Why I don't care about 'Climate Change' | David Saddington | TEDxTeen

who here cares about climate change I don't care about climate change I'm gonna make you not care as well big challenge and fear so I want to tell you a story and I'll bring you into my world mid June 2005 I'm 13 I'm in North Yorkshire in the middle of a small market town near where I live it's late on a Sunday evening at the end of scorching summers day out with my parents suddenly dark clouds start gathering and the sky turns an ill shade of green Thunder rumbles around the square and the heavy rain starts to fall this was going to be one of the worst floods on record to hit northern England and little did I know at the time but I was at the center of it I said driving a few miles out of town on the way home with torrential rain hammering the colorful way we realized we could go no further we were stuck water gushed down hills at the side of the road and brought tons of mud with it the country road in front of us was blocked and this is when my initial childhood excitement turned to fear several more roads were blocked and I realized the scale of the unfolding events we kept trying different ways to get or which became more difficult as darkness during eventually along with some other families we managed to find a safe way home which was unaffected by the floods on the live news coverage liquid evening I saw the damage to the community and then a scientist told me but extreme weather events like these will become more frequent and more severe because of climate change this is what promoted me to make climate change a part of my life and I started action I was fascinated by climate change I made it my mission to raise awareness and education around this now 2005 was different from now 2005 was a time before climate changes big news I promoted scientific education around it how it happens why it happens the greenhouse effect atmospheric chemistry glare CS sea level and so on I was certain that education was the solution to the problem I believe that if people understood the issue build understand the importance of it and then they would take action I met with then Prime Minister Tony Blair and chief scientists at Downing Street and discussed the implementation of climate change on the UK schools national curriculum this quickly became a reality and I worked with organizations around the country to put this into practice I was teaching teachers how to teach climate change I positioned over countries around the world to adopt it on their curriculums and I spread my message in the media as well at the same time I educated myself about frontline scientific research I led an expedition to Iceland to study look at Europe's largest ice cap and I told the public the classic story of melting glaciers and encourage academics to do the same okay so let's let's stop for a minute and think about my title why I don't care about climate change very recently I had a realization that I've been wrong with entire time what words do you think of when you hear climate change I'd be very surprised if the words you are thinking of right now I'm not on the screen behind me these are the most common buzzwords when it comes to climate change they represent the most frequently discussed topics in the media and in education these are the overused terms and they are all we hear about so why should we care about them we shouldn't these words are clouding our minds I was wrong about education and climate change we should care far less about the science why because these words represent a failure to communicate the importance of climate change by making climate change a scientific and academic concept we have made it an abstract Lemoore phenomenon far removed from everyday life we now look upon this world through glass as if we are observing these changes in another world we only talk of the impact of climate change when it is seemed to cause catastrophes and for no more than a week surrounding the event such as a deluge of Somerset earlier this year of a hurricane sandy in New York in 2012 during these events we all start chatting about climate change and hashtagging floods and then as the waters recede we just go back to tweeting about George Clooney's wedding or whatever we have all the soil climate science so much that people switch off a decade ago when I started to this a typical reaction to an iceberg with size of Manhattan dropping off Antarctica be Wow holy crap and now it's more like now the result of this is we superficially care about climate change but not enough to warrant serious action we see tackling climate change is a positive altruistic thing to do but we are not prepared to dramatic alter our lifestyles aware business if you look at the root cause of an action is because we have often confused people with an incomplete view of a science and people think there's no relevance to everyday life okay so we shouldn't be chatting about the science of climate change what should we be doing we should be educating about what is already happening now how are you being affected by climate change and this is about you people like you every day decisions such as buying gas driving your kids to school where to go on holiday how many hours of heating can you afford to have on stop shouting about the science of climate change and start educating about how this will affect you the real side of climate change is personal will affect you and people like you across the entire world okay so let's get personal how will your security your finances and your food be affected security and conflict in the Middle East a bit difficult go there when you signed up for talk about climate change everything is connected they're strange strange links around this world and our lies intimately and inextricably connected we are part of the world around us and no matter how powerful all of our technology makes us feel our lives are still dominated by Nature climate change can act as an amplifier what does this mean it means it can exacerbate already existing situations by putting extra stress and extra pressure onto them and yes it has a part to play in the current conflicts in the Middle East in the context of rising temperatures and during one of the longest and more severe droughts in 50 years turkey has restricted the downstream flow of water along with Tigris and Euphrates in the Syria and Iraq migration from drought-stricken rural communities has tended to be young jobless and male bees travel to urban hubs and sparked revolutions which quickly became civil wars which quickly destabilized the region and ISIL gained control water has become essential in this conflict and is used as an instrument of war by all sides control of water in the region is now seen as more strategically important than oil climate change acts as an amplifier and effectors in different ways back here in the UK as a response to this we have sent our military back into the area and the domestic terror threat is now a second highest level in a developed world we're often seen as immune from climate change the term climate justice often gets thrown around we are causing the problem but not being affected by it wrong we need to reassess what climate change actually is and look deeper a 2014 PwC report said that that indirect impact of climate change will significantly outweigh of a direct when that comes to food we need to realize that our food isn't grown by a supermarket climate change threatens the international supply chain of food from production to distribution it threatens access to food by undermining livelihoods and destabilizing prices climate change and slow onset changes which it brings such as temperature change changes in precipitation put a downwards pressure on yields global yields of wheat is tomato be five point five percent lower over the last thirty years because of climate change if we look ahead to 2030 the price of food is set to double with climate change here playing a major part in that in the UK and the price of staple foods over last five years has risen by thirty point five percent this is big and it exacerbates all the social problems such as unemployment and use of food banks on top of these lawn sections of climate change climate change also increases the short sharp shocks in 2012 this is the wettest summer in the UK and because of this we eels fell to the lowest in 20 years because of this we have to import 2.5 million tonnes of wheat so once again climate change acts as an amplifier and definitely affects our everyday lives my final point comes on to another part of everyday violence which is insurance the observed sea level increase at Battery Park in New York is estimated to have increased losses from Hurricane sandy by 30 percent insurance is rising in response to extreme weather events and especially flooding if you live in a high-risk area you may struggle to find insurance office very high costs with some houses on flood plains verging on uninsurable okay so you might think I don't live near River I live on a hill won't affect me that's wrong because the UK government and the insurance industry has this launched flood re and affordable insurance scheme where properties in high-risk areas can get cover how does this work well every household regardless of their level of flood risk here's part of their premiums into a pot and this is used to subsidize people in high-risk areas so although you might not be affected by adverse impact of extreme weather events you won't be immune from the cost you are all remarkable disruptors and you might think your biggest challenge is going to be finding funding funding supporters getting more retweets but climate change is the biggest disruptor of them all the pressure it exerts on our everyday lives threatens to derail everything you do and want to do we must come together to tackle its remarkable disruptor to continue doing the things we want to do i no longer care about climate change i care about the social the financial and the security impact it will have on me stop educating about the signs of climate change and start educating about how this will affect you how will it affect you thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 660,373

Keywords: Sociology, Public Policy, English, ted talks, Economics, Energy, tedx talk, History, Biology, ted talk, tedx, Climate Change, ted, Development/Philanthropy, Agriculture, ted x, Humanities, Marketing/Branding, Politics, Career/Life Development, tedx talks, TEDxTalks, Health, Lifestyle, Sustainability, Journalism, Social Media, Urban Planning, United Kingdom, Culture

Id: 7vnzKPq390Q

Length: 13min 11sec (791 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 29 2014

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