[Music]
[Applause]
so these are my bees and if there’s one
thing I’ve learned as a beekeeper it is
that the actions of thousands of tiny
bees can add up to big changes there are
about 50,000 honey bees in a hive and I
try to take care of every single one of
them even down to learning how to put
the boxes back together so that I don’t
squish one my wife calls me a helicopter
bee parent but I can now check on my
bees and make sure that they’re okay
without ever opening the hive simply by
using my smart phone smartphone
innovation is more important than ever
for protecting honeybees and the
environment and smart phone
environmentalism gives us new
opportunities to help the environment
and taking a lesson from the honeybees
that the actions of many small people
can add up to big things so it used to
be that about 15% of hives were lost
every year by beekeepers and mostly this
was due to natural causes
things like starvation and cold but
recently the number has jumped up to
more than 40% and there’s a lot of
debate about why this is some people
blame pesticides there are diseases like
Nosema which weaken the bees or like my
bees last year they can be attacked by a
bear and as you can see the bear usually
wins but the biggest problem actually is
the varroa mite which attaches itself to
be to a bee and has the appropriate
scientific name of varroa destructor now
managing for all of these can be very
difficult and it can be hard to keep my
bees alive but it’s not all bad news in
fact the total number of hives in the
u.s. is actually increasing and last
year had a 23 year high so
how can this be how can we be more hives
be dying than ever and yet the total
number is actually going up and the
simple answer is is that beekeepers have
the knowledge and incentives to make
sure that their hives survive whether
that is decreasing the mortality or
replacing the hives that they lost if
beekeepers don’t have hives they can’t
make money by pollinating crops like
apples and almonds and they can’t sell
their honey and beekeepers closely
monitor their hives to make sure that
they have the knowledge to make good
decisions you know they need to treat
diseases like no Seema or kill a varroa
mites or even by a bear fence and the
good thing is that there’s now new tools
that allow them to do this more
effectively so brood minder is a small
rectangular sensor that I could put in
my hive that connects to my iPhone
simply by walking up to my hive I can
check the temperature I can check the
humidity and I can look at the weight I
can see if my bees are adding honey I
can see if they’re losing population or
I can see if it’s too cold and I can do
this all without ever opening the hive
and disturbing the bees and I can share
the information with the world in fact
there’s a hive over in Victoria that is
sharing information about how its bees
are doing even experienced beekeepers
can be surprised and giving them
knowledge using smart phones helps them
protect their bees brood minder is
emblematic of a new set of smart phone
tools that allows anyone to help the
environment even if you’re not a
beekeeper they engage citizen science
and use our knowledge and incentives
that we have personally to guide us to
better ways to help save the planet now
putting power in the hands of
individuals through smartphones is an
important change from traditional
environmental approaches and gives us
the opportunity to do things we could
never do before and it comes at a very
important time when so many of our
political solution
are failing to solve our environmental
problems it wasn’t always like this so
in 1972 when we created the
Environmental Protection Agency the need
for Environmental Action was obvious
smokestacks were putting pollution into
the air pollution was going into rivers
and streams so what we did is we gave
power to the EPA to address these
problems and they did a good job and our
air and water are much cleaner as a
result of it today however environmental
problems are very different and they’re
more distributed and what worked in 1972
doesn’t necessarily work today today we
too often rely on politicians to be
environmental saviors and frankly
they’re just not very good at it for a
variety of reasons the first is x can
change and people who supported
President Obama’s efforts on the
environment the last eight years are now
watching as president Trump undoes many
of those same regulations the second
thing is is that politicians don’t have
the knowledge and incentives necessary
to make good environmental decisions so
about a thousand cities pledged to meet
the Kyoto Protocol x’ carbon reduction
targets by 2012 but when the deadline
arrived very few of them actually
achieved the goals seattle admit failure
so did Chicago so did New York as did
about 90 percent of the cities that
signed up and it’s not the only example
subsidies for corn based ethanol
actually increased environmental damage
unlike beekeepers or biologists or
farmers politicians don’t have the
day-to-day experience and knowledge to
make good environmental decisions and
frankly politicians don’t like to admit
that they were wrong right they’re
worried about the next election so when
the environmental policy doesn’t succeed
they tend to hide the failure rather
than admit it and the result is that we
waste a lot of money and time and it
harm
the environment but we can change this
smartphones and the Internet engage our
incentives and our knowledge to find
good environmental solutions engaging
those incentives allows us to have
everyday knowledge and put it to work
for us and doing that is already helping
steelhead right here in Puget Sound so
this is fish emic fish face fish II was
a steelhead who started out life in the
Skokomish River and swam about a hundred
and seventy-one miles up Hood Canal and
then back down Hood Canal and then back
up Hood Canal admittedly I didn’t choose
the brightest fish in the world
but finally out past the Hood Canal
bridge into Puget Sound and finally to
the Strait of Juan de Fuca toward the
ocean where fishy became lunch for some
happy bird
now even though fishy gave its life for
science it didn’t die in vain and it
made a difference
fishies life helped us understand why
steelhead and salmon struggle to make it
to the ocean
a group called long live the Kings
tagged dozens of fish and allowed donors
to bid on them betting on which one
would actually make it to the ocean and
not only did this raise money and
awareness for conservation efforts it
added to that scientific knowledge about
the challenges that steelhead and salmon
face so I could check and see that some
fish were eaten by seals others never
even made it out of the river where they
started but some fish like salmonella at
the top there
I actually made it all the way out to
the ocean
every day I could get my smartphone out
and see how my fish was doing connecting
my interest in steelhead to real-life
actions on the ground a group called
Paso Pacifico in Central America which
works with sea turtles did a similar
sort of thing where they tagged sea
turtles and allowed donors to watch them
as they swam around the ocean now the
technologies use the smartphone
technologies used by brood minder or by
long live the Kings allow us to connect
in an individual way to environmental
solutions in a way that simply was never
possible before they give us information
and allow us to use it every day holding
us accountable for failure
and guiding us to better environmental
solutions and doing that is already
helping migratory birds in California
you probably didn’t think you’re gonna
get a speech about the birds and the
bees this morning did you
so Cornell University researchers
created an app called eBird and millions
of data points have been entered by bird
watchers around the world about when and
where they saw different bird species
and every dot on this map represents one
data point entered by a bird watcher
somewhere in the world in real time in
one day so a bird teamed up with the
Nature Conservancy in California to try
to find the best habitat for migratory
birds and they took hundreds of
thousands of data points and sorted
through them to figure out which rice
fields would provide the best habitat if
they were flooded about a hundred
species of shorebirds ducks and geese
rely on those rice fields so the Nature
Conservancy went to rice farmers and
they did a reverse auction and they said
how much would we have to pay you to
create this habitat for these birds sort
of like Airbnb for birds
and it worked and it was a win-win
because the birds got the habitat and
the farmers got paid without smartphones
and without eBird this would never have
been possible and it also allowed
birders to go out and confirm that the
habitat that had been created was being
used by the birds smartphone
environmentalism allowed the birds to
create the habitat using the the
smartphone environmental technologies
but it also improved our understanding
of science and it allowed bird watchers
to go out and hold the farmers
accountable to make sure that they had
actually created the habitat for the
birds smartphone environmentalism holds
the promise of dramatically improving
the way we create wildlife habitat it
can help us cut our energy use and cut
carbon emissions and it could even
improve the way we use water and there
are already dozens of apps that allow
all of us to make these environmental
improvements so for instance if you want
to know how much electricity you’re
using at any given time you can simply
open up the sense electricity monitor
like I have in my home if you want to
cut if you want to return down your
thermostat and save electricity you can
use nest if you want to monitor your
water use you could use drop counter you
can figure out if the fish that you’re
buying or sustainably harvested you can
calculate your carbon footprint you can
even buy solar energy in other states
where the Sun shines more than it does
today in the same way that uber and lyft
radically changed the taxi industry
smartphone environmental apps hold the
promise of success where politicians
have failed and dozens of these apps and
using them multiplies the impact over
time to make big differences the car2go
app allows you to find a little two-seat
smart car somewhere parks near you and
rent it by the hour and you can even
unlock it with your phone this has been
so successful that the City of Seattle
estimates that there are now nine
thousand fewer cars in Seattle as a
result of this one app so for 18 years I
worked and I’ve worked in environmental
policy I used to work at the Washington
State Department of Natural Resources on
issues like spotted owl and old-growth
forests and I now sit on the Puget Sound
salmon recovery Council which makes me a
salmon recovery counselor smart phones
bring people together to create
information and they engage our
incentives to do better for the
environment to protect the environment
for the future to improve wildlife
habitat and create clean air and clean
water they have the ability to multiply
all of those efforts so that together we
can do more than politicians ever could
thanks to smart phone environmentalism
the ability to be an environmental hero
is literally in the palm of your hand
thank you so much
[Applause]
[Applause]
so these are my bees and if there’s one
thing I’ve learned as a beekeeper it is
that the actions of thousands of tiny
bees can add up to big changes there are
about 50,000 honey bees in a hive and I
try to take care of every single one of
them even down to learning how to put
the boxes back together so that I don’t
squish one my wife calls me a helicopter
bee parent but I can now check on my
bees and make sure that they’re okay
without ever opening the hive simply by
using my smart phone smartphone
innovation is more important than ever
for protecting honeybees and the
environment and smart phone
environmentalism gives us new
opportunities to help the environment
and taking a lesson from the honeybees
that the actions of many small people
can add up to big things so it used to
be that about 15% of hives were lost
every year by beekeepers and mostly this
was due to natural causes
things like starvation and cold but
recently the number has jumped up to
more than 40% and there’s a lot of
debate about why this is some people
blame pesticides there are diseases like
Nosema which weaken the bees or like my
bees last year they can be attacked by a
bear and as you can see the bear usually
wins but the biggest problem actually is
the varroa mite which attaches itself to
be to a bee and has the appropriate
scientific name of varroa destructor now
managing for all of these can be very
difficult and it can be hard to keep my
bees alive but it’s not all bad news in
fact the total number of hives in the
u.s. is actually increasing and last
year had a 23 year high so
how can this be how can we be more hives
be dying than ever and yet the total
number is actually going up and the
simple answer is is that beekeepers have
the knowledge and incentives to make
sure that their hives survive whether
that is decreasing the mortality or
replacing the hives that they lost if
beekeepers don’t have hives they can’t
make money by pollinating crops like
apples and almonds and they can’t sell
their honey and beekeepers closely
monitor their hives to make sure that
they have the knowledge to make good
decisions you know they need to treat
diseases like no Seema or kill a varroa
mites or even by a bear fence and the
good thing is that there’s now new tools
that allow them to do this more
effectively so brood minder is a small
rectangular sensor that I could put in
my hive that connects to my iPhone
simply by walking up to my hive I can
check the temperature I can check the
humidity and I can look at the weight I
can see if my bees are adding honey I
can see if they’re losing population or
I can see if it’s too cold and I can do
this all without ever opening the hive
and disturbing the bees and I can share
the information with the world in fact
there’s a hive over in Victoria that is
sharing information about how its bees
are doing even experienced beekeepers
can be surprised and giving them
knowledge using smart phones helps them
protect their bees brood minder is
emblematic of a new set of smart phone
tools that allows anyone to help the
environment even if you’re not a
beekeeper they engage citizen science
and use our knowledge and incentives
that we have personally to guide us to
better ways to help save the planet now
putting power in the hands of
individuals through smartphones is an
important change from traditional
environmental approaches and gives us
the opportunity to do things we could
never do before and it comes at a very
important time when so many of our
political solution
are failing to solve our environmental
problems it wasn’t always like this so
in 1972 when we created the
Environmental Protection Agency the need
for Environmental Action was obvious
smokestacks were putting pollution into
the air pollution was going into rivers
and streams so what we did is we gave
power to the EPA to address these
problems and they did a good job and our
air and water are much cleaner as a
result of it today however environmental
problems are very different and they’re
more distributed and what worked in 1972
doesn’t necessarily work today today we
too often rely on politicians to be
environmental saviors and frankly
they’re just not very good at it for a
variety of reasons the first is x can
change and people who supported
President Obama’s efforts on the
environment the last eight years are now
watching as president Trump undoes many
of those same regulations the second
thing is is that politicians don’t have
the knowledge and incentives necessary
to make good environmental decisions so
about a thousand cities pledged to meet
the Kyoto Protocol x’ carbon reduction
targets by 2012 but when the deadline
arrived very few of them actually
achieved the goals seattle admit failure
so did Chicago so did New York as did
about 90 percent of the cities that
signed up and it’s not the only example
subsidies for corn based ethanol
actually increased environmental damage
unlike beekeepers or biologists or
farmers politicians don’t have the
day-to-day experience and knowledge to
make good environmental decisions and
frankly politicians don’t like to admit
that they were wrong right they’re
worried about the next election so when
the environmental policy doesn’t succeed
they tend to hide the failure rather
than admit it and the result is that we
waste a lot of money and time and it
harm
the environment but we can change this
smartphones and the Internet engage our
incentives and our knowledge to find
good environmental solutions engaging
those incentives allows us to have
everyday knowledge and put it to work
for us and doing that is already helping
steelhead right here in Puget Sound so
this is fish emic fish face fish II was
a steelhead who started out life in the
Skokomish River and swam about a hundred
and seventy-one miles up Hood Canal and
then back down Hood Canal and then back
up Hood Canal admittedly I didn’t choose
the brightest fish in the world
but finally out past the Hood Canal
bridge into Puget Sound and finally to
the Strait of Juan de Fuca toward the
ocean where fishy became lunch for some
happy bird
now even though fishy gave its life for
science it didn’t die in vain and it
made a difference
fishies life helped us understand why
steelhead and salmon struggle to make it
to the ocean
a group called long live the Kings
tagged dozens of fish and allowed donors
to bid on them betting on which one
would actually make it to the ocean and
not only did this raise money and
awareness for conservation efforts it
added to that scientific knowledge about
the challenges that steelhead and salmon
face so I could check and see that some
fish were eaten by seals others never
even made it out of the river where they
started but some fish like salmonella at
the top there
I actually made it all the way out to
the ocean
every day I could get my smartphone out
and see how my fish was doing connecting
my interest in steelhead to real-life
actions on the ground a group called
Paso Pacifico in Central America which
works with sea turtles did a similar
sort of thing where they tagged sea
turtles and allowed donors to watch them
as they swam around the ocean now the
technologies use the smartphone
technologies used by brood minder or by
long live the Kings allow us to connect
in an individual way to environmental
solutions in a way that simply was never
possible before they give us information
and allow us to use it every day holding
us accountable for failure
and guiding us to better environmental
solutions and doing that is already
helping migratory birds in California
you probably didn’t think you’re gonna
get a speech about the birds and the
bees this morning did you
so Cornell University researchers
created an app called eBird and millions
of data points have been entered by bird
watchers around the world about when and
where they saw different bird species
and every dot on this map represents one
data point entered by a bird watcher
somewhere in the world in real time in
one day so a bird teamed up with the
Nature Conservancy in California to try
to find the best habitat for migratory
birds and they took hundreds of
thousands of data points and sorted
through them to figure out which rice
fields would provide the best habitat if
they were flooded about a hundred
species of shorebirds ducks and geese
rely on those rice fields so the Nature
Conservancy went to rice farmers and
they did a reverse auction and they said
how much would we have to pay you to
create this habitat for these birds sort
of like Airbnb for birds
and it worked and it was a win-win
because the birds got the habitat and
the farmers got paid without smartphones
and without eBird this would never have
been possible and it also allowed
birders to go out and confirm that the
habitat that had been created was being
used by the birds smartphone
environmentalism allowed the birds to
create the habitat using the the
smartphone environmental technologies
but it also improved our understanding
of science and it allowed bird watchers
to go out and hold the farmers
accountable to make sure that they had
actually created the habitat for the
birds smartphone environmentalism holds
the promise of dramatically improving
the way we create wildlife habitat it
can help us cut our energy use and cut
carbon emissions and it could even
improve the way we use water and there
are already dozens of apps that allow
all of us to make these environmental
improvements so for instance if you want
to know how much electricity you’re
using at any given time you can simply
open up the sense electricity monitor
like I have in my home if you want to
cut if you want to return down your
thermostat and save electricity you can
use nest if you want to monitor your
water use you could use drop counter you
can figure out if the fish that you’re
buying or sustainably harvested you can
calculate your carbon footprint you can
even buy solar energy in other states
where the Sun shines more than it does
today in the same way that uber and lyft
radically changed the taxi industry
smartphone environmental apps hold the
promise of success where politicians
have failed and dozens of these apps and
using them multiplies the impact over
time to make big differences the car2go
app allows you to find a little two-seat
smart car somewhere parks near you and
rent it by the hour and you can even
unlock it with your phone this has been
so successful that the City of Seattle
estimates that there are now nine
thousand fewer cars in Seattle as a
result of this one app so for 18 years I
worked and I’ve worked in environmental
policy I used to work at the Washington
State Department of Natural Resources on
issues like spotted owl and old-growth
forests and I now sit on the Puget Sound
salmon recovery Council which makes me a
salmon recovery counselor smart phones
bring people together to create
information and they engage our
incentives to do better for the
environment to protect the environment
for the future to improve wildlife
habitat and create clean air and clean
water they have the ability to multiply
all of those efforts so that together we
can do more than politicians ever could
thanks to smart phone environmentalism
the ability to be an environmental hero
is literally in the palm of your hand
thank you so much
[Applause]
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