carbon neutral.
So how could you say, "My biggest goal is to be carbon neutral?"
Out of all the environmental disasters,
- Seveso, Bhopal, The Love Canal, Chernobyl -
the generated feeling is, "it's better we're not here".
And when you are in, say, Amazon, we think, "We are a pain for the planet".
This is why we try to be less bad.
That's why we try to reduce our footprint.
Maybe you know this joke;
One planet meets another planet, and says, "You really look terrible today".
And the other planet says, "Yes, I have Homo sapiens".
The first planet answers,
"Don't worry, I had this before; it will disappear somehow".
We feel so bad, we think it's better we are not here.
With all these environmental disasters,
we lost a whole generation of good scientists.
We have lots of smart MBA's, we have brilliant lawyers,
but we don't have enough engineers.
We don't have enough good scientists
because how can you study chemistry, when you see Bhopal?
How can you study physics, when you see Chernobyl?
And the one who studies to be a scientist did with a bad conscience..
So that's why they try to be "less bad".
He apologizes everyday for being here.
That's the reasons that we're trying to minimize our footprint.
We walk,
and when we are in Sweden, for example, your footprint means destruction,
that's why people try to minimize their footprint.
But, when you are here,
your footprint means the water stays longer.
So why do we want to minimize our footprint,
when we can have a beneficial footprint?
So we can make things completely differently.
But this is what we do.
Here, it stinks, this is PVC.
Never designed to go in biological systems.
This is our catalog, it stinks;
never designed for toilet paper.
It's hazardous waste.
We need to reinvent our products,
and the products need to look different, completely different.
Everything that gets consumed; food, detergents, backpacks,
need to be designed to grow up into biological systems.
Everything that is just used as a service needs to go back to the technical system.
You cannot consume a window, you don't consume a washing machine,
you don't consume a TV set, you only use it.
So, we need to distinguish between two different cycles.
Things which get consumed, like shoe soles,
need to be designed to go to biological systems.
Things which are just used, like the washing machine,
need to be designed for the technical cycle,
but right now, they are just hazardous waste.
So, we need to reinvent our products, completely from the beginning.
And, we could see this with a poll, or we could see this with tech.
We had a lot of benefits in the United States, because of George Bush.
George Bush was great for us.
Right now we have so many creative people
which we could hear here because we had George Bush.
In November, 2007,
I was in Australia, in Sydney.
So was George Bush, and he said, "I'm so glad to be in Austria".
(Laughter)
Because, after seven years in power,
he didn't know the difference between Austria and Australia.
Then, he was opening a conference.
He thought, "Vienna, Austria", opening this OPEC Conference.
But it was not the OPEC Conference, it was the APEC Conference,
The Asian-Pacific Conference.
When this is your president,
- we have some potential as well -
we don't wait for the government anymore.
That's why we have seen huge innovations in the United States.
Now, with Mr. Obama, everybody sits back and relaxes,
and waits for what the president is doing.
But before that, we had George Bush, and so we knew it is up to us.
We didn't wait for the government anymore.
So, in a certain way, George Bush was beneficial.
But only in certain ways, definitely.
We need to reinvent our products.
Everything we see in front of us is not designed.
We talk about colors in Brazil,
but all the colors that you see are hazardous waste.
even the flip-flops that we saw are hazardous waste.
35 million flip-flops go into the ocean every year; 35 million.
There's more seals, more whales, more turtles, more dolphins,
killed by flip-flops, than by anything else,
Because the animals eat the plastic.
There are 12 million tons of plastic going into the oceans.
Nothing is designed to go into biological systems;
nothing is designed to go into the biosphere.
We feel so bad that we are here that we are romanticizing nature.
People talk about "Mother Earth".
But there is no "Mother Earth".
It's a strong contingency to natural chemicals,
more toxic chemicals are natural chemicals.
Which mother would give cancer to her child?
When we are romanticizing nature, we are putting us down,
because the mother is good, so the child is bad.
So, there is no "Mother Earth".
We can learn from nature; it's a partnership,
it's learning, it's being proud of our own qualities as well.
Our natural lifetime expectancy is 30 years.
When we get older, it's our creativity, it's our civilization,
it's our science, it's our industry, it's our medicine.
So, we don't need to talk about "Mother Earth".
A mother would not have a girl losing her leg, just by biting.
No.
So, there is no reason to romanticize nature,
because when we romanticize nature, we always feel guilty.
And out of guilt, we are not creative,
Out of guilt, you cannot develop new things.
So, it's about becoming native to this planet.
Why do we delegate being native to the Yanomamis?
We are the native people of this planet.
Why do we delegate being in harmony with nature to Aborigines?
We are the aborigines of the planet.
We are the natives of this planet.
If we don't learn to become natives to this planet,
then, we will destroy each other.
For example, we talk about overpopulation, you could see the curve of overpopulation.
The weight of ants;
it's about to four times more than of all human beings.
And because ants don't make waste;
because ants live only three to six months,
because ants never take elevators,
they are equal to 30 billion people in their calories consumption.
So, we are not too many, we are just stupid, we make waste.
Even when we think about "zero waste", we think about waste.
It's the same thing, when I tells you, "Don't think about the pink crocodile!"
We think about the pink crocodile.
But nature doesn't think about waste.
Nature only makes stuff for biological cycles.
So we can learn from nature.
But we do not just live.
We like washing machines, we like computers.
We cannot make energy saving window
without toxic materials in it, otherwise it doesn't work.
So, this means to reinvent our materials to go into technical cycles.
So, we now make washing machines where you can wash just 3000 times.
We now make materials
which can go into technical cycles, and biological cycles.
But this means reinventing everything you see in front of you.
We don't need to say, "Oh, I'm so sorry to be here."
We can say, "Hey, we are not good enough.
Our design is not good enough because it makes toxic waste."
Now, we try to minimize our footprint but we reach the opposite
We are making the wrong thing perfect, and by that, they are perfectly wrong.
When we send these things to recycling,
we only contaminate the biological system.
Because it was never designed for recycling.
The design that you do is so important,
but right now this design is amazingly primitive.
Look, I became a designer.
You can see when you look in the internet, you find I'm designing materials,
I'm designing materials like washing machines
that only do five thousand loads of washing,
But this is because the designers don't do their job.
I'm designing edible fabrics.
What we do see here?
Stinking PVC, never designed for human beings.
Destroying fertility.
The whole system is very primitive.
That means that we need to reinvent all our materials again.
This is the amount of diapers which one baby makes in one year.
In Europe, 20% of all waste stream in households are diapers.
And, because they get older, the diapers get bigger.
There is some potential in it.
A baby takes about 7,500 diapers.
If we could make diapers for babies,
which allow them to go into biological systems,
if we change the soap absorbents and the plastics,
we could grow with one baby, 150 trees, just with one baby.
So this baby could be carbon positive from the beginning.
It's really carbon positive, not carbon neutral.
With learning how to use the sun, we can reinvent everything
to go back into technical systems and biological systems.
We can make buildings like trees, we can be carbon positive.
We can look at a child and say instead of, "Oh, shit, overpopulation",
we can say, "Holy shit! How nice!"
Thank you very much!