The world's population will grow to 9 billion over the next 50 years -- and only by raising the living standards of the world's poorest people can we check population growth. This is the paradoxical answer that Hans Rosling unveils at TED@Cannes using colorful new data display technology (you'll see). (Recorded at TED@Cannes, June 2010 in Cannes, France. Duration: 10:04)
Watch Hans Rosling's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 700+ TEDTalks.
Over the weekend, President Obama announced the Department of Energy would be giving almost $2 billion in conditional funding to two solar energy companies, Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing.
Money will come from the $863 billion economic stimulus package. Projects funded by this move are expected to create more than 5,000 construction and permanent jobs.
One of these initiatives is the Solana project, which Abengoa says will be the largest concentrating solar power plant in the world when it’s completed. The Arizona-based plant will produce enough energy to power 70,000 households and will save the environment from about 475,000 tons of CO2 each year. Most of the development and permitting for Solana is already complete, and the project has a green light from the Department of Energy (DOE), as well.
“These are just two of the many clean energy investments in the Recovery Act,” the President said. “Already, I’ve seen the payoff from these investments. I’ve seen once-shuttered factories humming with new workers who are building solar panels and wind turbines; rolling up their sleeves to help America win the race for the clean energy economy.”
Here’s the entirety of President Obama’s address on YouTube ():
Solar power has become an increasingly interesting alternative for providing energy for all kinds of purposes, from our homes to our gadgets (), from airplanes to spaceships.
Green and clean tech in general have been surfacing as exciting areas of investment recently; Google () recently invested $38 million in wind farms.
A video for anyone who wants to better understand the failures of prohibition and learn more about alternatives that have proven to be more cost-effective, safe, and humane. Brought to you by the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy -- where science, not ideology, drives illicit drug policy.
If you're looking for new ideas in education, says financial journalist-turned-innovation consultant Charles Leadbeater, you shouldn't focus on the top: specifically, Finland, which is often touted for having the world's best education system. Rather, Leadbeater argues, often the most dismal situations can result in the most out-of-the-box solutions. He himself has seen them in the favelas of Brazil and the slums of Kenya.
He's met a man who came up with the idea of setting up a communal computer in the entryway to an Indian slum, as well as a Brazilian fellow who has come up with more than 200 games to teach kids any subject imaginable. (One of them uses the process of making soap as, what Leadbeater calls a "technology of learning.")
During this TED London Salon talk, Leadbeater praises a couple American initiatives that we've previously cited on this blog, including the Harlem Children's Zone and Big Picture Learning. The key to these innovations, he says: Pulling people into education, rather than pushing them into it.
