Celebrate nature and Earth's biodiversity with these action-driven ideas that will inspire you to protect the climate for the generations to come.

For those times when living a life far beyond our planet looks a little too appealing.

Humanity's increasingly permanent mark on the planet has spurred a new geological age in earth's history: the Anthropocene. Learn how we got to this point -- and what our footprint means to the future of the planet.

Statistician Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation's success by its productivity -- instead of by the happiness and well-being of its people. He introduces the Happy Planet Index, which tracks national well-being against resource use (because a happy life doesn't have to cost the earth). Which countries rank highest in the HPI? You might be sur...

Learn all the hubbub going on with the big Red Planet in these insightful and utterly fascinating talks.

Mars is humanity's next destination. We keep talking about it, but what would it really be like to live there?

There's something special about our busy, blue marble of a planet. These talks explore why we should make strides to preserve our shared, galactic home.

Master architects share their vision for buildings that inflate, float, twist and glitter, while artfully addressing the challenges faced by their residents, their cities and the planet.

Our planet is a wonder, a perfectly improbable incubator for life. It’s also in danger because of our indifference. Reflections on both those truths.

We all share one planet -- we breathe the same air, drink the same water and depend on the same oceans, forests and biodiversity. Economist Naoko Ishii is on a mission to protect these shared resources, known as the global commons, that are vital for our survival. In an eye-opening talk about the wellness of the planet, Ishii outlines four econo...

Farming is the worst thing humanity has ever done to the planet, says journalist George Monbiot. What's more: the global food system could be heading toward collapse. Detailing the technological solutions we need to radically reshape food production -- from lab-grown, protein-rich foods to crops that don't require plowing -- Monbiot shares a fut...

Sure, we're looking beyond the planet to other worlds we may one day inhabit -- but a lot of this technology we've developed can be used for the good of the Earth, too.

Here's a question we all have to answer sooner or later: What do you want to happen to your body when you die? Funeral director Caitlin Doughty explores new ways to prepare us for inevitable mortality. In this thoughtful talk, learn more about ideas for burial (like "recomposting" and "conservation burial") that return our bodies back to the ear...

Of all the mundane yet astonishing marvels of human ingenuity, knowing what it takes to heat a room to a comfortable temperature is TED Fellow Kathy Hannun's favorite. She takes us on a journey across the planet and under the sea to emphasize the dangers of modern heating, and offers a safer, planet-friendly alternative that taps into the geothe...

Get transported on a stunningly rendered, sci-fi safari through Planet City: an imaginary metropolis of 10 billion people, from the brain of director and architect Liam Young. Explore the potential outcomes of an urban space designed to house the entire population of the earth -- and imagine answers to what is possible, and what is sustainable, ...

A selection of potentially planet-saving TED Talks from Countdown, TED's initiative to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis

What will happen to the planet if climate change melts what's left of Arctic permafrost? Shedding light on this overlooked threat, Arctic geologist Sue Natali reveals the true danger of heating up the iciest place on the planet: the release of ancient carbon that will dramatically worsen our climate problems. In this urgent talk, she introduces ...

"Venus is too hot, Mars is too cold, and Earth is just right," says planetary scientist Dave Brain. But why? In this pleasantly humorous talk, Brain explores the fascinating science behind what it takes for a planet to host life -- and why humanity may just be in the right place at the right time when it comes to the timeline of life-sustaining ...

Is Earth really the only life-sustaining planet? These speakers think there might just be something or someone else out there -- and urge us to keep looking for it.

We have archives of films, newspapers, even seeds -- what if we could make one for the entire surface of the earth? Drawing on his experience mapping an ancient city in the Honduran jungle, archaeologist Chris Fisher makes the case for scanning the whole planet with LiDAR -- a technology that uses lasers shot from an airplane to map the ground -...

Consider the spot where you're sitting. Travel backwards in time and it might've been submerged at the bottom of a shallow sea, buried under miles of rock or floating through a molten landscape. But go back about 4.6 billion years, and you'd be in the middle of an enormous cloud of dust and gas orbiting a newborn star. What exactly is this cosmi...

"The way we cool things down is heating the planet even more," says sustainable development expert Rachel Kyte -- and the solutions go well beyond just fixing air-conditioning. She identifies four major areas with transformative solutions -- from roofs painted with bright white paint to solar control glass to more efficient cold chains for vacci...

Given the option, few would choose to buy products that harm the earth -- yet it's nearly impossible to know how most consumer goods are made or where they're sourced from. That's about to change, says supply chain innovator Markus Mutz. He shares how he used blockchain technology to track Patagonian toothfish on their journey from ocean to dinn...

Forget the latest disease in the news: Cardiovascular disease kills more people than everything else combined -- and it’s mostly preventable. Dr. Dean Ornish explains how changing our eating habits can save lives.

Spoken word artist IN-Q poetically captures the urgency of climate change in his original spoken word poem, "Movie Stars." He urges us to take ownership of the Earth and the damage we've committed, and ends with a call to action: "One little dot is all that we've got," says IN-Q. "We just forgot that none of it's ours; we just forgot that all of...

Did you know that one of the most notorious poisons is also a key ingredient for life as we know it? Join space chemist Karin Öberg and learn how she scans the universe in search of this paradoxical chemical using ALMA, the world's largest radio telescope, to detect hotbeds of molecular activity and the formation of life-sustaining planets.

What is nature? Follow the camera's eye to many stunning places on the planet -- from the African veldt to the Amazon rainforest to the teeming world under the Arctic ice.

Oceanographer Penny Chisholm introduces us to an amazing little being: Prochlorococcus, the most abundant photosynthetic species on the planet. A marine microbe that has existed for millions of years, Prochlorococcus wasn't discovered until the mid-1980s -- but its ancient genetic code may hold clues to how we can reduce our dependence on fossil...

Could the strange orbits of small, distant objects in our solar system lead us to a big discovery? Planetary astronomer Mike Brown proposes the existence of a new, giant planet lurking in the far reaches of our solar system -- and shows us how traces of its presence might already be staring us in the face.

How do we find planets -- even habitable planets -- around other stars? By looking for tiny dimming as a planet passes in front of its sun, TED Fellow Lucianne Walkowicz and the Kepler mission have found some 1,200 potential new planetary systems. With new techniques, they may even find ones with the right conditions for life.