SPEAKER: Thanks.
Thank you very much Frederic.
I'm going to take a couple
of questions while
we set up for David.
In our business-- in climate
change capital or investment
banking business-- we've
already followed your advice
and started to make a
commitment to carbon capture
storage on the policy front
and also making money
flow in that direction.
We've helped finance the first
carbon capture storage plant
in the northeast of England.
In your work with the
commission, have you identified
any particular policy incentive
that you think would help
capital flow more quickly to
the new plant that
you have designed?
FREDERIC HAUGE: The problem
today is that coal industry is
burning a lot of money on their
emission training systems.
They're fighting
heavily against us.
But I think when we made the
Kyoto Agreement, we didn't know
about this technical option.
I think when we look at the
framework of the World Trade
Organization, we are able to
tax imported goods with the
same taxes we have nationally.
I'm sure that we will see
post-Kyoto agreement coming up
with CO2 taxes, because then we
could tax the goods from
non-Kyoto countries, and we
could use the CO2 tax to
build the infrastructure
for carbon capture.
SPEAKER: Take a question
from the floor Frederic
for [UNINTELLIGIBLE]
if anyone's got something
they'd like to get out.
We can come back,
we've got time later.
No?
Well I'm sure we'll
get more later.
OK, now we're going
to go on to David.
Now David's a wonderful man.
I spent time with him in Davos
recently, and it was one of the
highlights of going to that
great event, just to find a
corner and sit and talk about
the things that we were doing.
I think you best sum up David
by having a look at his latest
venture, which is called
Adventure Ecology, which
combines his particular
adventurous spirit and the fact
that he is an adventurer, and
his passion for dealing with
ecological issues of the day.
And you will see that as an
entrepreneur, he's full of
ideas and full of energy,
and he's focused in on
communicating in a way which is
alluring and attractive the
climate change issue to the
vitally important resource for
our future, which is children.
David.
[APPLAUSE___AND_
__MUSIC___PLAYING]
DAVID DE ROTHSCHILD: So I
have to admit I didn't
sleep very well last night.
I got into bed and I realized
that after 28 years of what
I thought I was doing was
dancing, is really not dancing
at all, if you sat down last
night and saw what we saw.
I thought Jesus, what have I
been doing all this time.
And it brings into
a brief story.
I just spent the last month
in the Amazon in a tiny
little village on the
boarder with Peru.
And these guys, as I arrived,
were sitting with their guns.
You know, we're warriors, we're
not going to let the oil
industry which is in the
north of Ecuador come
down to the south.
If you lie to us, if you tell
us things that aren't true,
then there's trouble.
And I thought to
myself, OK fine.
So we sat there, and after a
few hours of drinking chicha,
which is an interesting
moonshine drink that they
make-- I'm not going to go into
that-- things relaxed a little.
And the chief looked at
me, and he pointed to
the back of the room.
He walked over and he
pulled out a stereo.
I was like, that's a bit odd.
He then pulled out Now 2 from
1982, proceeded to put this
onto the machine, and said
show me how to dance.
So my rope-a-dope and my little
dance that I was doing last
night doesn't quite cut
the mustard I guess.
So I have a request to Google.
Please do not send the Sadler's
Wells Organization down to
this region of the world.
Otherwise I will never
be allowed back.
I want to start by thanking
everybody here today for
actually putting on this forum.
It's phenomenal.
It's a real honor and a
pleasure to be here.
I feel about that big.
And it's also very inspiring
to sit in a room full of so
many people who have
achieved so much.
And you look at a room like
this, and being an optimist,
I go, there is a collective
capacity to actually
make a difference.
When a room or group of
individuals who have the
capability to shape the way our
future is, get together and
start to just talk to each
other rather than at each other
and engage, we can really I
think meet the challenges
that are global warming.
When I was asked to join
this group, I was asked
to join green technology.
And you said, go wow green
technology, there's
thousands of them.
You go into the lab you can--
Frederic here will I'm
sure tell you about it.
And I thought, what's one
technology that we've kind of
seen emerge over the last maybe
12 to 18 months that's really
kind of shaping the way we look
at our planet, that's giving
us a new perception.
And to me-- and not just
because they throw a good
party-- but it's going
to be Google Earth.
And the reason why I say that
is that-- I've got a kicker
somewhere, hang on a second,
there you go-- is that I don't
know, we've all had the
pleasure of sitting ar our desk
and just surfing the
world basically.
And I think there is a huge
power in this amazing
technology which was once, you
know, you had to be an
astronaut or very soon a Virgin
Galactic customer to be
able to experience this.
But to have that power, to be
able to sit and go to the
Amazon, to go to the Himalayas,
to go to the Gobi or in a drop
in seconds, I think really to
me is a very powerful tool to
help realign ourselves as being
part of a greater whole.
But also having fun,
which is also important.
Everyone talks about climate
change and it's all very
depressing, but I think we've
also got to get optimistic
about it and take
the challenge.
And I'd like to throw it out to
Google that I think this is a
fantastic platform to maybe
even launch a Google
green version.
Take that risk and create a 3-D
resource where you can see
what's going on in our planet
with water resources, energy
resources waste, all the other
things that we are
seeing happening.
So to everyone who
actually engineered
that, congratulations.
I think that's a real
impressive tool.
I think to me there's a bit of
a sort of irony I guess in
trying to get people to
connect-- as he presses his
buttons-- to connect to
the natural world online.
Are we trying to say to kids,
we want you to get really
enthused, but actually you're
going to do it all from
your bedroom online.
And I think that is a big
challenge that we're
facing right now.
And to me it's about balance.
There's an interesting thing,
an author called Richard Louv
recently wrote a book phrase
nature-- well he coined
the phrase, nature
deficiency disorder.
And it's this notion really,
that as individuals, we can go
online and we can pool
resources and we can find out
everything we want to know
about deforestation, we can
find out about the Amazon, we
can find out about all these
things that are happening
around our planet.
But when was the last time that
a child actually went outside
and played in the woods or
jumped in a stream or just
basically hung out and
watched the clouds go past.
Sounds a bit hippyish that one.
But actually to me, it's very
important and was definitely an
inspiration for me to really
look at this notion of nature
deficiency disorder that
we're seeing in kids.
And like I said, I
think it is a balance.
We need to use the powerful
tools that are the web to
engage, but we also need to I
think get them to start to
explore the outside and be part
of the system so they realize
there's this sort of false
dichotomy, that it's
nature and us.
No, we're all actually
on the same line.
To me, I found this
inspiration-- I'm not
sure if this is working.
No?
OK.
To me, I found my inspiration
standing at the bottom of what
was the Axel Heiberg Glacier.
It's pretty intimidating, and
that was at that point when I
thought, you know what Dave,
you're really got to be careful
what you ask for in life.
It was setting out on 100 day
voyage across Antarctica.
I was part of a four-man team,
1,600 kilometers, and I felt
again like a speck of dust.
And really for the next three
months I was nothing more than
a speck of dust on what is one
of arguably the most majestic,
environmentally-challenged and
fragile continent
on our planet.
And you spend anywhere between
9 to 15 hours a day with your
head down pulling a sled which
weighs over 100, 200 pounds,
and you have a lot
of time to think.
And for me, it was at that
point that I think I really
kind of grasped-- how cold it
was-- but really-- as I was
saying going back to this
nature deficiency-- sort of
really grasped this notion of
our role on the planet and
who we are as individuals.
And it was at that point that I
think I really realized that it
was our ability to live on
this planet that we're
putting in jeopardy.
Yes we have a fragile
ecosystems that we have to
protect, but we're protecting
for a reason, it's for us.
And I think when I started that
challenge, when I went into
that challenge, if I was to be
completely honest, it was to
sort of, I say to scratch an
itch, but to-- you know, I'm
always interested in what was
going on outside the window
rather than inside, and it was
probably driven by natural
curiosity, it was driven
by maybe a bit of ego.
I don't know, but it was
driven probably from a
slightly selfish place.
And when I returned from this
expedition, I realized that
once you start to share the
stories, and you start to talk
about things, you'll naturally
start to engage, you get people
coming up to you and talking to
you, and saying how do you do
this, how do you do that.
And what I realized was that
actually this power of
captivation and effectively
what is storytelling, can
either continue along the lines
of, I am a polar hero, and I
can do one-arm push-ups and all
the other things that probably
go with a huge sort of polar
rhetoric that we get.
And I thought actually you know
what, it's not about that.
It's about taking these issues
and this captivation and using
that as a powerful tool to
actually realign ourselves, our
understanding that it is about
environmental responsibility.
It's about us as individuals
taking what is really a very
complicated challenge, but also
a very manageable challenge.
I became a bit of
an obsessed man.
I became determined that I
would tell my story-- I'm
just going to quickly
pour this in here.
Sorry.
I wanted to take this and move
people away from seeing
environmental crisis as a
problem that was too abstract,
that was too big to solve or
too intimidating and see that
actually we could all become
a community of change.
And how can we
drive that change.
For me my expedition it ended,
the energy of the expedition
was dissipating, and it was
about capturing that momentum
and using it for something.
So I realized that after
talking to people, there's a
sort of common thread among
human beings, and that
is we are all dreamers.
Maybe some more than others,
but there's one demographic
within society that are more
dreamers than others,
and that's children.
And to me, the notion of taking
a dream and taking it from that
full process to making it
reality is an adventure.
And it was about, well
we all then have an
adventure inside of us.
And it's how you perceive
that adventure.
It doesn't have to be climbing
a mountain, swimming an ocean.
It could be going on a date.
It could be doing the
dance with the tribe.
It could be standing
here today.
What I was hoping to do was to
take the notion of adventure
and use it as a way to engage
people and saying, actually the
adventure that we should all
be on is saving the planet.
And so after I got back
from Antarctica I launched
Adventure Ecology.
And the idea was to make
learning an adventure.
And the most important thing
was finding the right mix.
A mix that would educate
but also entertain.
A mix that could
answer, yet challenge.
And it was a mix ultimately
that would let individuals
make informed decisions.
I was determined to say that no
longer should green be about
the activist on one side, or
the dolphin-loving,
rainbow-wearing guy
on the other side.
This was about taking
it mainstream.
This is about
keeping it simple.
Combining adventure,
ecology, education.
But also very importantly at
a time when information
technology is shaping the way
we learn, the way we socialize,
the way we interact with each
other, it was obviously going
to be a challenge as well.
And to maximize this
experience, to say, how do we
create a platform that would
engage the digital natives who
are growing up with computers
coming out of their ears-- not
literally-- and the
digital immigrants.
For me it was about giving
users the sense of control.
The idea that we create
mission control.
This is a platform that would
help the kids to interact.
They'll be able to use the
information that we were
presenting them to create
their own adventures.
Every kid gets their own
mission control, they get to
create their own avatar, they
use Eeks or they earn Eeks,
which are an interactive
reward system.
But it was more than that.
As I said going back to
balance, it was about using the
web, using this technology to
inspire children and our users
to go out and take their own
real life, hands-on projects.
Sustainable projects.
And by using the platform
that we've created, we
are doing that right now.
We've managed to create a
platform that engages, it gives
children the opportunity to
learn on the issues, to share
the issues, to act and to speak
in a way that isn't
intimidating, which
is engaging.
It gives them the opportunity
to take these serious issues,
make them something that they
can own, take control of, and
see themselves of being part
of the problem to becoming
part of the solution.
Now the fun bit, as I'm saying,
this is a shot from Ecuador.
We've started to move now to
getting kids to be able to use
this technology to actually
access us in real time
when we're in the field.
And I'll put something out
there to the audience.
It sounds far more impressive
then it really is, and if
there's anybody who knows how
to take and help us get that to
go further, I have this vision
of one day Billy Bolton sitting
in his bedroom and his mum's
going , come down to dinner
Billy, and he's like shut up
mum, I'm telling the expedition
to go over the mountains
in Madagascar.
You know, giving them that
interaction, giving them that
feeling would be amazing.
We create this platform where
kids get to come online.
They get to follow us, we talk
to them from the field, we give
them interactions, we help them
to access information through a
customizable learning platform.
Widget-based technology where
they can use cartoons,
the can use animations.
But to me what's important, and
what's really coming back to
that notion of giving them a
sense of power is about saying,
if we give kids the tools
to design the solutions,
they will design them.
We are seeing children leading
these discussions right now.
The more exciting, it's
actually becoming a place
where they empower us.
And inspire us.
I say that because we're seeing
children mentoring and
inspiring their peers every
single day by creating projects
that they then take back to
friends, family, individuals.
Recycling movement
was a great idea.
We saw the robot earlier.
You're guaranteed that every
one of those kids who sat in
front of that robot has gone
home straightaway and said, I
either want a robot or
you're going to start doing
that every single day.
And it's happening.
What's fun for me as well
is that we're changing.
The explosion of new
technology, the coming of age
of the web has opened up a
whole host of opportunities
for us to be able to actually
engage in a more
exciting manner.
I'm a gamer.
I understand the allure of the
virtual world and I know that
there's a-- we saw a lot
yesterday with Second Life.
And there are conversations
that you know, gaming, isn't it
awful, it's making our kids
go the wrong direction.
But I think it's
a powerful tool.
And recently I had the pleasure
of working with an agency
called Oglivy, which
you probably all know.
And we basically thought about
how could we get our message
out to a wide audience.
So I'm just going to run
a little video of a
fun thing we did.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
The reach of Second Life is
tiny, with an average of
just 20,000 people in
world at any one time.
It's not huge of significant by
any means, but it seems that
everyone in there is either
a journalist or a blogger.
That's why we decided Second
Life was a natural place to get
the world to hear Adventure
Ecology's environmental
awareness message.
The world is in climate crisis.
Tony Blair said global warming
threatened 40% of the world's
species with extinction, 200
million people with flooding,
and the new economic concern,
20% of the world's wealth.
The consequences for our
planet, are literally
disastrous.
To bring the dangers of this
crisis to life, we staged
Second Life's first mass
event-- a virtual flood.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The shocked residents
of Second Life found
creative ways to cope.
Adventure Ecology avatars
directed Second Life
residents to their website.
Here, they could learn how to
prevent this from happening
in the real world.
Within hours, the news services
and influential bloggers
had commented on Adventure
Ecology's climate crisis event.
The message has reached
more than 18 million
people globally.
Whilst costing nothing to
produce or run, this event led
to Adventure Ecology
experiencing a 54% increase in
traffic to their website, with
a ten-fold increase
in blog mentions.
Most people pay for media.
We bought ours with a powerful
idea that got talked about.
This is not advertising,
nor PR, nor digital.
It's a whole new way of
reaching a mass audience.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
DAVID DE ROTHSCHILD:
The planet.
We think we have one-- well we
only do have one actually.
And right now, as probably some
of you will know and read,
we're living well
past our means.
We're actually living what they
call a three-planet economy.
And as you just saw from that,
there are a number of tools
available on the web, which
I guess you can class
as green technology.
They give us the opportunity
to basically further our
understanding of the issues.
But to me I don't think
there are any quick fixes.
I think that
innovation is vital.
I think we should keep pushing
our boundaries, and I think we
should keep trying to achieve
those breakthroughs in green
technology, and I admire the
work that Frederic and my other
distinguished guests are
going to talk about.
But to me personally, it's more
importantly about changing
our attitude, it's about
creating a new ideology.
About you know, living within
our resources, living
within our means.
It's changing our relationship
with nature to say that it's
not just about what can
we extract, it should be
about what can we learn.
It's about actually changing
our own story of why we're
here on this planet.
I mean it's this ideology,
we're driving ourselves to
expand beyond our limits.
I think it's because we've
got this notion that this
planet was put here
exclusively for us.
And to me, you know it's
amazing to think that right now
one species out of potentially
anywhere between 30 to 100
million species, one species--
us-- it consuming 40% of the
net prime reproductivity.
That's all energy and
food resources available
to all other species.
One species-- us-- is taking
50% of the planet's freshwater
and leaving all the others
to fight for what's left.
And through all those stats, we
can keep on talking about them,
and they say, after a while he
goes, I'm statted out, and I've
seen the graphs, and
I know it's all bad.
But I think we all have to
sort of stop and go back and
look at our daily imprints.
Really evaluate what we're
doing in our everyday actions.
Reducing our
ecological footprint.
And for what we're calling
at the moment-- oh, a bug.
I don't know how
that got in there.
That was meant to be
the species slide.
Huge bug.
We'll move on from that one.
What we're calling before our
planet, and it's this notion
of saying, yes it's about
recycling, yes it's about
reducing, and reusing.
But more importantly, it's
also about rethinking.
As we saw in the beginning,
it's about saying it's not
waste management, it's
resource management.
We live in a closed system, and
as we heard before, my waste is
your treasure and your
treasure is my waste.
And so it's about introducing
and getting this new mindset,
and putting people into a place
where they believe that they
can make a difference,
they can engage without
feeling intimidated.
It leads me on when we're
talking about waste, I
want to quickly touch
on our next expedition.
If I look around the room,
under everybody's chairs, I
think we've all got
plastic bottles.
And I've doesn't know how many
plastic bottles would be
consumed over the last day or
so all throughout
the conference.
But basically what we want to
try and do in the new
expedition that's coming up in
our series, we want to-- it's
probably that many actually, I
think I saw him leaving the
back entrance earlier.
The idea is we're looking to
use really rethinking-- I'm
flashing, so I'm going to hurry
this one up-- basically
rethinking our way, taking
intelligent design technology
and using kind of the true
adventurer spirit of
what was the Kon Tiki.
We'll be building a craft made
of plastic bottles which
we'll be setting sail on.
It's going to be
called the Plastiki.
It's going to be an adventure
voyage to document ocean
trash across the Pacific.
We'll be leaving at the
end of 2008, early 2009.
It'll be probably 100 day or
more voyage using the power of
the web and using the power
of all the tools we have
available to connect us.
I know we're short one time
so I have to call it quits.
So, thank you.
I hope that we get to talk
a bit more in a minute.
Thanks.
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER: I'm going to let
David go because it's only
