TEDx speakers share ideas, innovations

IOWA CITY -- As earth's population moves inextricably toward consuming more resources than the planet can provide, an advocate on climate change and stability contends that mankind has the ability to reverse the unsustainable trend.

Paul Gilding, author of The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World, shared his views during a TEDx event Friday at Hotel Vetro in Iowa City that was livestreamed on the Internet to participants at The Hotel at Kirkwood Center.

TED (technology, entertainment, design) is a non-profit organization that promotes speakers online to advance idea sharing and innovation. The Iowa City TEDx was organized by the Iowa City Area Development Group and the University of Iowa's WilderNet Project.

Gilding, an activist and social entrepreneur for 35 years, said the current pace of human consumption will ultimately lead to an world economy that will stop growing.

"The earth is full of us, our technology and our economy. The path that we're on is unsustainable," Gilding said. "When something is unsustainable, it eventually stops. The thing that's going to stop in our case is our model of progress.

"The way that we move through society with its ever-growing massive global economy is going to stop."

Gilding said earth's population is consuming natural resources at the rate of 150 percent of the planet's capacity. At the current pace, there will be food shortages and serious consequences around the globe by the year 2050.

Gilding said the crisis will unleash all the human creativity needed to ultimately solve the problem as well as the resolve that marked Americans during World War II.

"We would treat this like it is a threat to human civilization -- because it is," he said. "Within 20 years, with a relatively low cost and a bit of inconvenience compared to the sacrifices during World War II on the home front, we could eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from the economy."

Gilding was one of a number of speakers at Friday's TEDx event. Others included:

-- Dr. Terry Wahls, a UI clinical professor of internal medicine, who shared how she used intensive directed nutrition to overcome multiple sclerosis.

-- Dr. Richard Barker, director of the Oxford Centre for Accelerating Medical Innovations, who works to transform the research and development and regulatory processes in life sciences to bring advances more rapidly and affordably to patients.

-- Stephen Carr of Terra Manus Technologies who discussed how making small alterations to soil topography would improve the ability of land around the globe to retain moisture and improve crop yields for farmers in developing countries.

-- Mike Berkson and Tim Wambach, performing artists and activists with their presentation of Handicap This, a provocative look at friendship, breaking down barriers, and living with disabilities.