Naomi Klein: Addicted to risk

http://www.ted.com Days before this talk, journalist Naomi Klein was on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico, looking at the catastrophic results of BP's risky pursuit of oil. Our societies have become addicted to extreme risk in finding new energy, new financial instruments and more ... and too often, we're left to clean up a mess afterward. Klein's question: What's the backup plan?

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.

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[Oblentehands]

Wonderful speech - I am glad Naomi Klein is in the world.

Thanks for sharing!

[Chris Hughes]

The comments on this talk are absolutely horrifyingly ironic. The talk is a serious warning about how we can't see past our desires and egos when it comes to resource consumption, which she relates to a cultural zeitgeist of infinite possibilities as a traditionally male narrative. Commenters respond by calling her sexist. Bravo Youtube community, way to prove her damn point.

Get over yourselves.

[missdiablica666]

For those who think people can't change the climate because we are so small and irrelevant - read how the Earth got it's oxygen rich atmosphere. The bacteria are a little bit smaller and they did it (a lot of them committing suicide in the process as they were not adjusted to oxygen "pollution"). Plus has anyone seen the satellite pictures of the Earth? Sure people can influence the planet and change it completely, we've already did it!

[centurion180ad]

....but Naomi, it is well established in fact that variation in CO2 is a TRAILING indication, that STELLAR emisivity is what causes cooling & warming, and we FOR SURE know that political control by various gangsters of ENERGY is the entire fraud.

I'm not going to sit still, for FOOLS to shut down energy resources, so that politicl HACKS that don't know or produce a God damn thing can lord over everyone.

If that is what you are up to, you are no less a threat than Rockefeller's ESSO.

[centurion180ad]

Oh, I forgot to mention.

Fur Burger!

[centurion180ad]

I agree with her over all outrage, and her conclusion that corporation gangsters are disgusting & malevolent.

I disagree with her analysis that such disasters are careless. They are not. These things happen deliberately. What corporations see as valuable & irreplaceable are profit & control.

That rig was designed when management loses control, to self destruct so an immediate insurance payoff gains the entire contract’s payoff, and pesky interlopers DIE.

This was a hit & robbery.

[centurion180ad]

She's got a body.

She's got IT.

[justgivemethetruth]

This tar sands screw up is the most idiotic thing I can imagine … this has got to stop now. What on Earth is wrong with Canada anyway ?

[justgivemethetruth]

What happens when women are equal to men and have the same lack of inhibitions that men do? That really scares me.

[justgivemethetruth]

Addicted to risk, as long as the gamblers do not have to pay for it.

This is a great point.

We keep letting this happen because the calculus of victory goes to the gambler. Over time the loud, aggressive, "winners" rise to the top over time and change the whole society, removing any power or even information from everyone else.

We have to find a way to remove these people from power … but that also means we need to replace the given system with something - no knows what yet.