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TEDxChange Berlin: The Big Picture

Posted by Natalie in Events - 6 April 2012 - (0 Comments)

A looming, Berghainian former power station set the perfect scene for one of TEDx’s biggest events to date, as local and international guests and speakers entered awestruck to mutters of that familiar phrase: ‘only in Berlin’.

Out back in the blogger lounge, the retro post-industrial vibe continued in a room that could have been a sixties sci-fi film set.

On to business. We were treated to an introduction and Q&A with some of the speakers before they rushed off to centre stage and the main event began.

First up was Jeff Chapin of global design consultancy, Ideo, who deglamorised design with his story of bringing a latrine to market in rural Cambodia, increasing toilet hygiene and saving hundreds of lives.  Jeff stressed the importance of locally tailored solutions to suit specific cultural and physical environments.  Through astute anecdote, we learnt how design, though unglamorous, has the power to enable longer and deeper conversations about the things that really matter, such as health, family and security.

Next, a call to action from MEP and German Green Party member, Sven Giegold. Sven explained the link between the global financial crisis and our ongoing addiction to oil.  The financial crisis is, however, not one of scarcity but of abundance – four times the global GDP is now circulating the economy, searching for short term investments and profits and over-complex financial products. We need a new deal to solve the problem, rather than rebuilding the old system, and this involves regulation of the financial markets in combination with a genuine commitment to renewable energy.

Despite disagreeing with Sven on the nuclear question, his talk was compelling and I was encouraged to hear informed and insightful reference to the interconnectedness of the environment and global economy – a key perspective on the Big Picture.

Theo Sowa is CEO of the African Women’s Development Fund, and delivered an impassioned speech about the consultation of women (or the shameful lack thereof) in discussions about development issues. Her point was poignant in its patency and moving in its manifestation: a profile of some of the thousands of women who could provide invaluable solutions to some of the continent’s most pressing problems, if only they were asked. Theo’s standing ovation was certainly well deserved, however, from the Twitter feed it appeared that many in the audience inadvertently proved one of her main points:  Theo pointed out that we don’t ask victims for solutions, and that we need to stop treating all African women as victims; but the phrase that got repeatedly retweeted was that ‘we need to start asking the victims for solutions’.

After a moving performance from Senegalese singer/songwriter, Baaba Maal (which he dedicated to all the world’s women), Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation, who organised this event, delivered the final presentation of the evening.

Having already heard a taster of Melinda’s topic in our earlier Q&A, it was clear that she is wholly devoted to the Foundation and their causes; the top four being polio elimination, vaccination, family planning and agriculture.

Melinda’s talk was on family planning – a topic that is currently hugely controversial, but why? Debates about abortion and population control are both hugely emotive issues and ones that are frequently associated with family planning – making a practical issue suddenly loaded by association.

Family planning is about the freedom to decide whether to have a child. There is, in many societies and cultures, a reluctance to address or accept birth control because it removes the act of sex from the goal of reproduction, thereby condoning promiscuity.  This is not about promiscuity, however, but about the freedom of choice, and women having more control over their bodies and their lives; the ability to “bring every good thing to this child before I have another”.

Despite some unanswered questions about cultural relativity, and ambiguities about where the Gates Foundation sits amid top-down and bottom-up approaches, I am impressed by Melinda’s dedication to this issue.  ”I’ll keep doing this for the next thirty years”, was her zealous response to a question in the blogger lounge about how long the work would need to go on.

Answering another question, Melinda explained to us the role of a foundation, describing it as a ‘catalytic wedge’, to help drive down prices and develop new technology etc. The Gates Foundation’s funds are just a drop in the ocean, and to roll out solutions on a large scale and implement lasting, positive change, takes leadership, and is ultimately down to governments.  Organising and hosting an event such as this, encouraging and enabling so many people (not just us in Berlin but the hundreds of thousands of people who tuned in live across the world) to refocus our local lens and look at the Bigger Picture, is itself an innovative display of leadership – one that can only increase the Foundation’s global influence and impact in its impressive ongoing philanthropic endeavours.

This post was republished on the Gates Foundation‘s Impatient Optimist blog.

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Related articles:

TEDx Berlin 2011: High Energy

The Big Picture

Moving Mountains: hunger and waste in an age of austerity

The Meaning of Clean

 

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Bean there: Coffee Circle’s brewing and tasting workshop

Posted by Natalie in Events - 15 February 2012 - (0 Comments)

Berlin startup, Coffee Circle, began life in a humble corner of Betahaus.  Two years later, they’re housed in a typically cavernous ex-warehouse office space shared with a handful of similarly youthful businesses. Plenty of room, finally, to host a Gidsy event to share their passion for coffee.

This afternoon’s workshop was led by Robert, one of the three founders of Coffee Circle. The remaining two are currently soaring at speed in a south-westerly direction, bound for the Ethiopian capital, Addis Abbaba, on their annual quest for the best coffees the country has to offer.

Unlike most other coffee traders, Coffee Circle buy direct from growers in Ethiopia. Due to a lack of infrastructure, employment and welfare in the country, people generally have to sustain themselves by growing their own food. Families often club together in cooperatives to farm small plantations, producing some of the world’s best coffee, completely organically.  By cutting out the middle man, the company can source the best coffee and make sure the growers get a fair deal. For every kilo of coffee purchased, Coffee Circle gives €1 back to local development projects. Farmers see the benefits within their community and increase their efforts to produce the best beans, driving up quality of produce for the company and ensuring ongoing investment in local development projects. Hence the name Coffee Circle.

We learnt a great deal about the different coffee producing areas of Ethiopia and the difficulties in finding, getting to, tasting, choosing and eventually purchasing coffee – and that’s before it even gets to the roaster. The process is painstaking, adventurous, competitive (Starbucks is also a major direct purchaser in the region), fascinating and incredibly complicated, requiring expertise at every stage.  Two years down the line, Coffee Circle seem confident in themselves and their product, so it was time to start tasting their fare.

In this spirit of complexity, there were five different coffees to taste and five different brewing methods – far too many variables to elicit a clear winner in both categories without proper scientific process, but more than enough to get us started on the road to coffee connoisseurship.  The coffees included three Coffee Circle products: Limu, espresso and Sidamu; one Square Mile Bolivian filter coffee; and a Kaiser’s common-or-garden filter coffee.

The brewing techniques:

#1 Espresso

A familiar favourite on a particularly impressive La Marzocco machine.  Obviously only the espresso beans were sampled in this test, and we learnt some of the finer points to the barista’s art. It’s called espresso, of course, because of the short brewing time – the water has only a maximum of about 20 seconds to pass through the coffee, so ideally the beans should be finely ground and also need to be roasted for longer during the roasting stage to ensure strength of flavour and aroma.

#2 Drip filter

Another classic and relatively old-fashioned method, the drip filter has been improved by the Japanese invention of adding small ridges to the funnel, which prevent the filter paper sticking to the wall and improve the flow.  The paper must be rinsed by pouring warm water over it before adding the ground coffee, to avoid that papery taste.

#3 The syphon

Also known as a vacuum coffee maker, this method is visually amazing.  It works by varying the temperatures of two connecting vessels, firstly increasing the pressure to force water upwards and then lowering it to allow it to soak back down through the coffee. It’s been around since the 1930s but has recently enjoyed a resurgence in popularity, possibly due to its gimmicky look (apparently it pulls in crowds at events, but I didn’t rate the results – see my verdict below).

#4 Chemex

Much like the drip filter but with thicker paper (which again must be rinsed before use) and a slightly different vessel, the Chemex produces a noticeably smoother cup of coffee by filtering out all the residue. Its diligence as a filter means it does take a while, but the result is well worth waiting for.

#5 AeroPress

Currently a very popular choice of brewer, especially among singletons for whom one cup is just enough, the AeroPress is a quick, simple and highly effective method, even if it does lack the glamour of its contemporaries.  Consisting of two cylinders that create an airtight chamber, the device works much like a syringe.

The verdict

The espresso was perhaps a bad place to start, because it was by far the most overpowering taste and possibly my favourite, though I can’t be sure my views haven’t been influenced by that magnificent machine.  The Sidamu coffee tasted underwhelming from the drip filter but exceptional from the AeroPress, which gave it a cloudy texture and strong taste. Sadly, both the Limu and the Sidamu tasted bitter and burnt through the syphon. The Chemex-brewed coffees were impressive, especially the Square Mile sample, which tasted too fruity for quotidian dosage but perfect for a special occasion.

After all these amazing samples, it was only left to try the supermarket special. I often drink similar coffees and was completely unprepared for the taste that hit my tongue after all the high quality we’d just experienced. To quote one of the other participants, Philip, “it just tastes so… empty”.  Empty indeed, and stale, and bitter and – frankly – awful.

Apparently, in the name of efficiency, supermarkets and other producers of cheap coffee roast their beans at high temperatures for three to five minutes to reduce the roasting time required. In order to get rid of the fruity acid and other toxins, and to preserve a delicate and desirable aroma, beans should be roasted at much lower temperatures for longer – up to 20 minutes or so.  The result of cutting corners during the complex roasting stage is a poor tasting and unhealthy coffee.

So there we have it. Another expensive taste developed in a few short hours. Having said that, coffee is a staple in our household and I’m more than willing to pay the price for high quality, ethical produce, so these few eye-opening hours with Coffee Circle were well worthwhile, as well as highly enjoyable.

Related articles

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TEDx Berlin 2011: High Energy

Posted by Natalie in Events - 21 November 2011 - (1 Comments)

An eclectic line-up of apparently unrelated topics came together beautifully today at TEDx Berlin, with themes curving in a topical arc through this thoughtfully curated event.

Katherine Lucey, CEO of Solar Sister, ignited our imaginative kindling with a moving account of the power of electricity to change lives in rural Africa.  Her company provides people with solar lights that cost a one-off price of $20, making it a more financially viable option than the toxic kerosene lamps that cost $2 a week to run.  Working with local women in hardest-to-reach communities, the solar lamps improve quality of life and can kick start cycles of increased prosperity and self-sufficiency.  Katherine argued that energy poverty and energy prosperity are gender issues – an angle that seemed to cause controversy amongst the audience, judging from post-presentation conversations.

Next, Alexander Voigt, CEO of Younicos, talked us through the potential of renewables, in particular photovoltaics (PVs).  He showed that the challenge lies not with technology but our relationship to it.  Solar panels are increasingly efficient and affordable, so why aren’t we all installing them?

It may have been due to the moving start that the first TED video talk seemed particularly overwhelming. Using biomimicry, Markus Fischer and his team created their SmartBird, an achievement that has to be seen to be believed:

Design duo Mischer’Traxler create products based on the history visible in the rings of a tree.  A solar powered machine threads and dyes cotton around a mold, so that rings are produced and different colour intensities depending on how sunny it is (thus how fast the solar powered machine feeds the thread). A time lapse video and examples of their work demonstrates the ingenuity perfectly.

To end the first session, climate engineer and director of Trans Solar, Wolfgang Kessling, complemented Voigt’s earlier points well by showing that only 20m2 of PV panels is required to supply a family’s energy for a year.  This would cost just €5000 and, of course, reduce energy costs significantly.  Another 20m2 would be enough for 15,000km in an electric car.

As we shivered uncomfortably through the session, Kessling talked about ‘high comfort’ and making a building comfortable by controlling the air temperature and the radiant environment.  We often underestimate the importance of ensuring the passive efficiency of a building before investing in energy to heat it.  What’s more, he said, “We overestimate what we can do in the future and  underestimate what we can do today.”

Things warmed up in session two as we were told we would be part of a real time experiment in ‘high comfort.’  Fittingly, Nils Lindell was next up to divulge his experiences of attempting to live a One Tonne Life with his family in Sweden.

Martin Cordsmeier of Million Ways, then called for creative tenders to help society move towards a more person-focused system.  There are surely few more focused people than Lewis Pugh, who is widely regarded as the world’s greatest cold water swimmer.  His efforts at swimming in a lake left by a melted glacier at 5,300 metres aim to raise awareness of climate change, “The Mount Everest of all problems.”

Verena Delius, CEO of Young Internet, delivered a thought-provoking analysis of dynamism within companies and that dangers facing those that do not adapt to evolving markets.  Despite its focus on industry, we agreed in chats afterwards that such approaches can be equally applied to interpersonal relationships. Strike while the iron’s hot!

After a musical interlude from Studnitzky, Rune Nielsen, co-founder of Kollision, clarified what is meant by ‘media arcitechture,’ and how it can be used to make the invisible, visible; the abstract tangible and the boring playful.  Projecting interactive light shows onto the sides of buildings provided opportunities to engage the public in a conversation about the facts of climate change, and their interactive nature encourages communication between strangers.

Closing the loop on session two, Lehna Malmkvist of Swell Environmental Consulting, brought us back to the biomimicry theme by arguing that we need to reject one-way systems of resource management.  Ecosystems are the most complex and efficient systems on earth and we should take a leaf from nature’s book and move towards integrated systems where one stage’s waste is another’s resource.  Swell’s project at Dockside Green near Victoria, BC is a work in progress that practices what they preach, and they are learning by doing whilst implementing an economically and socially viable urban design project.

A glance at the programme for the third session indicated a sinister aside that seemed somewhat off-topic. Axel Peterman, criminologist and consultant to cult TV series Tatort, began with an advocation of interdisciplinary criminology that includes profiling suspects’ personalities.  Interspersed with gruesome photos and more captivating than an episode of CSI, the talk was a rare, if somewhat tenuously fitting insight into a world we all find so morbidly fascinating.

Of all the amazingly inspirational and industrious people that spoke at TEDx today, magician Thimon V. Berlepsch, taught me the most valuable lesson; something new about myself. He showed us that our human need for routine also has a detrimental side, in that it can blind us to childlike wonderment.  Breaking the patterns of mundanity brings the magic back to life.  For Berlepsch, this break comes in the form of travel, adventures into the unknown.  I’ve always wondered what that feeling is when travelling; that unique euphoria which melts into an elusive sense of homecoming perspective.  Some people tell me the urge to travel is a sign of instability, unwillingness to settle or a means of escape. They are right, but that’s not a bad thing.

The transition to Pamela Meyer’s How to Spot a Liar video talk was surprisingly smooth.  An interesting speech, whose most poignant argument in today’s context was that in order to avoid deception we must be self-aware enough to know what it is we are hungry for:

J Henry Fair’s aerial photographs make beautiful images out of horrible situations, and it is this dissonance, he claimed, that makes them affective and therefore effective:

The earth is bleeding - J Henry Fair - Industrial Scars

Nik Nowak’s presentation, entitled ‘Sound as Weapon’ was not as menacing as it sounds.  The title related more to the recent Occupy events where microphone bans were subverted with creative and peaceful innovation in the form of human mics.  Nowak then demonstrated his Soundtank during the break before the final session.

If we were becoming fatigued by this deluge of inspiration, Benedikt Foit and Habib Lesevic woke us up with a start.  Their game, Energy Streetfight, uses play as a way of engaging people to make real reductions in their CO2 footprint.  Passionate critics of the ‘consumerism virus’, the pair advocate the importance of individual action in combatting simplified but currently dominant notions of progress as economic growth.  Consumerism affects our perspective and leads to psychological passivity and the logic of taking.  While culture spreads the virus, it is also culture that can cure us, one revolutionary mind at a time.

Johnny West is a journalist, transparency activist and proponent of a direct citizen dividend for oil-producing countries to combat the resource curse.

Finally,  Daniela Schiffer’s highlighted the need for energy-saving efforts to be visible and tangible.  Her company, Changers, is an ingenious scheme that makes combating climate change an individual, measurable, comparable process with results that mean something in the real world.  An antidote to the sense of helplessness in the face of this mammoth issue, in a playful format with visibility and economic viability, where the individual feels a sense of worth and community, Changers is, I realised with pleasant surprise, the culmination of today’s discussions.

These ideas have been whirling around for a number of years now, and to see them form into real solutions delivered by remarkable and passionate people gave me hope when I’d almost given up.  As John Perry Barlow pointed out in his closing address, via video from California, today was consistently inspiring and in some places depressing.  The climate crisis is lacking in hope, and events like TEDx are essential for momentum to gather and positive change to occur.  As we teeter on the edge of the tipping point, these aren’t just ideas worth spreading, they are ideas that must spread if we are to overcome man’s greatest challenge yet.

TEDxChange, an initiative of the Gates Foundation, will be in Berlin on 5th April 2012.

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A Little Less Conversation

Posted by Natalie in Environment - 7 April 2011 - (0 Comments)

It seems that these days there is always something going on. Of course, there always has been, it’s just that now information exchange happens so efficiently we all know about it instantly. Even given this daily data deluge, we are currently seeing a global glut of particularly significant events. From Japan to Libya, the Ivory Coast to austerity cuts, you could say it’s kicking off.

Maybe this is why other important affairs are slipping under the radar.  Today is the penultimate day of the UN climate change conference in Bangkok where 1,500 participants from 173 countries are trying to improve an agreement made at Cancun last year and working towards a post-Kyoto protocol.

Perhaps predictably, negotiations are painfully slow. By yesterday, delegates had hardly penetrated the nitty-gritty and were still trying to agree on the agenda itself. When so many parties – representing even more interests – are involved, deciding what to talk about is potentially as difficult as tackling the issues themselves. For all voices to be heard, all interests considered and all agendas addressed, much time is required; it’s a painstaking process.

Time, of course, is one resource we don’t have when it comes to climate change mitigation. Another big revelation that has gone largely unreported is the result of a recent scientific study, which concludes that it is already too late to limit the temperature increase to two degrees. To achieve anything like this, the study claims, we would have to have an immediate drop in emissions to practically zero.  The chances of successfully combating a dangerous rise in global temperatures diminishes with every day of fruitless negotiations.

There is no easy solution to the difficulties of such weighty diplomacy and this is understandable, given the task at hand. We shouldn’t feel hopeless, however, despite the temptation to react with exasperation to our querulous leaders. As individuals we are far from powerless; in fact, we are far more powerful in many ways, because when we make a decision to change something we don’t need to consult the rest of the world about it. The cumulative effect of individual action should not be underestimated.

Addressing the big issues of industrial and national carbon emissions is, of course, imperative; but large things move slowly.  Using this lack of governmental progress as an excuse for individual inaction is counter-intuitive. Instead, we should be leading by example and making the most of our strengths. Any personal lifestyle adjustment that contributes to lowering emissions is important and worthwhile, because no matter how small, it has great significance in its immediacy.

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Disagreeing with David

Posted by Natalie in Environment - 25 March 2011 - (0 Comments)

As a passionate naturalist, Sir David Attenborough has been an inspiration to me for as long as I can remember. He’s probably one of the main reasons I’m an environmentalist at all.

Is his address to the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce)  Attenborough alludes to population growth as the primary factor driving ecological exploitation and destruction.

The world is a big place. It can, in fact, sustain a lot more people than already exist. The environment, however, continues to suffer increasingly and intensely.  It’s reasonable to jump to the conclusion that if there were less people there would be less exploitation, but that is simply not the case. It is an understandable assumption though, because one falls into the trap of taking over-consumption as a given, of capitalism as the natural, fixed state around which everything else must adapt.

The fact is that most of the population growth occurs in poorer countries, where people have the least per capita impact on the environment. In terms of carbon emissions, for example, Americans today are equivalent to around four Chinese, 20 Indians, 30 Pakistanis, 40 Nigerians, or 250 Ethiopians.  Despite developing nations being responsible for the majority of population increase, their environmental impact is negligible and massively disproportionate.  Look at it another way: in the US, almost half of food produced is wasted, that’s about 40 million tonnes a year. There are approximately 1 billion malnourished people in the world.

Ironically, despite this waste, the problem is over-consumption. If we consumed less, the world would be able to sustain all 6.5 billion of us, and more. This does not mean we all have to live in squalor without electricity or access to clean water.  On the contrary, a model of sustainable development that rejects uncapped capitalism would lead to more equality and a higher standard of living for those currently living below the poverty line.

Such opportunities speed up rather than hinder development, so that access to education, medicine and contraception increase. The population will plateau as a side effect of a better quality of life, as it has done consistently throughout history. To argue the opposite is to reify a flawed system and misjudge what it means to be human.

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That Sinking Feeling

Posted by Natalie in Environment - 24 March 2011 - (0 Comments)

When a rogue website reported that a small Pacific state had legalised cocaine the country’s denial was resolute, but the truth reveals a more disturbing story.

Yesterday I momentarily fell for what now seems like a ridiculously implausible hoax. A website called CBS published a story about how the Marshall Islands had legalised all substances and opened its borders, dropping all visa restrictions. The authorities promptly issued a strong and defensively emotional response, calling it libelous, yellow journalism.

It wasn’t just the name of the website that misled me for a moment (it’s unrelated to CBS News,of course); it was because I really wanted this story to be true. Anyway, is it so unfeasible that a country would legalise drugs? It’s certainly not unheard of. And the lack of visa restrictions might not be such a big deal when you’re surrounded on all sides by 2000 miles of unforgiving ocean.

The Republic of the Marshall Islands is a diminutive country made up of dozens of atolls and islands, lying in the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii. It’s history is reminiscent of many previously isolated communities; the islands had been home to self-sufficient indigenous people for millenia. Due to their strategic position, however, the land and its people have been exploited in recent years, standing witness to wars of which they were never a part, victims of colonisation and reckless atomic testing.

Many Marshall Island communities now live in poverty and desperation. In the last few years things have become more critical: as water levels rise, it’s possible the islands could be reclaimed by the sea in the next 30 years.

The idea of the Marshall Islanders taking these independent, drastic and (dare I say) forward-thinking steps to generate revenue for climate change adaptation measures was appealing in the context of the country’s oppressed history and bleak future.  The inhabitants of these islands are still paying for other peoples crimes and have little control over their destiny. These people who have lived low carbon lifestyles for thousands of years will be the ones to suffer first and worst.

At around the same time, on a slightly larger island on the other side of the world, a chancellor made some similarly preposterous announcements, but these ones were real.  It’s no longer just the Marshall Islanders who have that sinking feeling.

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