Countdown is a global initiative to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis. Watch the talks, interviews and performances from the Countdown Global Launch at ted.com/countdown. Transforming big systems is a huge task. Energy, transportation, industry and infrastructure all pose their own challenges. And yet that transformation is alrea...

Countdown is a global initiative to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis. Watch the talks, interviews and performances from the Countdown Global Launch at ted.com/countdown. Today, 10.10.2020, is the climate's day of destiny: the Countdown Global Launch, a call to action on climate change and the first-ever free TED conference. L...

Trying to understand what's actually going on in the world's climate seems like it might be truly impossible. For one thing, there are so many different factors at work. Everything from how light travels through the atmosphere to how the winds move the ocean around to how rain hits the ground has an effect on what actually happens on Earth b...

In the face of global crises like climate change and refugee migration, it seems sometimes that nation-states are hopelessly gridlocked and unable to act. At TEDGlobal 2013, political theorist Benjamin Barber laid out a counter-proposal: Go local. Big cities are demonstrating a remarkable capacity to govern themselves democratically and effi...

Just a few of the intriguing headlines involving members of the TED community this week: Around the globe without a drop of fuel. What has the wingspan of a Boeing 747 but weighs only about as much as an SUV? The answer is Bertrand Piccard’s Solar Impulse 2, an airplane fueled entirely by solar energy that landed in California on April 24 aft...

In today's Need to Know, a very small folding bike, the suggestion of a new way to tackle climate change, and a happy trip down memory lane to look at a time when drug companies and governments could work together successfully. A bike the size of an umbrella Yep, the prototype “Sadabike” has an alumnium alloy frame and 26-inch wheels — and fol...

After three days of astonishing speakers and bold ideas, you may be asking yourself: Where do we go now? The answer: forward. The final session of TEDWomen 2018, hosted by TEDWomen curator Pat Mitchell, featured a dynamic lineup of forward thinkers: Ariana Curtis, Galit Ariel, Majd Mashharawi, Soraya Chemaly, Katharine Hayhoe, Cecile Rich...

Researchers and academics around the world are in the crosshairs of an assault on the worth of the scientific method. Here’s how to stand up for science. We’re living in anti-science times. Donald Trump has denied climate change, spread unfounded claims about the links between vaccines and autism, and vociferously defended his false beliefs abo...

Day five of TED2016 contained one session filled with big ideas, but also an opportunity to look back at the conference as a whole. Below, the major themes that ran through the course of the week. We’re ready for our moonshot moment. The most-evoked image of the conference? Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon. Speakers including Dan P...

The world is experiencing the consequences of climate change and the urgency couldn't be more clear. In Session 3 of TEDWomen 2019, we dug deep into some of the most pressing environmental issues of our time -- exploring solutions and the many ways people across the globe are fighting for change. The event: TEDWomen 2019, Session 3: Plane...

We are familiar, perhaps too much so, with the adverse effects of climate change upon our natural environment. Most every day we learn of increased erosion, acidification, and some unfortunate kind of caterpillar that will not survive the impending endless summer. But that’s not even the half of it. Crime will rise ... As temperatures ...

It’s that simple. Making sure that girls around the world can go to school helps them and their families, of course, but also benefits the entire world. If I asked you to name one of the most effective ways to combat climate change, what would your answer be? Installing solar panels on rooftops? Building wind turbines? Driving electric cars? ...

Since the first teaser in late 2013, we've been in countdown mode for Interstellar, Christopher Nolan's new outer-space epic that promises to blast us through space and time and wormholes. If you're as excited as we are but can't clear three hours to go see the whole movie, here's the plot we could figure out from obsessively watching trailer...

At "We the Future," a day of talks from TED, the Skoll Foundation and the United Nations Foundation at the TED World Theater in New York City, 18 speakers and performers shared daring ideas, deep analysis, cautionary tales and behavior-changing strategies aimed at meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the global goals created ...

On day three of TED2017, we got an exploration of the mind, new ideas on climate change and thoughts on how our world is hyper global and at the same time hyper local. Below, some highlights. Perception is a hallucination. Surprise! In Session 4, Anil Seth made a convincing case that we’re hallucinating all the time. In a delightfully dis...

The Great White Continent. The Frozen Desert. The Real Land Down Under. Antarctica might not be the easiest of places to travel to but, in the past year, there have been two TEDx events staged on the continent. Darren McGann organized TEDxAntarcticPeninsula, which took place on March 6. After watching TEDx talks online for years, he decid...

Catering a TEDx event can be -- how do you say it? – costly. So we think it’s so cool that the organizers of TEDxSydney decided to crowdsource the food for the 2,200 people attending the event in May. All the food in the amazing spread above comes from community gardens and from plants grown in the backyards, windowsills and balconies of bot...

The speakers and performers who’ll be a part of TEDWomen 2015 know a bit about “Momentum.” Each of them has pushed forward fascinating research, created something out of a bold idea or moved the needle on a cause that’s central to them. The 34 speakers on our lineup — soon to be joined by a few more — range from former presidents (yes, plural...

For some people, climate change can be an abstract concept, especially if they’re living somewhere that hasn’t experienced serious effects yet. Art is one effective way to provide people with a vision of what the future could look like if we do take action -- or if we don’t. That’s why TED Countdown -- a global rallying cry to cut greenho...

Countdown is a global initiative to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis. Watch the talks, interviews and performances from the Countdown Global Launch at ted.com/countdown. The world around us is mainly made of two things: nature and the materials that we extract from it. To fight climate change, we need to protect and regenerate n...

The TED community has been moving-and-shaking as usual. Below, some newsy highlights. What you don’t know about ‘no.’ If your friend is getting ready for a job interview and asks, “Do I look good in this?,” and you answer, “No, totally!,” should they change or stride confidently out the door? This week, Kathryn Schulz writes in The New Yorker a...

Women the world over are no longer accepting the status quo. They're showing up and pushing boundaries. Whatever their focus and talent -- business, technology, art, science, politics -- pioneers and their allies are joining forces in an explosion of discovery and ingenuity to drive real, meaningful change. At TEDWomen 2018 -- three days ...

Artist Zaria Forman travels thousands of miles to collect source material for drawings that portray the beauty and fragility of the world. Her goal? To help people experience the sublimity of these landscapes, so they'll be inspired to protect and preserve them. Zaria Forman has nothing against photography. On her expeditions to the furthest co...

If we want to effectively respond to climate change, we must understand the complex connections that exist between humans and ice. These relationships deserve our attention and respect, says glaciologist M Jackson. Our glaciers are disappearing. Glaciers worldwide that have existed for centuries are disappearing in human timescales -- our lifet...

TED2014, our 30th anniversary conference, is less than a month away! If you’re counting the days like we are, get a head start by reading some of the insightful and compelling books by the groundbreaking thinkers who will speak in Vancouver. Books from speakers in Session 1, “Liftoff” Being Digital, by Nicholas Negroponte. This 1995 bests...

On February 25, TED welcomed its latest class to the TED Residency program, an in-house incubator for breakthrough ideas. These 11 Residents will spend 14 weeks at TED's New York headquarters, working and thinking together. New Residents include: A community organizer preserving disappearing languages An LGBTQ+ digital activist ed...

Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter is here to make the case that business can help tackle social problems. Issues such as healthcare, access to water and climate change are bread-and-butter concerns for TEDsters in the room, who clearly agree with his early statement that we're all very aware that these problems exist. Many of ...

Rather than just imagine the future, what if we could walk around in it? In a new installation, designer Anab Jain invites visitors to enter an apartment in the middle of the 21st century. What will our world look like in 30 years? Many of us fear the worst. Today, violent storms and wildfires are ripping through the world; we’re rapidly los...

All over the world, land is turning into desert at an alarming rate. Biologist Allan Savory has dedicated a lifetime to figuring out what’s causing this “desertification.” Finally, after decades of work in the field, Savory discovered a radical solution—one that went against everything scientists had always thought. He used huge herds of liv...

Genetic engineering and organic farming are often set up in opposition to one another. After all, how could one agricultural practice that eschews any influence other than Nature coexist with another that is cultivated in a lab? Well, in the household of Pam Ronald (TED Talk: The case for engineering our food) and Raoul Adamchak, they live toget...