0:02:02 > 0:02:07In defining progress, I think it's very important
0:02:07 > 0:02:10to make a distinction between good progress and bad progress.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13I mean, things progress in the sense that they change.
0:02:15 > 0:02:19Both in nature and in human society, there appears to be a clear trend
0:02:19 > 0:02:24towards increasing complexity as change proceeds.
0:02:27 > 0:02:29We tend to delude ourselves that
0:02:29 > 0:02:33these changes always result in improvements
0:02:33 > 0:02:35from the human point of view.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40THUNDERCLAPS
0:02:43 > 0:02:46We're now reaching the point at which technological progress
0:02:46 > 0:02:50and the increase in our economies and our numbers
0:02:50 > 0:02:53threaten the very existence of humanity.
0:02:55 > 0:02:56'We copy.'
0:03:12 > 0:03:15What is progress? Uh...
0:03:18 > 0:03:20I think...
0:03:22 > 0:03:23That's too hard a question.
0:03:27 > 0:03:29Um...
0:03:49 > 0:03:51When I think of the word "progress"...
0:03:56 > 0:03:59'Our flag is red, white and blue.
0:03:59 > 0:04:01'But our nation is rainbow.'
0:04:01 > 0:04:03THEY CHANT
0:04:04 > 0:04:08'Progress will not come easy, It will not come quick.
0:04:08 > 0:04:12'But today we had an opportunity to move forward.'
0:04:12 > 0:04:15Hmm.
0:04:31 > 0:04:34It seems like we're stuck in this trap for the last 200 years,
0:04:34 > 0:04:36since the industrial revolution,
0:04:36 > 0:04:39where we think progress is more of the same.
0:04:39 > 0:04:42Like, we should make our machines better and get more machines.
0:04:42 > 0:04:44But we've been doing that for 200 years,
0:04:44 > 0:04:48so doing more of that is not progress. We're stuck like a record.
0:04:48 > 0:04:52MACHINES THUD IN RHYTHM
0:04:54 > 0:04:56TRAFFIC NOISES
0:04:58 > 0:05:00CLANGING IN RHYTHM
0:05:00 > 0:05:04NOISES INCREASE
0:05:11 > 0:05:14ENGINE ROARS
0:05:20 > 0:05:23NOISES QUIETEN DOWN
0:05:23 > 0:05:28Things that start out to seem like improvements or progress,
0:05:28 > 0:05:29these things are very seductive
0:05:29 > 0:05:33and it seems like there's no downside to these.
0:05:33 > 0:05:34But when they reach a certain scale,
0:05:34 > 0:05:38they turn out to be dead ends or traps.
0:05:41 > 0:05:45I came up with the term "progress trap" to define
0:05:45 > 0:05:49human behaviours that sort of seem to be good things,
0:05:49 > 0:05:53seem to provide benefits in the short-term, but which ultimately
0:05:53 > 0:05:55lead to disaster because they're unsustainable.
0:05:57 > 0:06:01One example would be going right back into the old Stone Age,
0:06:01 > 0:06:04the time when our ancestors were hunting mammoths.
0:06:04 > 0:06:08They reached a point where their weaponry and hunting techniques
0:06:08 > 0:06:11got so good that they destroyed hunting as a way of life
0:06:11 > 0:06:13throughout most of the world.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18The people who discovered how to kill two mammoths instead of one
0:06:18 > 0:06:21had made real progress, but the people who discovered that
0:06:21 > 0:06:24they could eat really well by driving a whole herd over a cliff
0:06:24 > 0:06:27and kill 200 at once had fallen into a progress trap.
0:06:27 > 0:06:29They'd made too much progress.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45Our physical bodies and our physical brains, as far as we can tell,
0:06:45 > 0:06:49have changed very little in the past 50,000 years.
0:06:51 > 0:06:53We've only been living in civilisation
0:06:53 > 0:06:56for the last 5,000 years at the most,
0:06:56 > 0:07:01which is less than 0.2% of our evolutionary history.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07So, the other 99.8, we were hunters and gatherers.
0:07:07 > 0:07:11And that is the kind of way of life that made us.
0:07:17 > 0:07:22We are essentially the same people as those Stone Age hunters.
0:07:22 > 0:07:27What makes our way of life different from theirs is culture has taken off
0:07:27 > 0:07:31at an exponential rate and has really become completely detached
0:07:31 > 0:07:34from the pace of natural evolution.
0:07:37 > 0:07:43So, we are running 21st-century software, our knowledge,
0:07:43 > 0:07:48on hardware that hasn't been upgraded for 50,000 years.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51And this lies at the core of many of our problems.
0:07:53 > 0:08:00All this is because our human nature is back in the hunting-gathering era
0:08:00 > 0:08:04of the old Stone Age, whereas our knowledge and technology -
0:08:04 > 0:08:08in other words, our ability to do both good and harm to ourselves
0:08:08 > 0:08:12and to the world in general - has grown out of all proportion.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17One thing, of course, to remember about the human mind is that
0:08:17 > 0:08:22it's not that fundamentally different from, say, the brain of a chimpanzee.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28Most of the human brain, the basic structure of the brain,
0:08:28 > 0:08:31is much older than the human species.
0:08:31 > 0:08:35Some of it goes back to bacteria, some of it goes back to worms,
0:08:35 > 0:08:37some of it originated in the first mammals,
0:08:37 > 0:08:41some of it in the first primates, some of it in the first human beings.
0:08:41 > 0:08:44Very little of it, however, changed in the last 50,000 years.
0:08:44 > 0:08:48And so most of what we do, we do with hardware components
0:08:48 > 0:08:52that are much older than any of the problems that we face.
0:08:59 > 0:09:01When I first began to study chimps,
0:09:01 > 0:09:06I thought that the task was to just map out more and more similarities,
0:09:06 > 0:09:10to find areas of cognition that hadn't been studied yet
0:09:10 > 0:09:13and simply show that chimps were just like us.
0:09:35 > 0:09:37CHIMP SQUEALS
0:09:37 > 0:09:41If you can imagine teaching a small child to stand up a block upright,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44and you can teach a chimp to do the same thing.
0:09:44 > 0:09:46"Oh, I'll set up the block here, set up a block here,
0:09:46 > 0:09:49"I can see everything, it's very clear.
0:09:49 > 0:09:52"And I get a piece of fruit for doing it."
0:09:54 > 0:09:56But what happens when you introduce
0:09:56 > 0:09:58a small subtlety into this situation,
0:09:58 > 0:10:02where you trick them and just make the block off-centre just enough
0:10:02 > 0:10:04that it keeps falling over?
0:10:04 > 0:10:07Well, the chimp will come in, set up the good block...
0:10:12 > 0:10:16..set up the block that you've tricked him with,
0:10:16 > 0:10:18but then it falls over.
0:10:20 > 0:10:23Well, the chimp can see that it's not the way it's supposed to be,
0:10:23 > 0:10:25so they try again. And they try again.
0:10:25 > 0:10:28And they move it to one place and they move it to another place.
0:10:28 > 0:10:30And they keep trying to get it to stand up
0:10:30 > 0:10:33because they know what is supposed to happen,
0:10:33 > 0:10:38but they have no understanding or no inclination to ask why.
0:10:38 > 0:10:41What unobservable part of the situation
0:10:41 > 0:10:43is causing that block to keep falling over?
0:10:45 > 0:10:48The young child will enter, set up the good block,
0:10:48 > 0:10:52try to set up a block that we've tricked them with,
0:10:52 > 0:10:53but when it falls over -
0:10:53 > 0:10:56well, first they'll try again and maybe try again.
0:10:56 > 0:11:00But very quickly they'll turn it over, feel the bottom of it,
0:11:00 > 0:11:05shake it, try to discern what unobservable property of that block
0:11:05 > 0:11:08is causing it to fall over.
0:11:08 > 0:11:12That's the fundamental core difference, I believe,
0:11:12 > 0:11:16between humans and chimps. That humans ask "Why?"
0:11:16 > 0:11:21We're constantly probing for unobservable phenomenon
0:11:21 > 0:11:22to explain the observable.
0:11:22 > 0:11:26It's what's driven us to discover gravity,
0:11:26 > 0:11:31it's what's driven us to probe into the mysteries of quasars,
0:11:31 > 0:11:33and it's the same thing that drives us
0:11:33 > 0:11:38to probe into the mysteries of each other in our everyday lives.
0:11:38 > 0:11:40"Why does she keep doing that?
0:11:40 > 0:11:42"Why does he keep behaving like that?
0:11:42 > 0:11:45"He must think this, he must believe this.
0:11:45 > 0:11:48"I don't understand. Why, why, why, why, why?"
0:11:57 > 0:12:00So, the upside of the human capacity to ask why,
0:12:00 > 0:12:05to continually probe behind appearances and to try to find out
0:12:05 > 0:12:09how the world really works is we develop fabulous new medicines,
0:12:09 > 0:12:14we develop fabulous new therapeutic techniques to take care of people.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18We invent the whole cascade of modern technology.
0:12:43 > 0:12:45But the downside is that
0:12:45 > 0:12:48we invent the whole cascade of modern technology.
0:12:56 > 0:13:00Arguably, we are the most intellectual creature
0:13:00 > 0:13:02that ever walked on Planet Earth.
0:13:06 > 0:13:10So, how come, then, that this so intellectual being
0:13:10 > 0:13:13is destroying its only home? Because we only have the one home.
0:13:15 > 0:13:17Maybe one day people will be on Mars,
0:13:17 > 0:13:20but, for the moment, we've got Planet Earth.
0:13:20 > 0:13:22And we are destroying, we are polluting,
0:13:22 > 0:13:26we are damaging the future of our own species,
0:13:26 > 0:13:30which is very counter-productive from an evolutionary perspective.
0:13:47 > 0:13:49This capacity that seems so wonderful to us,
0:13:49 > 0:13:52the ability to ask why, the very ability
0:13:52 > 0:13:56that undergirds modern science as a double edged sword.
0:14:06 > 0:14:09If humans go extinct on this planet,
0:14:09 > 0:14:13I think what's going to be our epitaph on our gravestone is, "Why?"
0:14:17 > 0:14:19'I'm getting a light drive on this machine.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22'I think I overdid that one.'
0:14:22 > 0:14:24'That was clean out of sight.'
0:14:24 > 0:14:28- HE LAUGHS - 'Oh, you think you're so clever!
0:14:28 > 0:14:30'OK...'
0:14:30 > 0:14:32We have the ability to think into the future,
0:14:32 > 0:14:36but most of our mechanisms, most of our brain mechanisms,
0:14:36 > 0:14:39evolved before we had any ability to think forward to the future
0:14:39 > 0:14:42and when it made some sense for decisions to be short-term.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45And so a lot of our brain mechanisms,
0:14:45 > 0:14:48what I call our ancestral mechanisms or our reflexive mechanisms,
0:14:48 > 0:14:52are tuned to making snap decisions right away, like fight or flight.
0:14:52 > 0:14:55You see the lion, either you're going to fight or you're going to run.
0:14:55 > 0:14:58No time to think about the long-term consequences.
0:14:58 > 0:15:00And that's good when we're stressed about
0:15:00 > 0:15:03something immediate that we can deal with, for example.
0:15:03 > 0:15:05But those very systems that work by reflex
0:15:05 > 0:15:09are not so good at cooperating with these more modern systems,
0:15:09 > 0:15:13the deliberative systems that allow us to make long-term decisions
0:15:13 > 0:15:14and say, "Well, is this good for me,
0:15:14 > 0:15:17"is it good for my society, for my planet?"
0:15:30 > 0:15:34Between the fall of the Roman Empire and Columbus sailing,
0:15:34 > 0:15:37it took 13 centuries to add 200 million people
0:15:37 > 0:15:41to the world's population. Now it takes only three years.
0:15:44 > 0:15:46A simple thing like pasteurisation,
0:15:46 > 0:15:50the warming of milk so that the bacteria are killed,
0:15:50 > 0:15:52and the control of smallpox,
0:15:52 > 0:15:56things like that, have led to a great boom in human numbers.
0:16:02 > 0:16:06So, overpopulation, which nobody really wants to talk about
0:16:06 > 0:16:09because it cuts at things like religious beliefs
0:16:09 > 0:16:12and the freedom of the individual and the autonomy of the family
0:16:12 > 0:16:16and so forth, is something that we're going to have to deal with.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20We probably have to work towards
0:16:20 > 0:16:25a much smaller worldwide population than 6 or 7 billion.
0:16:25 > 0:16:29We probably need to go down to half that or possibly even a third of that
0:16:29 > 0:16:34if everybody is going to live comfortably and decently.
0:16:37 > 0:16:39The other side of this problem,
0:16:39 > 0:16:44and perhaps the more dangerous side, is the footprint of the individuals
0:16:44 > 0:16:48at the top of the social pyramid who are consuming the most.
0:16:48 > 0:16:50Somebody in the United States or Europe
0:16:50 > 0:16:53is consuming about 50 times more resources
0:16:53 > 0:16:56than a poor person in a place like Bangladesh.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31If China were to reach the level of consumption of, say,
0:17:31 > 0:17:34the United States or Europe, it's very unlikely that the world
0:17:34 > 0:17:38could support the addition of a billion consumers at that level.
0:17:45 > 0:17:47BIKE BELL RINGS
0:17:59 > 0:18:04I would say, in China, maybe 200, 300 million people are "affluent",
0:18:04 > 0:18:07they could afford, relatively speaking, what we can in the West.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10In India, another 200 million.
0:18:10 > 0:18:15So, you add up these affluent segments of population
0:18:15 > 0:18:17in these developing countries,
0:18:17 > 0:18:21but still you come up with no more than maybe 2 billion people.
0:18:23 > 0:18:28So, there is still 5 billion people waiting to tap into
0:18:28 > 0:18:32these bonanzas of plentiful food, cars, decent housing,
0:18:32 > 0:18:35higher education for their children.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38So the potential demand for resources is immense.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59For thousands of years, you know,
0:23:59 > 0:24:03China has the longest continuous civilisation in the world.
0:24:07 > 0:24:12And it is only during the recent period of time when the European
0:24:12 > 0:24:17countries started to industrialise that China started to lag behind.
0:24:17 > 0:24:23And therefore, you know, between the first Opium War in around 1840,
0:24:23 > 0:24:28all the way to about 1978, China went through
0:24:28 > 0:24:32a rollercoaster of great humiliations - wars of aggression
0:24:32 > 0:24:36by foreign nations, Japanese aggression against China,
0:24:36 > 0:24:39civil war, collapse of the Qing dynasty,
0:24:39 > 0:24:43Great Cultural Revolution, chaos in China -
0:24:43 > 0:24:46that when Deng Xiaoping re-emerged in 1978,
0:24:46 > 0:24:49he basically pointed out the only correct path.
0:24:57 > 0:25:02We need to go onto a path of growth and China needs to modernise and
0:25:02 > 0:25:07industrialise, and I think that's, you know, the beginning of China's
0:25:07 > 0:25:10correct development onto a right path.
0:25:10 > 0:25:12DISCO MUSIC
0:25:30 > 0:25:34Some people have written about natural capital,
0:25:34 > 0:25:36the capital that nature provides,
0:25:36 > 0:25:39which is the clean air, the clean water,
0:25:39 > 0:25:44the uncut forests, the rich farmland and the minerals,
0:25:44 > 0:25:45the oil, the metals.
0:25:45 > 0:25:49All of these things are the capital that nature has provided.
0:25:49 > 0:25:54And until about 1980, human civilisation was able to
0:25:54 > 0:25:57live on what we might term the interest of that capital -
0:25:57 > 0:26:00the surplus that nature is able to produce.
0:26:00 > 0:26:03The food that farmland can grow without actually degrading
0:26:03 > 0:26:08the farmland, or the number of fish you can pull out of the sea
0:26:08 > 0:26:11without causing fish stocks to crash.
0:26:11 > 0:26:16But since 1980, we've been using more than the interest,
0:26:16 > 0:26:20so we are in effect like somebody who thinks he is rich because
0:26:20 > 0:26:23he's spending the money that has been left in his inheritance,
0:26:23 > 0:26:26not spending the interest, but eating into the capital.
0:26:26 > 0:26:31The last time I visited the New York Stock Exchange was in 1980,
0:26:31 > 0:26:34and the mood sure was different then.
0:26:34 > 0:26:38Government, with its high taxes, excessive spending and
0:26:38 > 0:26:44overregulation, had thrown a wrench in the works of our free markets.
0:26:44 > 0:26:45APPLAUSE
0:26:48 > 0:26:50With tax reform and budget control,
0:26:50 > 0:26:54our economy will be free to expand to its full potential,
0:26:54 > 0:26:58driving the bears back into permanent hibernation -
0:26:58 > 0:27:01that is our economic programme for the next four years.
0:27:01 > 0:27:02We are going to turn the bull loose.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05CHEERING
0:27:07 > 0:27:09BELL CHIMES
0:27:14 > 0:27:17TRANSLATION:
0:27:26 > 0:27:28The world is this big.
0:27:28 > 0:27:33It's not this big and it can't be this big.
0:27:33 > 0:27:36It's just this big. It's a finite sum.
0:27:39 > 0:27:44Instead of thinking that nature is this huge bank that we can just...
0:27:44 > 0:27:48this endless credit card that we can just keep drawing on,
0:27:48 > 0:27:52we have to think about the finite nature of the planet,
0:27:52 > 0:28:00and how to keep it alive so that we, too, may remain alive.
0:28:01 > 0:28:10Unless we conserve the planet, there isn't going to be any "the economy".
0:28:18 > 0:28:22The ice-age hunter is still us, it's still in us.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25Those ancient hunters who thought there would always be another
0:28:25 > 0:28:28herd of mammoth over the next hill shared
0:28:28 > 0:28:31the optimism of the stock trader, that there's always going to be
0:28:31 > 0:28:35another big killing on the stock market in the next week or two.
0:28:35 > 0:28:37Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40FAIRGROUND MUSIC
0:28:40 > 0:28:43COINS CLINKING
0:28:46 > 0:28:48FAIRGROUND NOISES
0:29:12 > 0:29:15If you are watching the Earth, say, over the last 5-6,000 years,
0:29:15 > 0:29:20and you're speeding up your film, what you see is civilisations
0:29:20 > 0:29:23breaking out like forest fires
0:29:23 > 0:29:28in one pristine environment after another.
0:29:28 > 0:29:32And after a civilisation has arisen and sort of burned out
0:29:32 > 0:29:35the natural resources in that area,
0:29:35 > 0:29:39then it dies down and another fire breaks out somewhere else.
0:29:47 > 0:29:51And now of course we have one huge civilisation around the world,
0:29:51 > 0:29:54which we have to confront the possibility that the entire
0:29:54 > 0:29:58experiment of civilisation is in itself a progress trap.
0:29:58 > 0:30:01REPORTERS: The Dow plunged more than 500 points yesterday...
0:30:01 > 0:30:03..It was the biggest Dow decline ever...
0:30:03 > 0:30:05..La crise financiere Americaine...
0:30:05 > 0:30:10..And our economy seemingly on the brink of collapse...
0:30:12 > 0:30:16..And while banks have failed and shares have plummeted,
0:30:16 > 0:30:19the effects are working their way down to all of us.
0:30:19 > 0:30:22..The economy will get worse before it gets better...
0:30:22 > 0:30:24..Credit ratings are down...
0:30:28 > 0:30:30SHOUTING AND GLASS SMASHING
0:30:33 > 0:30:37When will the economy turn around? I'm not an economist.
0:30:37 > 0:30:39But I do believe that we are growing.
0:30:39 > 0:30:44And I can remember at this press conference, people are shouting
0:30:44 > 0:30:48recession this, recession that, as if you are economists.
0:30:48 > 0:30:51And I'm an optimist.
0:30:51 > 0:30:54I believe there is a lot of positive things for the economy.
0:30:54 > 0:30:57Faith in progress has become a kind of religious faith,
0:30:57 > 0:31:01a sort of fundamentalism, rather like the market fundamentalism
0:31:01 > 0:31:04that has just recently crashed and burned.
0:31:04 > 0:31:09The idea that you can let markets rip is a delusion,
0:31:09 > 0:31:12just as the idea that you can let technology rip and it will
0:31:12 > 0:31:17solve the problems created by itself in a slightly earlier phase.
0:31:17 > 0:31:21That has become a belief very similar to the religious delusions
0:31:21 > 0:31:25that caused some societies to crash and burn in the past.
0:31:28 > 0:31:34Written records go back about 4,000 years, and from 2,000 BC
0:31:34 > 0:31:39to the time of Jesus, it was normal for all of the countries in the world
0:31:39 > 0:31:43to periodically cancel the debts when they became too large to pay.
0:31:46 > 0:31:50So you have Sumer, Babylonia, Egypt, other regions,
0:31:50 > 0:31:52all proclaiming these debt cancellations.
0:31:52 > 0:31:57And the effect was to make a clean slate so that society would
0:31:57 > 0:31:59begin all over again.
0:32:01 > 0:32:04This was easy to do in a society where most debts
0:32:04 > 0:32:08were owed to the state. It became much harder to do
0:32:08 > 0:32:11when enterprise and credit passed out of the hands of the state
0:32:11 > 0:32:15into private hands and into the hands of an oligarchy.
0:32:17 > 0:32:21And the last thing they wanted was to have a king that would
0:32:21 > 0:32:24actually cancel the debts and restore equality.
0:32:28 > 0:32:32Rome was the first country of the world not to cancel the debts.
0:32:32 > 0:32:37It went to war in Sparta, in Greece, to overthrow the governments
0:32:37 > 0:32:41and the kings that wanted to cancel the debts.
0:32:46 > 0:32:50The wars of the first century BC ended up stripping these countries
0:32:50 > 0:32:53of everything they had - not only did it strip
0:32:53 > 0:32:57the temples of gold, it stripped the public buildings,
0:32:57 > 0:33:00it stripped the economies of their reproductive capacity,
0:33:00 > 0:33:04it stripped them of their waterworks, it made a desert out of the land.
0:33:04 > 0:33:07And it said, "A debt is a debt."
0:33:09 > 0:33:14The collapse seems to have been closely linked to ecological
0:33:14 > 0:33:19devastation which led to all sorts of social and economic
0:33:19 > 0:33:20and military problems.
0:33:20 > 0:33:26In the early stages of the Roman Republic, you had fairly egalitarian
0:33:26 > 0:33:31landowning system, the peasants had access to public land.
0:33:31 > 0:33:36But as the Roman state became more powerful and the lords
0:33:36 > 0:33:42and the generals began to appropriate public land
0:33:42 > 0:33:47for their own private estates, more and more peasants became landless.
0:33:47 > 0:33:49At the same time, erosion was a serious problem -
0:33:49 > 0:33:53so bad that some of the Roman ports silted up with all
0:33:53 > 0:33:57the topsoil that got washed down from the fields into the river.
0:33:57 > 0:34:00Archaeologists have been able to establish how badly degraded
0:34:00 > 0:34:02much of Italy was by the fall of the Roman Empire,
0:34:02 > 0:34:06and how it took 1,000 years of much reduced population
0:34:06 > 0:34:09during the Middle Ages for fertility in Italy to rebuild.
0:34:12 > 0:34:16What was absolutely new in the Roman Empire was irreversible
0:34:16 > 0:34:20concentration of wealth at the top of the economic pyramid,
0:34:20 > 0:34:23and that's what progress has meant ever since.
0:34:23 > 0:34:27Progress has meant, "You will never get back what we take from you."
0:34:27 > 0:34:30That's what brought on the Dark Age and that's what's threatening
0:34:30 > 0:34:32to bring in the Dark Age again
0:34:32 > 0:34:36if society does not realise that if it lets the wealth
0:34:36 > 0:34:39concentrate in the hands of the financial class,
0:34:39 > 0:34:42this class is not going to be any more intelligent
0:34:42 > 0:34:46and long-term in disposing of the wealth than its predecessors
0:34:46 > 0:34:49were in Rome or in other countries.
0:35:03 > 0:35:06The term "oligarchy" obviously sounds a little esoteric -
0:35:06 > 0:35:11it just means a small group of people who've got a lot of political power based on their economic power.
0:35:13 > 0:35:15We like to think of the United States as being much more democratic,
0:35:15 > 0:35:20much more spread out in terms of who has the power, and oligarchy is
0:35:20 > 0:35:23something that is usually associated with relatively poor countries,
0:35:23 > 0:35:27but that view has to be updated, because we've got an essential part
0:35:27 > 0:35:30of that problem, that structure, in the United States today.
0:35:32 > 0:35:35People who got all this economic power were in the financial sector.
0:35:35 > 0:35:38It was Wall Street, if you can use that shorthand expression.
0:35:38 > 0:35:40Wall Street became really powerful,
0:35:40 > 0:35:44they used that power to buy influence in Washington,
0:35:44 > 0:35:45get more deregulation,
0:35:45 > 0:35:48so to get more of the playing field shaped in the way they wanted,
0:35:48 > 0:35:53which was no government intervention, no restrictions on what they were going to do.
0:35:53 > 0:35:55That enabled them to make a lot more money,
0:35:55 > 0:35:57which bought them more political power,
0:35:57 > 0:36:00and this went on for a considerable period of time,
0:36:00 > 0:36:03until of course there was an enormous crash.
0:36:04 > 0:36:09Basically, you come to us today on your bicycles after buying
0:36:09 > 0:36:14Girl Scout cookies and helping out Mother Teresa, telling us,
0:36:14 > 0:36:18"We're sorry, we didn't mean it, we won't do it again.
0:36:18 > 0:36:20"Trust us."
0:36:20 > 0:36:24Well, I have some people in my constituency who actually
0:36:24 > 0:36:28robbed some of your banks. And they say the same thing!
0:36:28 > 0:36:32They're sorry, they didn't mean it, they won't do it again.
0:36:32 > 0:36:33Just let them out.
0:36:33 > 0:36:39Do you understand that this is a little difficult for most of my constituents to take?
0:36:39 > 0:36:43That you learned your lesson?
0:36:43 > 0:36:45The bankers can't stop themselves.
0:36:45 > 0:36:48It's in their DNA, in the DNA of their organisations.
0:36:48 > 0:36:51To take massive risks, to pay themselves ridiculous salaries,
0:36:51 > 0:36:53and to collapse. And the more that reasonable,
0:36:53 > 0:36:58responsible people at the centre and left and right see this,
0:36:58 > 0:37:03the closer we'll get to finally constraining the power
0:37:03 > 0:37:06of these out-of-control financial oligarchs.
0:37:06 > 0:37:09It's not a mystery, it's not a surprise.
0:37:09 > 0:37:11We know we have crises every few years.
0:37:11 > 0:37:13My daughter called me from school one day and said,
0:37:13 > 0:37:16"Dad, what's a financial crisis?" And without trying to be funny,
0:37:16 > 0:37:19I said it's the type of thing that happens every five to seven years.
0:37:19 > 0:37:22And she said, "Why is everybody so surprised?"
0:37:22 > 0:37:25So we shouldn't be surprised.
0:37:30 > 0:37:33I read scrawled on a wall somewhere
0:37:33 > 0:37:38that every time history repeats itself, the price goes up.
0:37:45 > 0:37:49If you look at the increasing complexity of civilisation,
0:37:49 > 0:37:54what you can see towards the end of the classic Maya period
0:37:54 > 0:37:58is the enormous amount of effort being put in to build palaces
0:37:58 > 0:38:02and temple precincts that are controlled entirely by the nobility
0:38:02 > 0:38:06and from which, one imagines, the peasantry was excluded,
0:38:06 > 0:38:10just as the ordinary folk are excluded from gated communities
0:38:10 > 0:38:12in many countries today.
0:38:12 > 0:38:16And one imagines also that therefore the people at the bottom
0:38:16 > 0:38:20were becoming more and more disenchanted with the rulers
0:38:20 > 0:38:22as they felt that the social contract that had once existed -
0:38:22 > 0:38:27that the rulers were the mediators between the gods
0:38:27 > 0:38:31and themselves and would help them get good weather and good crops
0:38:31 > 0:38:34and all that - as they saw that beginning to break down,
0:38:34 > 0:38:36and the rulers in effect losing touch
0:38:36 > 0:38:39with the people whom they claimed to represent,
0:38:39 > 0:38:42that's the pattern I think we can see a lot in the modern world now.
0:38:45 > 0:38:50Every society in history for the last 4,000 years has found
0:38:50 > 0:38:53that the debts grow more rapidly than people can pay.
0:38:55 > 0:38:59And the problem is a small oligarchy of 10 percent of the population
0:38:59 > 0:39:03at the top to whom all of these net debts are owed to.
0:39:03 > 0:39:07You want to annul the debts to the top 10 percent.
0:39:07 > 0:39:11That's what they're not going to do. The oligarchy is running things.
0:39:11 > 0:39:15They would rather annul the bottom 90 percent's right to live
0:39:15 > 0:39:18and to annul the money that is due to them.
0:39:18 > 0:39:22They would rather strip the planet and shrink the population
0:39:22 > 0:39:25and be paid, rather than give up their claims.
0:39:25 > 0:39:28That is the political fight of the 21st century.
0:39:31 > 0:39:34My job on Wall Street was to be balance of payments economist
0:39:34 > 0:39:37for the Chase Manhattan Bank in the 1960s.
0:39:40 > 0:39:43My first job there was to calculate how much debt
0:39:43 > 0:39:46could Third World countries pay,
0:39:46 > 0:39:49and the answer was, well, how much do they earn?
0:39:49 > 0:39:53And whatever they earn, that's what they can afford to pay in interest.
0:39:53 > 0:39:57Our objective was to take the entire earnings of a Third World
0:39:57 > 0:40:01country and say, ideally, that would be all paid as interest to us.
0:40:05 > 0:40:08Look, don't give me a hard luck story, I hear them every day.
0:40:08 > 0:40:15And quite frankly, they bore me. The facts are simple.
0:40:15 > 0:40:22In 1973, this bank gave you a loan. And you still haven't paid it back.
0:40:23 > 0:40:28Admittedly, you paid back the initial sum. But not the interest.
0:40:28 > 0:40:33Which to date amounts to nine times the amount originally borrowed.
0:40:34 > 0:40:36Nine times.
0:40:36 > 0:40:39So you'd better get your act together.
0:40:39 > 0:40:42Times are tough and we're all having to clamp down.
0:40:45 > 0:40:47And don't look at me like that.
0:40:49 > 0:40:52This is a bank, not a charity.
0:40:55 > 0:40:59The number one cost for foreign lending
0:40:59 > 0:41:02through some of the multilateral institutions such as IMF
0:41:02 > 0:41:07and World Bank is the death toll on the continent.
0:41:11 > 0:41:14We can look at the support of dictators that took place
0:41:14 > 0:41:22throughout the years from 1960 till 1997 of a brutal dictator.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25TRANSLATION:
0:41:35 > 0:41:39He was given humongous loans.
0:41:39 > 0:41:44Everybody knew he wasn't using that for the population - he was propped
0:41:44 > 0:41:48up as one of the biggest leaders in the whole African continent.
0:41:49 > 0:41:52Your country is young, only 10 years of age.
0:41:52 > 0:41:58But it has had a period of progress in that period which has been
0:41:58 > 0:42:04an example for nations throughout the world.
0:42:06 > 0:42:09You have moved forward economically,
0:42:09 > 0:42:11you have established unity in your country,
0:42:11 > 0:42:16and you have a vitality which impresses every visitor
0:42:16 > 0:42:19when he comes to Congo.
0:42:19 > 0:42:23What is interesting is all the money plundered from all
0:42:23 > 0:42:28the international debt is found in Western banks.
0:42:28 > 0:42:30So as he was removed from power,
0:42:30 > 0:42:32the money never returned to the Congolese.
0:42:32 > 0:42:35SHOUTING
0:42:40 > 0:42:45The population didn't have access to medical services,
0:42:45 > 0:42:50didn't have access to adequate education, living wages.
0:42:50 > 0:42:54And it continues till today. Now, the Congo has a 14 billion debt.
0:42:54 > 0:43:00It has been structured in a way where the people do not benefit
0:43:00 > 0:43:03and the human cost is so high.
0:43:03 > 0:43:07In the Congo, we have 6 million deaths since 1996.
0:43:17 > 0:43:20Rich countries lend a so-called developing country
0:43:20 > 0:43:23a big whack of money.
0:43:23 > 0:43:26Debt is incurred on behalf of people who had nothing to do with it,
0:43:26 > 0:43:28don't know anything about it.
0:43:28 > 0:43:31Then they're expected to pay the price
0:43:31 > 0:43:34by scraping off their livelihood, turning it into money
0:43:34 > 0:43:36and giving it to somebody else.
0:43:36 > 0:43:40How could the money given to the Congo benefit the people?
0:43:40 > 0:43:43Use some of the funds to make sure there are strong institutions
0:43:43 > 0:43:46within the country that will protect them
0:43:46 > 0:43:50against human rights violations and so many other issues that we face.
0:43:50 > 0:43:53But these funds are not used for that, because whenever it's given,
0:43:53 > 0:43:57they tell you specifically what project you have to use it for.
0:43:57 > 0:44:02And mainly it's usually mining projects to get access to resources.
0:44:05 > 0:44:08SHOUTING
0:44:32 > 0:44:35TRANSLATION:
0:44:57 > 0:45:00You can relate the destruction of the rainforest in Brazil
0:45:00 > 0:45:05directly to the Wall Street and London financial sector.
0:45:05 > 0:45:07The story begins in 1982,
0:45:07 > 0:45:11when countries couldn't pay their debt any more, and the result
0:45:11 > 0:45:14is that the Latin American countries generally stopped paying,
0:45:14 > 0:45:17because they said, "We're already paying all the balance
0:45:17 > 0:45:21"of payment surplus we have to the banks."
0:45:22 > 0:45:25"We don't have any money to import to sustain living standards,
0:45:25 > 0:45:29"we don't have money to build new factories and pay the debt,"
0:45:29 > 0:45:32so the International Monetary Fund at that point said,
0:45:32 > 0:45:34"Don't go bankrupt, you have an option.
0:45:34 > 0:45:37"You can begin to sell off the public domain.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40"You have plenty of assets to sell to pay us.
0:45:40 > 0:45:43"You can sell off your water rights, your forests,
0:45:43 > 0:45:48"your sub-soil mineral resources, you can sell us your oil rights."
0:45:48 > 0:45:51And so Brazil, Argentina and other countries
0:45:51 > 0:45:55begin to sell off their resources to private investors
0:45:55 > 0:45:59and the private investors bought these resources on credit.
0:50:02 > 0:50:04EXPLOSION
0:50:15 > 0:50:17LORRY BLOWS HORN
0:50:17 > 0:50:20PEOPLE CHEER
0:50:20 > 0:50:23SIREN WAILS
0:51:32 > 0:51:34RAQUEL TAITSON-QUEIROZ SPEAKS:
0:52:04 > 0:52:08They're cutting down the rainforest, they're emptying out the economy,
0:52:08 > 0:52:11they are turning into a hole in the ground to repay the bankers.
0:52:11 > 0:52:14That's the financial business plan.
0:52:14 > 0:52:17That's how it ends up, because the bankers can always take their money
0:52:17 > 0:52:19and begin digging holes in another country
0:52:19 > 0:52:23and emptying out that country. That's the global financial system.
0:53:42 > 0:53:45The economists say if you clear-cut the forest,
0:53:45 > 0:53:50take the money and put it in the bank, you can make 6% or 7%.
0:53:50 > 0:53:53If you clear-cut the forest, put it into Malaysia or Papua New Guinea,
0:53:53 > 0:53:56you can make 30% or 40%. So who cares if you keep the forest?
0:53:56 > 0:53:58Cut it down. Put the money somewhere else.
0:53:58 > 0:54:01When those forests are gone, put it in fish.
0:54:01 > 0:54:03When the fish are gone, put it in computers.
0:54:03 > 0:54:04Money doesn't stand for anything
0:54:04 > 0:54:07and money now grows faster than the real world.
0:54:07 > 0:54:10Conventional economics is a form of brain damage.
0:54:14 > 0:54:18Economics is so fundamentally disconnected from the real world,
0:54:18 > 0:54:21it is destructive.
0:54:21 > 0:54:24If you take an introductory course in economics,
0:54:24 > 0:54:28the professor in the first lecture will show a slide of the economy
0:54:28 > 0:54:29and it looks very impressive -
0:54:29 > 0:54:32you know, raw materials, extraction process, manufacture,
0:54:32 > 0:54:35wholesale retail with arrows going back and forth
0:54:35 > 0:54:38and they try to impress you because they think,
0:54:38 > 0:54:41they know damn well, economics is not a science
0:54:41 > 0:54:44but they're trying to fool us into thinking it's a real science.
0:54:44 > 0:54:48It's not. Economics is a set of values that they then try to use,
0:54:48 > 0:54:52mathematical equations and all that stuff, and pretend it's a science,
0:54:52 > 0:54:53but if you ask the economist,
0:54:53 > 0:54:57"In that equation, where do you put the ozone layer?
0:54:57 > 0:55:01"Where do you put the deep underground aquifers of fossil water?
0:55:01 > 0:55:03"Where do you put topsoil or biodiversity?"
0:55:03 > 0:55:06Their answer is, "Oh, those are externalities."
0:55:06 > 0:55:09But then you might as well be on Mars.
0:55:09 > 0:55:12That economy's not based in anything like the real world.
0:55:12 > 0:55:17It's life, the web of life, that filters water in the hydrologic cycle.
0:55:17 > 0:55:21It's micro-organisms in the soil that create the soil that we can grow our food in.
0:55:21 > 0:55:27Nature performs all kinds of services. Insects fertilise all of the flowering plants.
0:55:27 > 0:55:30These services are vital to the health of the planet.
0:55:30 > 0:55:34Economists call these externalities. That's nuts!
0:56:04 > 0:56:09Unlimited economic progress in a world of finite natural resources doesn't make sense.
0:56:09 > 0:56:12It's a pattern that is bound to collapse.
0:56:12 > 0:56:19We keep seeing it collapsing, but then we build it up because there are these strong vested interests.
0:56:19 > 0:56:25We must have business as usual. You get the arms manufacturers, you get the petroleum industry,
0:56:25 > 0:56:32you get the pharmaceutical industry, and all of this feeding into helping to create corrupt governments
0:56:32 > 0:56:37who are putting the future of their own people at risk.
0:56:40 > 0:56:48You can imagine lilies growing in a pond. Lilies grow very rapidly. They double every day.
0:56:48 > 0:56:53They're going to cover the whole surface and there won't be any way of the fish getting oxygen,
0:56:53 > 0:56:56and all the life is going to die in the pond.
0:56:56 > 0:57:02That's how rapidly things can grow. One day you're half full of lilies. The next day you're dead.
0:57:04 > 0:57:10You could say that today we're in the point at which the lily pond is half full.
0:57:10 > 0:57:17The life is being snuffed out of national economies and the debt goes on doubling.
0:57:17 > 0:57:19How long can it do it?
0:57:19 > 0:57:21It has one day to go.
0:57:34 > 0:57:38All the civilisations of the past, and I think our own,
0:57:38 > 0:57:40only seem to be doing well when they're expanding,
0:57:40 > 0:57:44when the population is growing, when the industrial output is growing,
0:57:44 > 0:57:47and when the cities are spreading outwards.
0:57:52 > 0:57:57Eventually you reach the point at which the population has overrun everything.
0:57:57 > 0:58:00The cities have expanded over the farmland.
0:58:01 > 0:58:06The people at the bottom begin to starve and the people at the top lose their legitimacy.
0:58:09 > 0:58:13And so you get hunger, you get revolution.
0:58:41 > 0:58:44Now, one kind of scary thing about the moment we're in
0:58:44 > 0:58:48is that for the first time, there's kind of only one system.
0:58:50 > 0:58:56So if the whole thing goes down, you won't have what
0:58:56 > 0:58:59you've had in previous eras of epic collapse,
0:58:59 > 0:59:04which is that even as one civilisation goes down and may take a while to recover,
0:59:04 > 0:59:09there are other robust civilisations that are kind of the guardians of progress.
0:59:14 > 0:59:19In that sense, some of the things that have been reassuring in the past about progress
0:59:19 > 0:59:22don't necessarily apply to the current situation,
0:59:22 > 0:59:27because once you get to the global level, you've only got one experiment working.
0:59:31 > 0:59:35That's just the inevitable culmination of its growth ever since the Stone Age,
0:59:35 > 0:59:38And there were way stations along the way like the Roman Empire,
0:59:38 > 0:59:42and now here we are, and more and more people are in the same boat
0:59:42 > 0:59:46and they face problems and either they will solve them together or suffer together,
0:59:46 > 0:59:49and possibly on a catastrophic scale.
0:59:57 > 1:00:01We're entering an increasingly dangerous period of our history.
1:00:06 > 1:00:11Our genetic code still carries the selfish and aggressive instincts
1:00:11 > 1:00:14that were of survival advantage in the past.
1:00:16 > 1:00:17But I'm an optimist.
1:00:27 > 1:00:31If we are the only intelligent beings in the galaxy,
1:00:31 > 1:00:35we should make sure we survive and continue.
1:00:46 > 1:00:53If we can avoid disaster for the next two centuries, our species should be safe.
1:00:59 > 1:01:03We have made remarkable progress in the last 100 years.
1:01:13 > 1:01:16Our only chance of long-term survival
1:01:16 > 1:01:22is not to remain inward-looking on Planet Earth, but to spread out into space.
1:01:31 > 1:01:36I was at a conference a few years back with George Lucas,
1:01:36 > 1:01:43and he came up and said, you know, "There's only two hopes for humanity.
1:01:43 > 1:01:49"Either we find another planet to colonise after we've destroyed this one,
1:01:49 > 1:01:50"or perhaps your technology,"
1:01:50 > 1:01:54meaning what we're doing with the genetic code,
1:01:54 > 1:01:58"might be able to allow us to transform ourselves or other
1:01:58 > 1:02:01"aspects of the planet where we could continue to live here."
1:02:01 > 1:02:08We're here to celebrate the completion of the first survey of the entire human genome.
1:02:08 > 1:02:11Without a doubt, this is the most important,
1:02:11 > 1:02:15most wondrous map ever produced by humankind.
1:02:15 > 1:02:19We're announcing today for the first time our species can read
1:02:19 > 1:02:21the chemical letters of its genetic code.
1:02:24 > 1:02:26For the last several years,
1:02:26 > 1:02:30my team has been actually sailing around the world
1:02:30 > 1:02:34collecting all the species in the ocean, the micro-species, on filters.
1:02:34 > 1:02:38And we isolate all the DNA all at once from all of them.
1:02:40 > 1:02:43I have a novel way of looking at these genes.
1:02:43 > 1:02:46I view them as the design components of the future.
1:02:46 > 1:02:50It's a mind-boggling concept,
1:02:50 > 1:02:52even though we're doing it every day,
1:02:52 > 1:02:56that we can simply start with four bottles of chemicals,
1:02:56 > 1:03:00write the genetic code and change the genetic code of species,
1:03:00 > 1:03:02basically developing new species.
1:03:02 > 1:03:08We can try and find ways to make fuels that people haven't even imagined.
1:03:08 > 1:03:12We can do this with novel sources of food.
1:03:12 > 1:03:16We're limited only by our imagination and whatever biological reality is.
1:03:19 > 1:03:23When we consider trying to replace oil -
1:03:23 > 1:03:26we use billions of gallons of oil a year.
1:03:26 > 1:03:30I can't even - I think I have a pretty good imagination -
1:03:30 > 1:03:33envision what a billion gallons of oil is.
1:03:33 > 1:03:40Making a billion gallons of oil from invisible microbes
1:03:40 > 1:03:42is a certain leap of faith.
1:03:42 > 1:03:46But in fact, that's how we proceed in science.
1:03:52 > 1:03:58Instead of writing software for computers, we can now write software for life.
1:04:10 > 1:04:14By changing and taking over evolution,
1:04:14 > 1:04:18changing the time course of evolution
1:04:18 > 1:04:23and going into deliberate design of species for our own survival
1:04:23 > 1:04:29at least gives us some points of optimism that we have a chance to control our destiny.
1:04:31 > 1:04:34We're here today to announce the first synthetic cell.
1:04:34 > 1:04:39This is the first self-replicating species that we've had on the planet,
1:04:39 > 1:04:41whose parent is a computer.
1:04:48 > 1:04:52One of the challenges that faces the human species is
1:04:52 > 1:04:55we are more and more in a position of acting like gods.
1:04:57 > 1:05:00This has been true for a while because we've had the ability
1:05:00 > 1:05:02to change the climate, for example.
1:05:02 > 1:05:05This is going to be even more true with genetic technologies.
1:05:05 > 1:05:10We'll be able to manipulate other species and eventually ourselves.
1:05:11 > 1:05:15We'll be in a position of controlling our own fate in a way that no
1:05:15 > 1:05:18creature has ever - in a billion years on the planet -
1:05:18 > 1:05:21had an opportunity to do.
1:05:23 > 1:05:27I once wrote a poem in which a mad bishop said,
1:05:27 > 1:05:32"And man became God, became greater than God in the godhood of man."
1:05:34 > 1:05:41I do not see anyone living in this materialistic society as being
1:05:41 > 1:05:43anything like God.
1:05:43 > 1:05:45I don't know what God is,
1:05:45 > 1:05:52but, in my wildest dreams, I would never conceive of God or
1:05:52 > 1:05:58a God as being like a modern human being in a materialistic society.
1:05:58 > 1:06:01We're anything but godlike.
1:06:01 > 1:06:06I think the challenges are so overwhelming to all of us,
1:06:06 > 1:06:12that we're all trying to just use whatever new tools we can
1:06:12 > 1:06:14to try and change the future.
1:06:14 > 1:06:17Synthetic biology is a progress trap par excellence.
1:06:21 > 1:06:24Biologists have pointed out that these engineering approaches
1:06:24 > 1:06:27is all very well, and the engineers can try to treat
1:06:27 > 1:06:30life as though it were some sort of computer or engineering substrate,
1:06:30 > 1:06:34but ultimately the microbes are going to end up laughing at them.
1:06:34 > 1:06:37That life doesn't work like that.
1:06:52 > 1:06:56I think the problems we're seeing now, whether we're talking about
1:06:56 > 1:07:01hunger and massive inequity, or climate change or the loss of biodiversity,
1:07:01 > 1:07:06have been driven over the last 200 years by a system of over-production of stuff
1:07:06 > 1:07:08and over-consumption of stuff.
1:07:08 > 1:07:13That's been inflated and inflated to the point where it really is not in any way reasonable.
1:07:13 > 1:07:18Erm, the companies and those within governments who have
1:07:18 > 1:07:21supported that approach, are now saying
1:07:21 > 1:07:24they will provide new technologies to continue that consumption
1:07:24 > 1:07:28of stuff, that level of production. It's just not realistic.
1:07:28 > 1:07:31'ExxonMobil and Synthetic Genomics have built a new facility
1:07:31 > 1:07:34'to identify the most productive strains of algae.
1:07:34 > 1:07:36'Algae are amazing little critters.
1:07:36 > 1:07:39'They secrete oil which we could turn into biofuels.
1:07:39 > 1:07:41'They also absorb CO2.
1:07:41 > 1:07:44'We're hoping to supplement the fuels that we use in our vehicles to
1:07:44 > 1:07:47'someday help meet the world's energy demands.'
1:07:47 > 1:07:51What is harder - mapping the entire genome set that makes up
1:07:51 > 1:07:54the human being, or making algae produce energy?
1:07:54 > 1:07:57Making algae produce energy is not hard,
1:07:57 > 1:08:01but doing it on the scale required to have a major economic
1:08:01 > 1:08:03and environmental impact is going to be a huge challenge.
1:08:03 > 1:08:07But, erm, we've got a good partner with that with ExxonMobil to try and
1:08:07 > 1:08:12get it to the scale that it needs to be - of billions of gallons a year.
1:08:12 > 1:08:16A lot of engineering is required for facilities the size of San Francisco.
1:08:16 > 1:08:18- Goodness!- Erm, I think they're serious and we're serious.
1:08:18 > 1:08:23What we're seeing alongside the development of synthetic biology
1:08:23 > 1:08:25is a massive corporate grab of plant life.
1:08:25 > 1:08:28Literally speaking, that means a grab on land.
1:08:28 > 1:08:30And a grab on seas as well.
1:08:30 > 1:08:34Where people are being moved off of land to make way for the growing
1:08:34 > 1:08:39of plant life that can be transformed into plastics, chemicals, fuels and so forth.
1:08:39 > 1:08:44What drives synthetic biology is not an attempt to save the planet
1:08:44 > 1:08:47or help humanity, but an attempt to increase the bottom line
1:08:47 > 1:08:49for certain very large corporations.
1:08:49 > 1:08:54If we're going to feed the upcoming nine billion people,
1:08:54 > 1:08:58we can't afford to use our prime crop land,
1:08:58 > 1:09:05erm, for the trying to produce the billions of gallons of fuel we use.
1:09:05 > 1:09:09We're writing the genetic code, changing the species allows us
1:09:09 > 1:09:12to use desert land for...
1:09:12 > 1:09:20We just need sunlight and CO2 for using these new engineered algae, for example.
1:09:20 > 1:09:23Synthetic biology - you know, it's frightening
1:09:23 > 1:09:26but I'm sympathetic to it in so many ways.
1:09:26 > 1:09:29It'll be nice to get a more water-efficient plant.
1:09:29 > 1:09:31But still, it would still need water.
1:09:31 > 1:09:34Craig Venter cannot create a plant which needs no water and no nitrogen
1:09:34 > 1:09:38or which totally fixes all its nitrogen by sucking it from the air.
1:09:38 > 1:09:39It cannot go that far.
1:09:39 > 1:09:42This doesn't fundamentally change the game.
1:09:42 > 1:09:44What fundamentally changes the game,
1:09:44 > 1:09:47and what people don't want to hear, and I'm coming to this all the time,
1:09:47 > 1:09:50people say, "Don't talk to us like that because this is a non-starter."
1:09:50 > 1:09:54But for me this is the only starter - we have to use less.
1:09:57 > 1:10:01The poor people need more, there is no doubt or discussion there.
1:10:01 > 1:10:04If you are average villager somewhere in Rajasthan or
1:10:04 > 1:10:08Punjab or Nigeria, you need more. Period.
1:10:08 > 1:10:11Basic human decency compels you to say these people need more -
1:10:11 > 1:10:15more clean water, more basic food, more education for their children.
1:10:15 > 1:10:17The discussion closes before it begins.
1:10:17 > 1:10:19But as far as us is concerned,
1:10:19 > 1:10:23we certainly could and should do with much, much less.
1:10:23 > 1:10:26People have been conditioned that things have to always get better
1:10:26 > 1:10:30and immediately you say limit something, people think this is not getting better.
1:10:30 > 1:10:32But it would be.
1:10:32 > 1:10:36It's even a non-starter saying to people, you should eat less.
1:10:36 > 1:10:39You should eat less meat. Even that's a non-starter.
1:10:39 > 1:10:42You should use less electricity. You should run smaller cars.
1:10:42 > 1:10:46I saw the new Vice President of GM talking about the new GM, right.
1:10:46 > 1:10:51One journalist asked him, "But your cars are still so heavy."
1:10:51 > 1:10:55And he said, "Yes, we are working on it." What is there to work on it?
1:10:55 > 1:10:57There are so many things which we could do.
1:10:57 > 1:11:01Not to surrender our standard of living, not to live in a gutter,
1:11:01 > 1:11:06but we do not need 1.5 tonne car to go red light to red light in a city.
1:11:06 > 1:11:08People are not willing to go back on these things.
1:11:08 > 1:11:09Most of them simply are not
1:11:09 > 1:11:14because they've been totally hijacked by this material culture.
1:11:14 > 1:11:16Let's not underestimate the persuasion,
1:11:16 > 1:11:19the power of this material culture is immense, it's just immense.
1:11:19 > 1:11:23And I've seen so many people being so genuinely unhappy that they
1:11:23 > 1:11:28cannot afford a 50,000 square foot, sorry, 50,000 bathroom remodelling.
1:11:28 > 1:11:32I mean, there's something wrong with that value set, really.
1:11:32 > 1:11:35Cos bathroom is a place where you should spend 10 minutes to
1:11:35 > 1:11:38take your shower, brush your teeth, so it doesn't have to be that.
1:11:38 > 1:11:41But you know how much money people are...
1:11:41 > 1:11:44Again, on my mind because we are thinking about re-doing
1:11:44 > 1:11:46our bathroom, right, so it's on my mind.
1:11:46 > 1:11:48It's very interesting, so for me it's a chore.
1:11:48 > 1:11:49It has to be done really,
1:11:49 > 1:11:52but for many people it's kind of a life-affirming thing.
1:11:52 > 1:11:56People are renting storage spaces, right?
1:11:56 > 1:11:59Which they will never access in 20 years to store the junk which
1:11:59 > 1:12:02they cannot store in their 5,000 square foot homes.
1:12:02 > 1:12:04So do we need that really?
1:12:04 > 1:12:06It's just amazing so...
1:12:06 > 1:12:08It's, it's, it's...
1:12:08 > 1:12:11This is very difficult to put the genie in the bottle
1:12:11 > 1:12:14so everything is defined in this material thing.
1:12:14 > 1:12:16I could make it a lot more coherent,
1:12:16 > 1:12:19but this is difficult because when you make it more coherent,
1:12:19 > 1:12:22you make it proscriptive and proscriptions never work really.
1:12:22 > 1:12:24I don't have the solution.
1:12:24 > 1:12:27I can't sit here and say to you, we should follow this
1:12:27 > 1:12:30and by 2030 everything click and we all live happy ever after.
1:12:30 > 1:12:33So I'm making it deliberately incoherent.
1:12:33 > 1:12:37I could be very doctrinaire but you see I live for 26 years in a Communist society,
1:12:37 > 1:12:40I'm innoculated against any doctrinaire grand solutions,
1:12:40 > 1:12:42saying this is the pattern, this is the must,
1:12:42 > 1:12:45this is the paradigm which you have to follow, you know.
1:12:45 > 1:12:47I'm just totally set against it.
1:12:47 > 1:12:50So I'm making things deliberately kind of messy, inchoate,
1:12:50 > 1:12:53uncoordinated, because that's how life it.
1:12:53 > 1:12:55We don't know what pattern will emerge.
1:12:55 > 1:12:58As long as we are living amidst this sea of affluence
1:12:58 > 1:13:02and opportunities and material riches,
1:13:02 > 1:13:06It is very difficult to make this individual, voluntary,
1:13:06 > 1:13:11resolute step and say enough. Back. Limit. Very difficult.
1:14:16 > 1:14:19I was walking around, pointing my finger at everybody.
1:14:19 > 1:14:22You know, "You people," you know, blaming the culture
1:14:22 > 1:14:25for its consumption. Finally, one day I came home,
1:14:25 > 1:14:28and I had the air-conditioners were on,
1:14:28 > 1:14:30even though there was no-one home.
1:14:30 > 1:14:32And I was like, wait,
1:14:32 > 1:14:34I'm going around blaming everyone else,
1:14:34 > 1:14:36but the fact of the matter is that my lifestyle
1:14:36 > 1:14:39requires a huge amount of resource, too.
1:14:39 > 1:14:41So, how can I blame other people? And I realised that
1:14:41 > 1:14:45before I go around trying to change other people,
1:14:45 > 1:14:48maybe I should look at myself and change myself,
1:14:48 > 1:14:50and keep my side of the street clean.
1:14:50 > 1:14:53So, I came up with this idea that I would live as environmentally
1:14:53 > 1:14:56as possible for a year, and see how that affected us.
1:14:59 > 1:15:02So, we did this No Impact experiment. We live in New York,
1:15:02 > 1:15:04we live in the middle of New York City,
1:15:04 > 1:15:07which made it unusual, because most people
1:15:07 > 1:15:10can think of environmental living as a back to the land thing.
1:15:10 > 1:15:13But, of course, back to the land is not the right idea
1:15:13 > 1:15:16when it comes to saving our habitat.
1:15:16 > 1:15:18If all of us in New York were to go back to the land,
1:15:18 > 1:15:20we would very much destroy the land.
1:15:29 > 1:15:31We are not biologically consumptive.
1:15:31 > 1:15:33This has not got to do with human nature.
1:15:33 > 1:15:38Human nature is to do what everybody else does, that's human nature.
1:15:38 > 1:15:41That we want, and it's wonderful, it's like, "I want to be with you.
1:15:41 > 1:15:42"I want to be the same as you.
1:15:42 > 1:15:46"I want to love you, and I want you to love me." That's not bad.
1:15:46 > 1:15:49So, that's also part of the problem.
1:15:49 > 1:15:51"I want to be the same as you, and you consume,
1:15:51 > 1:15:53"so I'm not going to be the first not to consume."
1:15:53 > 1:15:55But it also tells us that if we can
1:15:55 > 1:15:57move from non-consumption to consumption,
1:15:57 > 1:15:59we can also move from consumption back to non-consumption.
1:16:09 > 1:16:12We need to begin by saying we are at the end of a failed experiment,
1:16:12 > 1:16:14and it's time to say goodbye to it.
1:16:14 > 1:16:17It's an economic experiment, it's a technological experiment,
1:16:17 > 1:16:21it's been going on for a couple of hundred years, and it's not worked.
1:16:21 > 1:16:23It's brought us to this point of crises.
1:16:23 > 1:16:27Then we can start to sanely and intelligently say,
1:16:27 > 1:16:31"How can we live within the real limits that our planet gives us,
1:16:31 > 1:16:35"and create a safe operating space for humanity?"
1:16:35 > 1:16:39Admittedly, we've used our brain in ways that are detrimental
1:16:39 > 1:16:44to the environment and society, but brains are beginning to get together
1:16:44 > 1:16:50around the planet to find solutions to some harm that we've inflicted.
1:16:50 > 1:16:53You know, we humans are a problem solving species,
1:16:53 > 1:16:55and we always do pretty well when our back's to the wall.
1:16:58 > 1:17:01It's easy now to see kind of a giant social brain,
1:17:01 > 1:17:03or a planetary brain,
1:17:03 > 1:17:05because it's in the physical form of the Internet.
1:17:05 > 1:17:07It looks so much like a nervous system,
1:17:07 > 1:17:09you almost can't miss the analogy.
1:17:11 > 1:17:13We might say that there have always been a lot of
1:17:13 > 1:17:16little social brains around the planet, getting bigger,
1:17:16 > 1:17:19starting to form little interconnections amongst themselves.
1:17:19 > 1:17:23Now, more than ever, you can say there's a unified social brain.
1:17:47 > 1:17:49Even if the overall arc of history is towards
1:17:49 > 1:17:53an expanded moral horizon, more and more people acknowledging humanity,
1:17:53 > 1:17:55more and more different kinds of people,
1:17:55 > 1:17:57there's always the risk of backsliding,
1:17:57 > 1:17:58and it can be catastrophic.
1:17:58 > 1:18:02From a point of view of strict self-interest, it is imperative
1:18:02 > 1:18:06that we make further moral progress,
1:18:06 > 1:18:08that we get more and more people
1:18:08 > 1:18:11to acknowledge the humanity of one another,
1:18:11 > 1:18:14or it will be bad for pretty much all of them.
1:18:14 > 1:18:17If we don't develop what you might call
1:18:17 > 1:18:24the moral perspective of God, then we'll screw up the engineering
1:18:24 > 1:18:28part of playing God, because the actual engineering solutions
1:18:28 > 1:18:33depend on seeing things from the point of view of other people,
1:18:33 > 1:18:36ensuring that their lives don't get too bad,
1:18:36 > 1:18:39because if they do, it'll come back to haunt us.
1:18:40 > 1:18:44So, you know, kind of, half of being God has just been handed to us,
1:18:44 > 1:18:46and the question is whether
1:18:46 > 1:18:50we'll master the other half of being God, the moral half.
1:18:56 > 1:18:57The bad news is that
1:18:57 > 1:19:01the enlightenment is sometimes hard to come by.
1:19:01 > 1:19:03Because of human nature, in some cases,
1:19:03 > 1:19:06because we've got these kind of animal minds,
1:19:06 > 1:19:10designed for very different environments, facing novel problems,
1:19:10 > 1:19:16so the enlightenment part is going to require some real education
1:19:16 > 1:19:20and reflection and self-discipline, and may not come naturally.
1:19:32 > 1:19:35I think what we're up against here is human nature.
1:19:35 > 1:19:37We have to reform ourselves,
1:19:37 > 1:19:40remake ourselves in a way that cuts against the grain
1:19:40 > 1:19:43of our inner animal nature,
1:19:43 > 1:19:47and transcend that ice age hunter that all of us are,
1:19:47 > 1:19:50if you strip off the thin layer of civilisation.
1:20:15 > 1:20:18We always have been the initiators of this experiment,
1:20:18 > 1:20:19we've unleashed it,
1:20:19 > 1:20:22but we've never controlled it, but now it's more likely
1:20:22 > 1:20:26that we're going to come to grief because of environmental problems.
1:20:26 > 1:20:31If we do, then that is really nature saying,
1:20:31 > 1:20:35"The experiment of civilisation is a failed evolutionary experiment."
1:20:35 > 1:20:38That making apes smarter is a dead-end.
1:20:38 > 1:20:41So, it's up to us to prove nature wrong, in a sense,
1:20:41 > 1:20:45to show that we can take control of our own destinies
1:20:45 > 1:20:47and behave in a wise way, that will ensure
1:20:47 > 1:20:50the continuation of the experiment of civilisation.
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