It’s Time for TED

The playground revival for adults.

Here are some choice tidbits, with more in the comments below:

• Al Gore, pounding his fist into the air:
“We must solve the democracy crisis to solve the energy crisis. The fossil-fuel companies have captured the political process and zombiefied them with false messages. The political process is paralyzed.”

Speaking in Canada, land of the tar sands: “Tapping the tar sands is like junkies shooting between their toes when their arm veins give out.”

“Ukraine should be a global epiphany. This is a fossil fuel war. This is not a time for moral cowardice!”

“Particulate pollution from fossil fuels kills 9 million people annually, much more than COVID.”

• Andrew Ng, Stanford AI Professor:
“The democratization of AI will be as impactful as the age of literacy. We need to “empower every individual to build AI systems for themselves,”

• Eleni Myrivili, Chief Heat Officer of Athens:
“Extreme heat in the urban environment is the deadliest of all extreme weather. Heat destroys quietly and invisibly, and there is little we can do in the moment.”

“We need awareness, preparedness and redesign. We need to name and categorize heat wave forecasts as we do with hurricanes. We should have policies for outdoor workers as we do with hurricanes. You would not expect construction sites or food delivery in a hurricane. We need to shift electrical loads from industrial to residential and redesign urban construction for heat.”

• Platon, portrait photographer, engages his subjects in a dialog before taking the shot:

To Vladimir Putin: Do you like western music, like the Beatles? Putin made his staff leave the room, and when just his security detail remained, he replied: “I love the Beatles.” Favorite song? Back in the U.S.S.R. perhaps? “No. Yesterday. Think about it.”

Michelle Obama: whispering in his ear, “At the end of the day I’m just Michelle.”

Stephen Hawkins: Can I get one word of wisdom from you? Hawkins blinked in reply: “wow”