[Music]
[Applause]
so what’s not to love about capitalism
it’s created enormous wealth brought
whole countries to prosperity and
delivered millions from poverty but what
our economy values highest these days is
oil gas diamonds lithium and so on all
extracted an enormous environmental cost
currently our economy is waging war on
our environment so as we search for
sustainability looking for ideas that
will help us balance the needs of the
environment and the economy shouldn’t we
first ask ourselves what on planet earth
is most valuable to humans I’d argue
it’s air without it we’d all be dead by
the time this little TED talk is over
now the good news is air and the
atmosphere are very valuable to Planet
Earth – meaning that we would create
alignment with our environment if we
chose to make air the most valuable
element in our economy now creating an
economy around fresh air isn’t actually
as complicated as it sounds trees make
air they also clean it of pollutants and
so by extension trees would become the
most valuable commodity within this
economy ok so they’re valuable but how
do you integrate them into the existing
global financial system it’s not as
though you can trade a forest on the new
york stock exchange
no but debt is fully integrated into the
global financial system it is very well
established
it pays interest its traded in every
stock market and bank on the planet and
we’ve got boatloads of it a hundred and
fifty two trillion dollars to be precise
so simply by equating the amount of
trees that we have with the amount of
debt that we have we would value all of
the forests on planet Earth
at a hundred and fifty two trillion
dollars and this is where the idea
starts to kick into high gear so mr.
president you would like to reduce
national debt plant trees and lots of
them don’t believe me it’s that simple
we’ll try this I calculated that if
trees do equal debt then the Amazonian
rainforest would turn Brazil’s 760
billion dollar national debt into a
thirteen trillion dollar surplus
overnight we would put the logging
operations around the globe into reverse
gear by creating a new financial model
but simultaneously boosts national
economies at the same time as removing
carbon from the air all right so you’re
thinking hmm cute idea but you can’t go
change in the global monetary system yes
you can
we’ve done it before have you ever heard
of the gold standard in the 1930s we
changed the global monetary system no
longer using the value of gold and
instead we invented a new one could fiat
money in part using regulations and
ideas created here in Basel so if we can
change the global monetary system
shouldn’t we first give consideration to
ideas capable of balancing the needs of
the environment and the economy and if
we do that then maybe just maybe we’ll
all start to see that money does grow
on trees thank you very much
[Applause]
[Applause]
so what’s not to love about capitalism
it’s created enormous wealth brought
whole countries to prosperity and
delivered millions from poverty but what
our economy values highest these days is
oil gas diamonds lithium and so on all
extracted an enormous environmental cost
currently our economy is waging war on
our environment so as we search for
sustainability looking for ideas that
will help us balance the needs of the
environment and the economy shouldn’t we
first ask ourselves what on planet earth
is most valuable to humans I’d argue
it’s air without it we’d all be dead by
the time this little TED talk is over
now the good news is air and the
atmosphere are very valuable to Planet
Earth – meaning that we would create
alignment with our environment if we
chose to make air the most valuable
element in our economy now creating an
economy around fresh air isn’t actually
as complicated as it sounds trees make
air they also clean it of pollutants and
so by extension trees would become the
most valuable commodity within this
economy ok so they’re valuable but how
do you integrate them into the existing
global financial system it’s not as
though you can trade a forest on the new
york stock exchange
no but debt is fully integrated into the
global financial system it is very well
established
it pays interest its traded in every
stock market and bank on the planet and
we’ve got boatloads of it a hundred and
fifty two trillion dollars to be precise
so simply by equating the amount of
trees that we have with the amount of
debt that we have we would value all of
the forests on planet Earth
at a hundred and fifty two trillion
dollars and this is where the idea
starts to kick into high gear so mr.
president you would like to reduce
national debt plant trees and lots of
them don’t believe me it’s that simple
we’ll try this I calculated that if
trees do equal debt then the Amazonian
rainforest would turn Brazil’s 760
billion dollar national debt into a
thirteen trillion dollar surplus
overnight we would put the logging
operations around the globe into reverse
gear by creating a new financial model
but simultaneously boosts national
economies at the same time as removing
carbon from the air all right so you’re
thinking hmm cute idea but you can’t go
change in the global monetary system yes
you can
we’ve done it before have you ever heard
of the gold standard in the 1930s we
changed the global monetary system no
longer using the value of gold and
instead we invented a new one could fiat
money in part using regulations and
ideas created here in Basel so if we can
change the global monetary system
shouldn’t we first give consideration to
ideas capable of balancing the needs of
the environment and the economy and if
we do that then maybe just maybe we’ll
all start to see that money does grow
on trees thank you very much
[Applause]
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