ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Alex Steffen - Planetary futurist
Alex Steffen explores our planet's future, telling powerful, inspiring stories about the hard choices facing humanity ... and our opportunity to create a much better tomorrow.

Why you should listen

Do you ever wonder whether we should be optimistic or pessimistic about the future? If you want more reasons to think things may still turn out for the better, Alex Steffen's your man. He doesn't downplay the scope and scale of the problems we face. Instead, he shows that we have the tools within our grasp for meeting those massive challenges, if we have the will to use them.

This isn't just hopeful thinking, either. Steffen uses real-world examples and big-picture research to show us that a brighter, greener future is ours to choose, and his work has earned him the ear of leading cities, corporations and philanthropic foundations. As the New York Times said a recent profile, "Alex Steffen lays out the blueprint for a successful century."

After working as a journalist on four continents, Steffen co-founded and ran the online magazine Worldchanging.com from 2003-2010. In those seven years, he made Worldchanging one of the world's leading sustainability-related publications with an archive of almost 12,000 articles and a large global audience. He also edited an internationally best-selling book surveying innovative solutions to the planet's most pressing problems: Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century. 

His most recent work is Carbon Zero, a book describing cities that create prosperity not climate change, accelerating their economies while reducing their climate emissions to zero. He is now at work on a new book and a television project. "The big open secret about sustainability work," he recently told Design Observer magazine, 'is not how bad things are. It is how good things can get."

More profile about the speaker
Alex Steffen | Speaker | TED.com
TEDGlobal 2011

Alex Steffen: The shareable future of cities

Alex Steffen: E ardhmja e ndashme e qyteteve

Filmed:
1,072,722 views

Si mund te kontribojne qytetet per te shpetuar te ardhmen? Alex Steffen tregon disa projekte te gjelbra interesante te bazuara mbi lagjet qe shtrijne qasjen mbi gjerat qe duam dhe kemi nevoje --duke reduktuar kohen qe kalojme ne makine.
- Planetary futurist
Alex Steffen explores our planet's future, telling powerful, inspiring stories about the hard choices facing humanity ... and our opportunity to create a much better tomorrow. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:15
Climate change is already a heavy topic,
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Ndryshimi i klimes eshte tashme nje problem i veshtire,
00:17
and it's getting heavier
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e po behet gjithnje e me i veshtire
00:19
because we're understanding
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sepse po kuptojme
00:21
that we need to do more than we are.
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qe duhet te bejme me shume.
00:23
We're understanding, in fact,
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Kuptojme, ne fakt,
00:25
that those of us who live in the developed world
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qe ne qe jetojme ne boten e zhvilluar
00:27
need to be really pushing towards eliminating our emissions.
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duhet te shtyjme me shume drejt eliminimit te tymrave.
00:30
That's, to put it mildly, not what's on the table now.
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Nuk eshte ky subjekti i sotshem.
00:33
And it tends to feel a little overwhelming
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Dhe, ndihemi pak te tronditur
00:35
when we look at what is there in reality today
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kur shohim realitetin e sotshem
00:38
and the magnitude of the problem that we face.
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dhe rendesine e problemit qe perballemi.
00:41
And when we have overwhelming problems in front of us,
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Kur perballohemi me probleme te veshtira,
00:44
we tend to seek simple answers.
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kemi tendencen te kerkojme pergjigje te thjeshta.
00:47
And I think this is what we've done with climate change.
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Une mendoj qe kjo eshte ajo qe kemi bere me ndryshimin e klimes.
00:50
We look at where the emissions are coming from --
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Shohim se nga vijne tymrat --
00:52
they're coming out of our tailpipes and smokestacks and so forth,
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ato vijne nga tubat e djegies, oxhaqet e keshtu me radhe,
00:55
and we say, okay, well the problem is
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dhe themi ok, problemi eshte
00:57
that they're coming out of fossil fuels that we're burning,
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ato vijne nga karburantet e mbetura qe djegim,
00:59
so therefore, the answer must be
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keshtu, pergjigjia duhet te jete
01:02
to replace those fossil fuels with clean sources of energy.
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te zevendesojme karburantet e mbetura me burime te pastra energjie.
01:05
And while, of course, we do need clean energy,
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Dhe ndersa, natyrisht, na duhet energji e paster,
01:08
I would put to you that it's possible
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ta themi ne kete menyre: eshte e mundur
01:10
that by looking at climate change
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qe duke pare ndryshimin e klimes
01:12
as a clean energy generation problem,
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si nje problem te krijimit te energjise se paster,
01:14
we're in fact setting ourselves up
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ne fakt, krijojme kushte
01:16
not to solve it.
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per te mos e zgjidhur ate.
01:18
And the reason why
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Dhe arsyeja
01:20
is that we live on a planet
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eshte qe jetojme ne nje planet
01:22
that is rapidly urbanizing.
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qe po urbanizohet shpejtesisht.
01:24
That shouldn't be news to any of us.
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Kjo s'duhet te jete e re per ne.
01:26
However, it's hard sometimes
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Megjithate, eshte e veshtire ndonjehere
01:28
to remember the extent of that urbanization.
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te kujtosh shtrirjen e urbanizimit.
01:31
By mid-century,
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Deri ne mes te shekullit,
01:33
we're going to have about eight billion -- perhaps more -- people
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do te kemi rreth 8 miliard --ndoshta me shume-- njerez
01:36
living in cities or within a day's travel of one.
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qe jetojne ne qytete ose me vajtje-ardhje ditore ne qytet.
01:39
We will be an overwhelmingly urban species.
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Do te behemi qenie jashtëzakonisht urbane.
01:42
In order to provide
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Per te furnizuar
01:44
the kind of energy that it would take
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sasine e energjise qe do te duhej
01:46
for eight billion people living in cities
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qe 8 miliard njerez te jetonin ne qytete
01:48
that are even somewhat like the cities
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te ngjashme, pak a shume me qytetet
01:50
that those of us in the global North live in today,
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qe jetojme sot ne pjesen veriore te botes,
01:52
we would have to generate
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na duhet te gjenerojme
01:54
an absolutely astonishing amount of energy.
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nje sasi tmerresisht te madhe energjie.
01:56
It may be possible
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Ka mundesi
01:58
that we are not even able
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qe ne s'mund
02:00
to build that much clean energy.
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te prodhojme aq shume energji te paster.
02:03
So if we're seriously talking about tackling climate change
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Pra, nese flasim seriozisht per te luftuar ndryshimin e klimes
02:06
on an urbanizing planet,
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ne nje planet te urbanizuar,
02:08
we need to look somewhere else for the solution.
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duhet te shohim diku tjeter per zgjidhje.
02:11
The solution, in fact, may be closer to hand than we think,
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Zgjidhja, ne fakt, mund te jete me afer sesa mendojme,
02:14
because all of those cities we're building
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sepse qytetet qe ndertojme
02:16
are opportunities.
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jane oportunitete.
02:18
Every city determines to a very large extent
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Cdo qytet percakton ne mase te gjere
02:21
the amount of energy used by its inhabitants.
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sasine e energjise se perdorur nga banoret e tij.
02:24
We tend to think of energy use as a behavioral thing --
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Kemi prirjen te mendojme per perdorimin e energjise si aspekt te sjelljes --
02:27
I choose to turn this light switch on --
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une zgjedh te ndez driten --
02:29
but really, enormous amounts of our energy use
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por ne fakt, sasi shume te medha energjie qe perdorim
02:32
are predestined
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jane te parapercaktuara
02:34
by the kinds of communities and cities that we live in.
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nga tipi i komunitetit dhe qytetet ku jetojme.
02:37
I won't show you very many graphs today,
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Nuk do tju tregoj shume grafike sot,
02:39
but if I can just focus on this one for a moment,
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por, fokusohuni tek kjo per nje moment,
02:42
it really tells us a lot of what we need to know --
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tregon shume per gjerat qe duhet te dime --
02:44
which is, quite simply,
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qe eshte, shume thjesht,
02:46
that if you look, for example, at transportation,
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qe, nese sheh, per shembull, transportimin,
02:48
a major category of climate emissions,
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nje kategori kryesore per tymrat atmosferike,
02:50
there is a direct relationship
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ka nje lidhje te drejtperdrejte
02:52
between how dense a city is
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ndermjet dendesise se qytetit
02:54
and the amount of climate emissions
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dhe sasise se tymrave atmosferike
02:56
that its residents spew out into the air.
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qe shperndajne ne ajer banoret.
02:59
And the correlation, of course,
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Dhe raporti, natyrisht,
03:01
is that denser places tend to have lower emissions --
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eshte qe zonat me te dendura kane prirje te kene me pak tymra -
03:04
which isn't really all that difficult to figure out, if you think about it.
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qe s'eshte aq e veshtire te kuptohet.
03:07
Basically,
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Ne pergjithesi,
03:09
we substitute, in our lives,
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ne zevendesojne gjate jetes,
03:12
access to the things we want.
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qasjen e gjerave qe duam.
03:14
We go out there and we hop in our cars
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Futemi ne makine
03:16
and we drive from place to place.
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dhe udhetojme nga vendi ne vend.
03:18
And we're basically using mobility to get the access we need.
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Perdorim mobilitetin qe te qasim nevojat.
03:21
But when we live in a denser community,
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Por, kur jetojme ne komunitete me te dendura,
03:23
suddenly what we find, of course,
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papritur zbulojme
03:25
is that the things we need are close by.
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qe i kemi afer gjerat qe na duhen.
03:27
And since the most sustainable trip
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Dhe, ndersa udhetimi me i qendrueshem
03:29
is the one that you never had to make in the first place,
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eshte ai qe ne radhe te pare s'ke nevoje ta besh,
03:32
suddenly our lives become instantly more sustainable.
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papritur, ne moment jeta jone behet me e qendrueshme.
03:35
And it is possible, of course,
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natyrisht, eshte e mundur,
03:37
to increase the density of the communities around us.
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te rritesh dendesine e komuniteteve rreth nesh.
03:40
Some places are doing this with new eco districts,
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Disa vende po e bejne kete me rajonet eko te reja,
03:42
developing whole new sustainable neighborhoods,
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duke zhvilluar komplet lagje te reja te qendrueshme,
03:44
which is nice work if you can get it,
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qe eshte pune e bukur nese arrin ta besh,
03:46
but most of the time, what we're talking about is, in fact,
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por me te shumten e rasteve, ne fakt,
03:49
reweaving the urban fabric that we already have.
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ripunojme stofin urban qe kemi.
03:51
So we're talking about things like infill development:
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Po flasim per gjera si zhvillimi mbushes:
03:54
really sharp little changes
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ndryshime te vogla inteligjente
03:56
to where we have buildings, where we're developing.
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atje ku jane ndertesat, atje ku ndertojme.
03:58
Urban retrofitting:
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Pershtatja urbane:
04:00
creating different sorts of spaces and uses
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krijimi i llojeve te ndryshme te hapesirave dhe perdorimve
04:02
out of places that are already there.
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ne vend te atyre qe jane aty.
04:04
Increasingly, we're realizing
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Po kuptojme gjithnje e me shume,
04:06
that we don't even need to densify an entire city.
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qe s'na duhet bile te rrisim dendesine ne gjithe qytetin.
04:09
What we need instead is an average density
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Ajo qe kemi nevoje ehste nje dendesi mesatare
04:12
that rises to a level
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qe rritet ne nje nivel te tille
04:14
where we don't drive as much and so on.
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ku ne nuk perdorim makinat aq shume.
04:16
And that can be done
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Kjo mund te arrihet
04:18
by raising the density in very specific spots a whole lot.
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duke rritur shume densitetin ne pika specifike.
04:21
So you can think of it as tent poles
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Mund t'i imagjinoni si shtyllat e tendave
04:24
that actually raise the density of the entire city.
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qe rrisin densitetin e tere qytetit.
04:27
And we find that when we do that,
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Dhe, kuptojme qe, kur bejme kete,
04:29
we can, in fact, have a few places that are really hyper-dense
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mund te kemi disa vende qe jane vertet shume te dendura
04:31
within a wider fabric of places
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ndermjet nje teksture me te gjere vendesh
04:33
that are perhaps a little more comfortable
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qe jane ndoshta pak me komode
04:35
and achieve the same results.
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dhe arrijme te njejtat rezultate.
04:37
Now we may find that there are places that are really, really dense
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Mund te zbulojme qe ka vende qe jane vertet shume shume te dendura
04:40
and still hold onto their cars,
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dhe akoma perdorin makinat,
04:42
but the reality is that, by and large,
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por realiteti eshte qe, gjeresisht shohim,
04:45
what we see when we get a lot of people together with the right conditions
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se kur grupojme shume njerez ne kushtet e duhura
04:48
is a threshold effect,
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ka nje efekt kapercyes,
04:50
where people simply stop driving as much,
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ku njerezit thjesht nuk perdorin me aq shume makinat,
04:52
and increasingly, more and more people,
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dhe gjithnje e me shume njerezit,
04:54
if they're surrounded by places that make them feel at home,
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nese rrethohen nga vende qe i bejne te ndihen mire,
04:56
give up their cars altogether.
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s'kerkojne ndihmen e makines.
04:58
And this is a huge, huge energy savings,
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Kjo perfaqson nje kursim te madh energjie.
05:01
because what comes out of our tailpipe
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sepse ajo qe del nga tubat e prapme
05:03
is really just the beginning of the story
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eshte vetem fillimi
05:05
with climate emissions from cars.
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me tymrat atmosferike te makinave.
05:07
We have the manufacture of the car, the disposal of the car,
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Kemi prodhimin e makines, shkaterrimin e makines,
05:09
all of the parking and freeways and so on.
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parkimin dhe autostradat, etj.
05:12
When you can get rid of all of those
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Kur i eviton te gjitha keto
05:14
because somebody doesn't use any of them really,
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sepse njerezit nuk i perdorin vertet,
05:16
you find that you can actually cut transportation emissions
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mund te reduktosh tymrat e transportit
05:18
as much as 90 percent.
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deri ne 90%.
05:20
And people are embracing this.
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Dhe njerezit po e perqafojne kete.
05:22
All around the world, we're seeing more and more people embrace this walkshed life.
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Ne gjithe boten, po shohim gjithnje e me shume njerez te pershtatin jeten e kembesorit.
05:25
People are saying that it's moving from the idea of the dream home
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Njerezit po thone qe po kalojne nga idea e shtepise enderr
05:28
to the dream neighborhood.
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te lagjia enderr.
05:30
And when you layer that over
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Dhe kur i shton kesaj
05:32
with the kind of ubiquitous communications that we're starting to see,
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llojet e komunikimit qe fillojme te shohim,
05:35
what you find is, in fact,
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ajo qe zbulon eshte, ne fakt,
05:37
even more access suffused into spaces.
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hapesira akoma me mundshme.
05:40
Some of it's transportation access.
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Disa nga keto jane qasja e transportimit.
05:42
This is a Mapnificent map that shows me, in this case,
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Kjo eshte harta e Mapnificent qe tregon, ne kete rast,
05:45
how far I can get from my home in 30 minutes
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sa larg mund te shkoj nga shtepia ne 30 minuta
05:47
using public transportation.
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duke perdorur transportin publik.
05:49
Some of it is about walking. It's not all perfect yet.
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Nje pjese e saj perfshin ecjen ne kembe. Nuk eshte akoma perfekte.
05:51
This is Google Walking Maps.
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Ja hartat Google Walking.
05:53
I asked how to do the greater Ridgeway,
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Une kerkova se si te te shkoj te Greater Ridgeway,
05:55
and it told me to go via Guernsey.
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dhe me sugjeroi te kaloja nga Guernesey.
05:57
It did tell me that this route
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Me tha qe kesaj rruge
05:59
maybe missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths, though.
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ndoshta i mungojne trotuaret
06:01
(Laughter)
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(Te qeshura)
06:03
But the technologies are getting better,
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Por teknologjia po perparon,
06:05
and we're starting to really kind of crowdsource this navigation.
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dhe kemi filluar te kroudsors kete navigim.
06:07
And as we just heard earlier,
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Dhe sic e degjuam pak me pare,
06:09
of course, we're also learning how to put information on dumb objects.
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ne po mesojme si te fusim informacion ne objekte.
06:12
Things that don't have any wiring in them at all,
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Gjera qe s'kane asnjke tel
06:14
we're learning how to include
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po mesojme se si t'i perfshijme
06:16
in these systems of notation and navigation.
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ne keto procese navigimi.
06:19
Part of what we're finding with this
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Nje pjese e asaj qe po zbulojme
06:21
is that what we thought
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eshte qe ajo qe mendonim
06:23
was the major point
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ishte pika kryesore
06:25
of manufacturing and consumption,
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e fabrikimit dhe konsumit,
06:28
which is to get a bunch of stuff,
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qe te kesh ca gjera,
06:30
is not, in fact,
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nuk eshte, ne fakt,
06:32
how we really live best in dense environments.
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menyra me e mire per te jetuar ne zonat e populluara dendur.
06:34
What we're finding is that what we want
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Ajo qe po zbulojme
06:36
is access to the capacities of things.
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eshte qasja ndaj funksionimit te gjerave.
06:38
My favorite example is a drill. Who here owns a drill, a home power drill?
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Shembulli im i preferuar eshte trapanoja. Kush ketu ka trapano elektrike?
06:41
Okay. I do too.
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Ok. Edhe une kam nje.
06:43
The average home power drill is used somewhere between six and 20 minutes
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Trapano elektrik ne shtepi perdoret mesatarisht nga 6 dhe 20 minuta.
06:45
in its entire lifetime,
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ne gjithe jeten e vet.
06:47
depending on who you ask.
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varet se ke pyet.
06:49
And so what we do is we buy these drills
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Pse i blejme keto trapano
06:52
that have a potential capacity of thousands of hours of drill time,
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qe kane kapacitet mijera ore pune,
06:55
use them once or twice to put a hole in the wall and let them sit.
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i perdorim nje ose dy here te hapim nje vrime ne mur dhe i harrojme.
06:58
Our cities, I would put to you,
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Qytetet tona, do t'ja le imagjinates suaj,
07:00
are stockpiles of these surplus capacities.
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jane grumbuj i ketyre kapaciteteve te teperta.
07:03
And while we could try and figure out
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Dhe ndersa ne perpiqemi te kuptojme
07:05
new ways to use those capacities --
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menyra te reja per t'i perdorur keto kapacitete --
07:07
such as cooking or making ice sculptures
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si gatimi ose skulpure ne akull
07:09
or even a mafia hit --
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apo te luftosh mafjen,
07:11
what we probably will find
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ajo qe zbulojme
07:13
is that, in fact, turning those products into services
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eshte qe, ne realitet, t'i kthesh keto produkte ne sherbime¥
07:15
that we have access to when we want them,
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me qasje atehere kur na duhen,
07:17
is a far smarter way to go.
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eshte nje sistem me inteligjent.
07:20
And in fact, even space itself is turning into a service.
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Dhe ne fakt, hapesira ne vetvete po kthehet ne sherbim.
07:23
We're finding that people can share the same spaces,
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Po zbulojme qe njerezit mund te ndajne te njejtat hapesira,
07:25
do stuff with vacant space.
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te beje gjera me hapesirat boshe.
07:28
Buildings are becoming bundles of services.
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Ndertesat po behen grup sherbimesh.
07:30
So we have new designs
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Kemi dizajne te reja
07:32
that are helping us take mechanical things that we used to spend energy on --
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qe na ndihmojne te marrim gjera mekanike ne te cilat shpenzonim energji --
07:35
like heating, cooling etc. --
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si ngrohja, ftohja etj,--
07:37
and turn them into things that we avoid spending energy on.
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dhe t'i kthejme ato ne gjera qe evitojne shpenzimin e energjise.
07:40
So we light our buildings with daylight.
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Pra, ndricojme ndertesat me driten e dites.
07:42
We cool them with breezes. We heat them with sunshine.
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I ftohim me korrente ajri. I ngrohim me driten e diellit.
07:45
In fact, when we use all these things,
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Kur perdorim gjithe keto, ne fakt,
07:47
what we've found is that, in some cases,
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zbulojme qe ne disa raste,
07:49
energy use in a building can drop as much as 90 percent.
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perdorimi i energjise ne ndertesa bie deri ne 90 perqind.
07:51
Which brings on another threshold effect
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Kjo sjell nje efekt kapercyes
07:53
I like to call furnace dumping,
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qe e quaj heqje e ngrohesit.
07:55
which is, quite simply,
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Shume thjesht,
07:57
if you have a building that doesn't need to be heated with a furnace,
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nese nje ndertese s'ka nevoje per ngrohes,
07:59
you save a whole bunch of money up front.
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kursen ne investimin fillestar.
08:01
These things actually become cheaper to build
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Keto gjera jane me te lira per tu ndertuar
08:03
than the alternatives.
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sesa alternativat e tyre.
08:05
Now when we look at being able
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Kur konsiderojme mundesine
08:08
to slash our product use, slash our transportation use,
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e uljes se perdorimit te ketyre produkteve, uljen e nevojes se transportimit,
08:11
slash our building energy use,
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uljen e shpenzimit te energjise,
08:13
all of that is great, but it still leaves something behind.
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ka shume te mira, por prape kemi harruar dicka.
08:16
And if we're going to really, truly become sustainable cities,
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Nese do te kemi vertet qytete te qendrueshme,
08:18
we need to think a little differently.
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duhet te mendojme ne nje menyre pak me te ndryshme.
08:20
This is one way to do it.
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Kjo eshte nje menyre.
08:22
This is Vancouver's propaganda about how green a city they are.
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Kjo eshte fushata e Vankuver mbi se sa i gjelber eshte qyteti i tyre.
08:24
And certainly lots of people have taken to heart
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Dhe shume njerez e kane perqafuar
08:26
this idea that a sustainable city is covered in greenery.
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kete ide qe nje qytet i qendrueshem eshte i mbuluar me gjelberim.
08:29
So we have visions like this.
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Pra kemi pamje te tilla.
08:31
We have visions like this. We have visions like this.
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Kemi pamje te tilla. Ose te tilla.
08:34
Now all of these are fine projects,
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Keto jane te gjitha projekte te bukura,
08:36
but they really have missed an essential point,
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por mungon nje pike esenciale,
08:39
which is it's not about the leaves above,
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qe s'behet fjale per gjethet mbi toke,
08:41
it's about the systems below.
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por per sistemin nen te.
08:43
Do they, for instance, capture rainwater
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Per shembull, a e mbledhin ujin e shiut
08:45
so that we can reduce water use?
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ne menyre qe te kursejme perdorimin e ujit?
08:47
Water is energy intensive.
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Uji konsumon shume energji.
08:50
Do they, perhaps, include green infrastructure,
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A perfshijne ndoshta infrastruktuen e gjelbert,
08:52
so that we can take runoff
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qe te lejon te mbledhesh ujin
08:54
and water that's going out of our houses
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qe del nga shtepite tona
08:56
and clean it and filter it
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dhe ta pastrojme e filtrojme ate
08:58
and grow urban street trees?
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dhe ta perdorim per pemet ne rruge?
09:00
Do they connect us back to the ecosystems around us
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A lidhen ekosistemet qe na rrethojne,
09:03
by, for example, connecting us to rivers
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per shembull, ato qe na lidhen me lumenjt
09:05
and allowing for restoration?
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dhe lejojne per restaurim?
09:07
Do they allow for pollination,
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A lejojne polenizimin,
09:09
pollinator pathways
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rruget e polenizimit
09:11
that bees and butterflies and such can come back into our cities?
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qe bletet dhe flutrat etj te kthehen neper qytetet tona?
09:14
Do they even take the very waste matter
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A i marrin plehrat
09:16
that we have from food and fiber and so forth,
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qe mblidhen nga ushqimet, rrobat e keshtu me radhe,
09:19
and turn it back into soil
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e i kthejne prape ne toke
09:21
and sequester carbon --
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per te mbyllur karbonin --
09:23
take carbon out of the air
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e marrin karbonin nga ajri
09:25
in the process of using our cities?
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ne procesin e perdorimit te qyteteve?
09:27
I would submit to you that all of these things are not only possible,
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Do tju sugjeroja qe te gjitha keto jo vetem qe jane te mundura,
09:30
they're being done right now,
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por ato po behen tashme,
09:32
and that it's a darn good thing.
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dhe eshte nje gje shume e mire.
09:34
Because right now, our economy by and large
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Sepse tani, ekonomia jone ne pergjithesi
09:37
operates as Paul Hawken said,
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funksionon sic ka thene Paul Hawken,
09:39
"by stealing the future, selling it in the present
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"duke vjedhur te ardhmen, e duke e shitur ne te tashmen
09:41
and calling it GDP."
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dhe e quajme PBB".
09:43
And if we have another eight billion
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Dhe nese kemi 8 miliard
09:45
or seven billion,
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apo 7 miliard,
09:47
or six billion, even, people,
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apo 6 miliard njerez,
09:49
living on a planet where their cities also steal the future,
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qe jetojne ne nje planet ku qytetet po vjedhin te ardhmen,
09:52
we're going to run out of future really fast.
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ne pak kohe s'do kete te ardhme.
09:54
But if we think differently,
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Por, nese mendojme ndryshe,
09:56
I think that, in fact, we can have cities
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besoj, qe, ne realitet, mund te kemi qytete
09:58
that are not only zero emissions,
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jo vetem pa tymra atmosferike,
10:00
but have unlimited possibilities as well.
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por qe kane mundesi te pafundme po ashtu.
10:02
Thank you very much.
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Falemderit.
10:04
(Applause)
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(Duartrokitje)
Translated by Helena Bedalli
Reviewed by Dita Bytyci

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Alex Steffen - Planetary futurist
Alex Steffen explores our planet's future, telling powerful, inspiring stories about the hard choices facing humanity ... and our opportunity to create a much better tomorrow.

Why you should listen

Do you ever wonder whether we should be optimistic or pessimistic about the future? If you want more reasons to think things may still turn out for the better, Alex Steffen's your man. He doesn't downplay the scope and scale of the problems we face. Instead, he shows that we have the tools within our grasp for meeting those massive challenges, if we have the will to use them.

This isn't just hopeful thinking, either. Steffen uses real-world examples and big-picture research to show us that a brighter, greener future is ours to choose, and his work has earned him the ear of leading cities, corporations and philanthropic foundations. As the New York Times said a recent profile, "Alex Steffen lays out the blueprint for a successful century."

After working as a journalist on four continents, Steffen co-founded and ran the online magazine Worldchanging.com from 2003-2010. In those seven years, he made Worldchanging one of the world's leading sustainability-related publications with an archive of almost 12,000 articles and a large global audience. He also edited an internationally best-selling book surveying innovative solutions to the planet's most pressing problems: Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century. 

His most recent work is Carbon Zero, a book describing cities that create prosperity not climate change, accelerating their economies while reducing their climate emissions to zero. He is now at work on a new book and a television project. "The big open secret about sustainability work," he recently told Design Observer magazine, 'is not how bad things are. It is how good things can get."

More profile about the speaker
Alex Steffen | Speaker | TED.com