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TEDx Talks
Published: 2014-12-01
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBjtO-0tbKU
Jim is give me a great lead and she's right the film industry's most wonderful wonderful and she could feel it one of the reasons is wonderful is there is no such thing as it copied down obviously the financial constraints other constraint but your job is to deliver something that works the audience so the subtext in a sense of what I want to talk about this morning
is that it is not impossible I'm layout tough difficult but not at all impossible I subject will be climate change plummeted and my object next fifteen minutes to get you as justifiably angry as I possibly can so please please please do not expect a lot of jokes Alaska's I I wish I had that I really do also how did you examples on offer go online of
to it check my sources check my references double check but I'm not trying to Philly with unnecessary fears or concerns or amusing the wrong metaphors I'm I really sensitive about one now first obvious question is what is a septuagenarian ex full film producer doing on the stage talking about climate change with great things I do have a little bit a full seven years ago my great
good fortune really I chaired the committee parliamentary committee the put through parliament the world's first climate change act setting fixed targets carbon %HESITATION targets and binding targets of that Britain is today forced to deal with or find a way around so I do believe history I'm very proud of what I did I'm very proud of people I work with much input novel I got the opportunity
for a year to interrogate them take evidence from people from around the world for China the United States everybody so we became as it could be pretty pretty damn expert also with mentioned we got this bill through with remarkably little resistance after so one of the great good things two thousand seven was that he was a bill the world's first climate change bill which people took
real pleasure in being the world's first and with her say remarkable lack of that of unpleasantness and and could I want to ask you to develop your anger through him for prisons ready economic health environmental sustainability and leadership like a safe leadership or the lack of suddenly kickoff by me with the economic listen to this but some very old sound to put on an image of
a slave ship that's what it once was with the design of a ship of how many slaves you could cross the Atlantic with and to maximize the profits of the slave owners need one of the arguments two hundred years ago little over two hundred years ago against the abolition of slavery was an economic eloquent it was claimed that twenty five percent the UK's economic activity which
entirely related to slavery and the benefits derived in the UK from slavery twenty five percent and therefore it would be hopelessly uneconomic to abolish slavery and William Wilberforce and those who support them to deal with that argued for twenty years twentieth in the end they did manage to with it and a lot of that energy got transferred into a new form of and but it's still
energy what the slaves were with providing the energy that drove economy an industrial revolution brought a new form of energy but what is important or the new form of energy it was built around innovation once the weren't slaves for line once the one dish chief here apparently plentiful form of energy that had to develop new forms of energy and the slave owners and many others hopefully
help went out of business and a new group of militants were not the quakes before the world but Britain economy fall from tanking which is what I've been predicted grew as never before the development of the industrial revolution litri was bound up in search of innovation and confidence that led for the abolition of slavery so the economic argument kept slavery on the statute for years with
demolished within thirty just would like to hold this a sec hold that thought what they were actually doing we think catia disregard the human suffering in the pursuit of profit not college gonna turn up at least twice more no through the prism of health the last month stormy men died he was the Surgeon General United States of from sixty nine to seventy two very brave man
he took on the tobacco companies and it was he who pushed through the very first warning that morning on pax of cigarettes I'm he was they managed to lobby in order to get rid of it he was got rid of by the next administration in nineteen seventy two he continued the whole rest reflect to argue the same case but they've got shot of it in nineteen
ninety seven Congress twenty five years later Congress cold the leading figures in the tobacco industry to give evidence about the impacts of tobacco now these guys have had twenty five years of medical evidence on their desks they knew exactly situation here thanks to you too is what they I mean our begin my question on on the matter of go whether or not nicotine is addictive yeah
first I might just go down the row %HESITATION whether if you believed us that nicotine is not addictive I heard virtually all of them touched on it just yet you know do you believe nicotine is not addictive I believe nicotine is not addictive yes Mister John %HESITATION congressman cigarettes and nicotine clearly do not meet the classic definitions dictionaries no talks okay we'll take out of them
now and again time is short if you can just I think each of you believe nicotine is not addictive we just would like to have this for the record I don't believe that nicotine or our products are addictive I believe I did I believe that nicotine is about Abu alien that pain is not a very good and I too believe that nicotine is not so nine
years after a second Surgeon General I unequivocally showed that nicotine is addictive these lunatics was still claiming it wasn't right now kinda given up trying to persuade us they've moved they are a way as to the third world now now pushing cigarettes where of the canon Philippines and anywhere else this is a classic example of the impact of deniability thousands and thousands and thousands of people
died because they climb onto explosion was no causal link with the phrase that was no proven causal link between cigarettes and lung cancer thousands of people died this man Ralph Nader check him out save my life it was to save the life of hundreds of thousands of other people he full for twenty years with General Motors the installation of seat belts in because he had amazing
amount of evidence General Motors money for him also blackmailed him they followed him they did everything possible to discredit him to the point the senator Bobby Kennedy require General Motors chairman to come to the Congress and personally apologize to Mister Nader for what they done to him he saved thousands of lives in the face of the denial of the automobile industry that seat belts with valuable
so these are two more examples organizations disregarding human suffering in the picture to prop up a bad car crash in Italy three years ago I would not be here that no question about that I would not be hit by the Ralph Nader Clinton expert environmental sustainability this is a a tough one I think that as human beings we are not unlike troubles we kind of great
up the fight or flight thing with great when you sense danger jumping up looking well I'm sporting a new in reacting would put it that's what's kept us on this planet with the easiest what with terrible act terrible he's dealing with slow burn issues issues that just get worse and worse and worse in the background which on the day to day basis we can kind of
but in the back of our minds and not get to engage with we have very very susceptible to what I would term slick slow but now she's not a child of the sixties I was brought up with this mantra I believe it then I believe if anything more powerfully now basically unless you're prepared to become public jobs you are by definition part of the problem and
this is no way could this people true and then the area of environmental sep sustainability I also think that Nelson Mandela as usual was right when he says that in order to solve these problems we can't just address them with our expectations we just have to exceed our expectations all of you know the notion the turf the planet is finite Bob but if we all want
to live in the way that the west lives we will require a five planets five planets found five planets emulate one very important point don't worry about the plan planet flying with the public a plan that could live perfectly happy and will continue for billions of years to come very very happily without hops it is weak who the planet public fed up with and with good
reason like that now is not that we didn't know about this this is the first edition of the book Britain fifty years ago over fifty years ago by Rachel Carson sons Rick we will warn fifty years ago but what we were doing was unsustainable we both want to what we were doing was legal tell our own future as I say because it's been a slow burn
issue we chose to note make nice noises and ignore it Tom Friedman compliments about this wonderful right from your times I think he's absolutely right in the system how we make the transition to stabilize and still prosperous relationship the oath of each other is surely story about time that more evidence the insurance industry not him read the sleeveless biggest most expensive his office of two thousand
twelve the insurance industry's whatnot and is really now beginning to take these issues very very seriously in fact last week yeah of it may be a bit early this week the CEO of one the world's biggest insurance companies Aviva said this and he is it's great that the industry is beginning to step up and say this try to imagine if you will and uninsurable world trying
to measure and uninsurable environment for yourself unsure of the houses on the shovel and I think each insurance company saying very clearly insurance industry saving unless we alter the they cannot remain in business in an affordable manner that say the premiums will charge that will be forced to charge we've one post be able to pay that is a challenge to you this also exactly right we're
the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the very last generation suddenly people in the school to really do anything about because if we continue to stick our heads in the ground we continue to act like job does not like sensible long term people we couldn't do that we will undoubtedly face it anatomy one PS the consequences this morning at breakfast to a
couple of our young people with us it is our children and their children's children that was we may just escape okay I will seventy three years old are certainly with unless some very unlucky get out I will I will get off this I'll get off this planet you know I mean this FIFA none of us are gonna leave leave this place alive right we've played some
point zero gonna faces but this is not sustainable future yet this is the actual reality of any number cities in the world today and why because we have an economic environment which is prepared lostumbo showed up from here is prepared to proceed disregarding human suffering in the pursuit of profit we've been sucked into the belief but an economic system that we use somewhat with is the
only possible way forward the truth unless we thought of the system if you think absolute certainty but it will see the and about maybe by the end of sentry may be beyond last point I would make is about leadership this is self evident the first step in solving a problem is to recognize that that is one now we don't have a bad record in this particular
instance nineteen sixty one I was newly married and my wife and I went to bed live among sixty one really really really not sure but that was going to be a tomorrow morning many of your parents many of the parents who had the same experience we really didn't know so the Cuban Missile Crisis we really didn't know if it's going to be a tomorrow yet fortunately
two states from decided first that back do the right thing so we're back to Gemma's point human beings given the right circumstances give the right leadership in the opportunities can do the right thing we don't have to be stupid people we can do the right thing and remember the anti Vietnam War protests which I was involved the Iraq war protests these people went wrong these people
are not wrong they were actually right and subsequent events have proven to be right so the notion that somehow actually is ignored yes it may be but you also army position as I am to say actually I was there I was right I may've been ignored we made a stop the what we wanted to I was right it's not a bad thing to begin to drift
towards her elastase thinking I promise you left I wasn't tired I did a talk on what was termed the duty of care I believe profoundly moved you to care I think a phrase we pick about a lot judicata children due to catch of armed forces you to care for the elderly we have a few cute cat which other and with the overriding future care to future
generations how to stop but it is no other possible way I have too excited to because with the work out for ourselves what that really means to us what can we do it's wonderful wonderful phrase a friend from Brazil there's a mysterious cycling human events some generations much is given all other generations much is expected this generation has a rendezvous with destiny I'm here to tell
