The first two videos from TED2012 are up. They’re from yesterday’s session. Paul Gilding, author of
The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World, gave a very depressing talk about the imminent end of life as we know it. It’s titled The Earth is Full:
Have we used up all our resources? Have we filled up all the livable space on Earth? Paul Gilding suggests we have, and the possibility of devastating consequences, in a talk that’s equal parts terrifying and, oddly, hopeful.
Gilding’s talk was followed by a much more positive one by Peter Diamandis, chair of the X Prize Foundation and Singularity University, titled Abundance is our Future:
Onstage at TED2012, Peter Diamandis makes a case for optimism — that we’ll invent, innovate and create ways to solve the challenges that loom over us. “I’m not saying we don’t have our set of problems; we surely do. But ultimately, we knock them down.”
I was glad Diamandis’ talk followed Gilding’s, because I tend to believe the most recent argument I hear.