The Keystone XL pipeline, which has been proposed to transport oil the 1700 miles from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast, is something of a Rorschach test in the United States. Advocates of the pipeline believe that it’s the holy-grail project that will create jobs for Americans and ensure the country’s oil independence. Opponents of the pipeline w...

Asmeret Asefaw Berhe is a soil and global-change scientist and educator passionate about all things related to the science and beauty of soils.

UPS's Julio Gil thinks that technology is flipping the equation on future cities, and that rural may soon become the new urban.

At the Afghan Institute of Learning, Sakena Yacoobi provides teacher training to Afghan women, supporting education for girls and boys throughout the country.

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline would stretch 1,700 miles from Western Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas. And it has become a touchstone for the bitter fight over America's energy future. Opponents say the pipeline -- designed to bring oil from Canadian tar sands down through the United States -- would further bind future generations to outdat...

Scientist Sylvia Earle (TED Talk: My wish: Protect our oceans) has spent the past five decades exploring the seas. During that time, she's witnessed a steep decline in ocean wildlife numbers -- and a sharp incline in the number of ocean deadzones and oil drilling sites. An original documentary about Earle's life and work premieres today on Netfl...

Photo: James Duncan Davidson "We've run into a giant fracking problem," says TED curator Chris Anderson by way of introducing the next speaker, energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens, who comes to the stage to talk about methods to solve the energy crisis facing the United States. Or as he puts it, his "alternative to alternative energy" and what...

Chances are, you probably haven’t heard of Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. But this rule, adopted on Monday by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), brings with it the potential for big global change. Section 1504 requires that all oil, gas and mining companies listed in the US dis...

Why learn about methane? Because it could be our chance to make a real dent in global warming, says environmentalist Fred Krupp. Methane, which is created when four hydrogen atoms bond to one atom of carbon, is a molecule that’s lighter than air. It's amazingly useful -- it’s the primary component of natural gas, which generates roughly 22 perc...

Jon Boogz is a movement artist, choreographer and director who seeks to push the evolution of dance.

About this event: Africa, believed to be the first home for life on earth. As the continent drift occurred millions of years ago, Africa stood there as a strong and a solid piece of land continuing to inhabit some of the most amazing wildlife, beautiful nature and diversified tribes of people. The continent boasts of land with abundant natural resources like oil,...

In January of 2013, TED Fellow Cesar Harada, inventor of an open-source sailing robot, set sail on a four-month, 14-country round-the-world journey with Unreasonable at Sea, a global innovation accelerator on board a boat. Here, he tells us about how this extraordinary voyage helped crystallize his vision for how his open source sailing robo...

It may not appear very lively six feet underground, but a single teaspoon of soil contains more organisms than there are human beings on the planet. From bacteria and algae to fungi and protozoa, soils are home to one quarter of Earth's biodiversity. And perhaps soil's most important inhabitants are its microbes. Carolyn Marshall digs into how s...

About this event: TEDxCarbonTracker is part of Countdown hosted by TED. The debate will explore the timing of peak fossil fuel demand and what it means for financial markets and geopolitics, touching on topics from two of the Countdown themes: resilient economies and the future of energy. Fossil fuels have enjoyed growth for the last 200 years and until recentl...

A Juan Pablo Sáez Gil le encantan los palídromos. Tanto, que ha escrito un libro que se lee igual de principio al final que del final a principio. En esta charla lúdica nos cuenta sobre la magia de ver las cosas del revés.

Matt Kenyon’s art doesn’t just cast a sardonic eye on the systems around us, it also infiltrates and subverts them. He walks us through some of his projects. Wickedly funny and infused with technology, the work of Matt Kenyon makes you stop, makes you think. His culture-jamming, interactive works enlighten, startle and often make shocking use o...

We’re just a week into 2013, and the year seems filled with possibility. The turn of the New Year is generally an occasion to look back and reflect on the year that's passed -- the victories and defeats, the lives lost and the experiences found. But after we look back, we inevitably turn forward. We make resolutions and predictions for the y...

Tom Thum wowed at TEDxSydney this week by doing strange things with his mouth. With just a microphone and his charisma, Thum brings the sounds of Michael Jackson, fifties jazz and scratched vinyl to the TEDx stage. In this talk, he demonstrates his “innate ability for inhuman noisemaking.” Thum's talk has amassed over 2 million hits on You...

Yesterday, Kate Stone charmed the assembled TED audience with her tales of failing exams, living on a sheep farm in Australia, and developing genuinely interactive paper. Today, she shared three simple skills she's learned along the way--and described why she thinks these are actually critical life skills. 1. Know how to dig a hole. Stone ...

About this event: For too long we have lived in a world where short-term fixes are ‘good enough’. Imagine a world where people intentionally designed solutions with the future in mind. Imagine if every company followed a ‘future proofing’ process to minimise possible negative consequences. Can we seize opportunities when they arise and protect our future at the s...

The Way We Work is an original video series where leaders and thinkers offer practical wisdom and insight into how we can adapt and thrive amid changing workplace conventions. (Made possible with the support of Dropbox)

Jarrett J. Krosoczka is the author/illustrator of countless children's books and graphic novels, including Good Night, Monkey Boy, Baghead and the Lunch Lady series.

When we talk about corruption, certain types of individuals come to mind, says Charmian Gooch, co-founder of watchdog NGO Global Witness. She gives some familiar examples of the type. There's the (former) Soviet megalomaniac -- such as Saparmurat Niyazov, the all-powerful leader of Turkmenistan, whose indulgences included erecting a 40-foot-...

About this event: ALENTEJO TODAY will address the entrepreneurial and innovation projects that have developed in the region, with themes that addressed both the Agriculture and agronomic innovations, the level of olive oil, Cork (the Alentejo is one of the largest exporters of the product worldwide), Coffee Industry (Delta Cafés, one of the largest industries Ibe...

Movement artists Jon Boogz and Lil Buck debut "Honor thy mother," a delicate, powerful performance of spoken word, violin and dance that draws on the tormented relationship between nature and humanity.

Peter Diamandis runs the X Prize Foundation, which offers large cash incentive prizes to inventors who can solve grand challenges like space flight, low-cost mobile medical diagnostics and oil spill cleanup. He is the chair of Singularity University, which teaches executives and grad students about exponentially growing technologies.

Charmian Gooch, co-founder of anti-corruption NGO Global Witness, tracks money to expose deep-rooted global corruption. In yesterday's talk, Gooch demonstrates that dirty money goes all the way to the top, and more sinister is that these cases of corruption are well-known to leaders and corporate elites. Nobody -- banks, big oil, government ...

Planet Earth doesn’t exactly have a birthday. But every year on April 22, we celebrate Earth Day -- the anniversary of the moment the environmental movement went mass. According to EarthDay.org, Earth Day was founded in 1970 by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, who called for a “national teach-in on the environment” after witnessing the terrible e...

Here, we take a closer look at the incredible place we call home, with a collection of speakers who celebrate the Earth's natural beauty as it is now -- or who are proposing (sometimes controversial) ways to keep it that way. In this session: Karen Bass has traveled the world to explore and capture footage from every environment across the...

Edward Burtynsky finds the eerie beauty in the man-made landscapes that dot our Earth's surface. As a photographer who focuses on the relationship between humans and nature, he travels to the hidden corners of the Earth to document the way people are ravaging our planet. Below, 13 of his haunting images of altered nature. All images shown courte...