Take action on climate change at .
“Business is screwed if we don’t fix climate change,” says economist Rebecca Henderson. In this bold talk, she describes how unchecked capitalism destabilizes the environment and harms human health — and makes the case for companies to step up and help fix the climate crisis they’re causing. Hear what a reimagined capitalism, in which companies pay for the climate damage they cause, could look like.
This talk was part of the Countdown Global Launch on 10.10.2020. (Watch the full event here: .) Countdown is TED’s global initiative to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis. The goal: to build a better future by cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, in the race to a zero-carbon world. Get involved at
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SilverAMS
November 12, 2020 at 11:43 am
Lol, she love free and fair markets, but doesn’t like what freedom and fairness bring to the markets, which are prices that doesn’t rappresent real cost, the market is free so anyone can chose the price of what sell, and it is fair because a buyer can decide if that price is fine or not… And all this is a fucking lie… Like capitalism is lie and a system that create inequalities… If we want to save the climate we cannot reimagine capitalism, we have to replace it
abhishek joy
November 12, 2020 at 11:44 am
Overpopulation is a problem everyone ignores.
Just One Man
November 12, 2020 at 11:47 am
Working from home to greatly deduce current carbon footprint while investing in research and development of advances in battery technologies is the most effective strategy to address climate change. Providing tax incentives for these and other carbon reduction measures would engage instead of alienating businesses. All other options on the table are economy killers and will be met with tremendous resistance.
Float Circuit
November 12, 2020 at 12:01 pm
Creating industry-redefining businesses is like creating Tesla Inc. to force automakers like Ford and GM to go green with EVs. Obviously you can do it, but if Elon Musk is any indication, it’s very hard to find success. Further, at scale, this is ultimately a regulatory problem. Say you wanna be an eco friendly company, then you have to compete with established firms that set their prices way below yours, simply because they don’t account for their externalities. Of course people should try to create successful green companies, but also, at some point our governments need adults that can ignore the BS and make the hard regulatory calls.
Float Circuit
November 12, 2020 at 12:09 pm
It’s a feel good message, to be sure, but I can’t say I believe it.
just adam
November 12, 2020 at 12:13 pm
Too little too late
Tracey Kilgour
November 12, 2020 at 1:32 pm
The big reset. The fourth industrial revolution. Stakeholder capitalism.
Daniel Sykes
November 12, 2020 at 4:55 pm
Stakeholder capitalism would be better than what we have today. Robots are nice if people get taken care of.
As for the big reset, what is that?
Atena Mansoori
November 12, 2020 at 1:37 pm
Its been always hard to face government wishes 😔
Dre Cor
November 12, 2020 at 2:48 pm
Bullshit
PoecilotheriaPage
November 12, 2020 at 2:56 pm
This Davos manifesto crap is pure fascism at its core, no matter whatever spin they put on it, the only people who will suffer from their plans are us. The elite will rule with impunity. Be aware these people are not your friends.
Anna Kataeva
November 12, 2020 at 3:09 pm
This is just gross. Capitalism is the cause of the crises, and it cannot be reformed, only given up upon. To say otherwise is being complacent. But what would you expect from a neoliberal econ professor? Shame.
Reddy Mahesh K
November 12, 2020 at 3:21 pm
Beautiful
Thoughtful
Rational
Daniel Sykes
November 12, 2020 at 3:44 pm
Markets aren’t everyone’s definition of capitalism .. and ‘free markets’ by some people’s definition don’t exist. Austerity and oppression for the masses, abundance and agency for the rich, most people in the comments see through this BS. Neoliberal capitalism is failing the planet, oligarchy fails the planet, plutocracy fails the planet. And it especially fails humanity.
The wonderful entrepreneur described in this clip is one data point from a country that keeps companies small and has extensive labor rights and government social safety-nets. That doesn’t happen in the US anymore. Advocate for antimonopoly, universal unionization, democracy reform, anticorruption legislation, etc.
I don’t have access to startup capital, and I don’t have economies of scale needed to compete in the market. The people who do have access to those things won’t save us.
We need to learn how to organize again. We need to participate in society, and take our democracies back. That is how we will reign in the exploitation of workers and the environment. We just aren’t taught how to do so in school.
less M'eat
November 12, 2020 at 3:54 pm
Just the Voice my tired body and brain 🧠 needed!
Gustavo Figueiredo
November 12, 2020 at 4:07 pm
*COMMUNIST! LET MY BELOVED BILLIONAIRES ALONE! WE WORK SO HARD TO MAKE THEM RICH…*
Viagem Atômica
November 12, 2020 at 4:07 pm
“to save the hostage, we have to reimagine the kidnapper”
Daniel Sykes
November 12, 2020 at 4:23 pm
AMEN, ughghgh.
Gustavo Figueiredo
November 12, 2020 at 4:09 pm
“Money, so they say / Is the root of all evil today” – Money, by Pink Floyd.
Gustavo Figueiredo
November 12, 2020 at 4:17 pm
We are doomed.
Manuel B
November 12, 2020 at 4:31 pm
Capitalists should do the right thing, governments should regulate them and police them, and citizens should make them. Nobody should go on faith on this intrinsically corrupt system.
Jeron
November 12, 2020 at 4:57 pm
one of the worst things you guys have managed to put out, by god
stephen walker
November 12, 2020 at 5:27 pm
Ok could barely listen to this… Capitalism isn’t the issue, idealism without a reality check is. We need more nuclear energy, but the left idealists have already screwed that one up, wind farms are highly counterproductive due to the manufacturing costs to the environment.
Recycling isn’t the answer, reduction of single use plastic would help, regarding trees there’s more now in the northern hemisphere than there was 100 years ago so get your facts straight.
Using fear and scare mongering as a motivator for a horribly racist (“Rich and the white”) and dangerous radical left wing viewpoint is appalling.
I feel ted talks are moving more and more into a Marxist viewpoint of the world these days, its all capitalism’s fault…. truly saddening.
Just In credible
November 12, 2020 at 7:25 pm
Ted Just keeps cranking out the communism lately.
Chas Brown
November 13, 2020 at 5:50 pm
This is not communism! It is telling the facts in a way that respects capitalism’s successes, but also points out its faults.
Gisli Kristjansson
November 12, 2020 at 7:45 pm
I watched this Ted talk and listened carefully. I find it amazing that learned people actually think, as this economist and Harvard professor obviously does, that capitalism can be fixed and amended in such a way that the worst outcome of the ongoing and accelerated climate catastrophe can be averted. To me the opinions expressed here are strange and impossible. Capitalism is, IMHO, a sick and perverted system for any human civilization and totally unsustainable. Market capitalism, with its endless growth paradigm, is like a cancer-growth on all living things, here on this planet. It will kill us all, in the end.
I think humanity should take another look at socialism and carefully cut away problematic issues that have come up throughout history. An economist I greatly admire is the American Marxist economist, Richard D. Wolff, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He, along with other learned socialists, are the people who I look to for answers.
PC Random
November 12, 2020 at 8:45 pm
Amazing woman
True, and honest.
Not a radical
kookoon
November 12, 2020 at 9:40 pm
thanks capitalism 😀
pernus
November 13, 2020 at 3:05 am
Not reimagine. Abolish.
Austin Palmore
November 13, 2020 at 8:06 am
Negative externalitys are really difficult
BlackVirus
November 13, 2020 at 12:19 pm
please lady just leave this planet, take your people with u. go to the moon or mars or whatever… bye
Max Ramsahoye
November 13, 2020 at 3:48 pm
‘Economist & business teacher’ = High priestess of the market religion, servant to the market god.
‘Free & fair markets’ = Idealistic propaganda
‘Build a business that can set the right price and still be profitable’ = You’ve identified the antagonism between capitalism and the environment yet still
cling onto the notion that capitalism can coexist with ecological equilibrium.’
If all costs were Internalised no business would be profitable. Business is governed by cost efficiency – the reduction of costs – and hence capitalism inherently externalises costs and harm to society and the environment. ‘Ethical business’ and ‘conscious capitalism’ are oxymoronic delusions.
Alacard0malley
November 14, 2020 at 3:38 am
You’re not pro climate you’re anti human. Resist the great reset.
Seway
November 14, 2020 at 2:55 pm
“This isn’t the capitalism i signed up for” 🤣 the freest market pollutes the most
Korku kokusu
November 15, 2020 at 7:43 am
Bad.
Manuel Delgado
November 15, 2020 at 9:36 am
we need communism. none else. now to safe us from global warming. we should look and learn from china.
befreaked
November 16, 2020 at 5:14 am
me estas cargando?
Manuel Delgado
November 16, 2020 at 5:16 am
@befreaked si muy magnifico
Andrew Thompson
November 16, 2020 at 1:06 am
To save the planet and society, we first need to ensure businesses and interest groups on all sides ACTUALLY answer all the hard questions and abide by them. Greenpeace is now a corporation, as are all the cancer research industries – no one wants success in handling the environment any more than corporations want a cure for cancer, as they would immediately become irrelevant. The same goes for those paid to travel around and preach about the environment or religion. When I hear of poor people doing this for free, then I will listen – the rich do this to promote their own self-gratitude and social status.
Stuart Bogle
November 16, 2020 at 1:17 am
The worlds wealthy have most of their assets in dollars. The dollar is backed by oil. If the dollar stops being backed by oil, it stops being valuable. That is not something business can change.
sdrawkcabgnipytmi
November 16, 2020 at 8:19 am
5:00
“rich and the white”
Oh, so poor white people are part of the oppressor class along with the rich? Okay, gotcha.
smith jen
November 16, 2020 at 12:48 pm
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smith jen
November 16, 2020 at 1:01 pm
0:40
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Dribrom Sunrock
November 16, 2020 at 2:04 pm
We don’t have to reimagine capitalism we just have to go back to the original idea of capitalism as described by Adam Smith. The problem is that we don’t even have capitalism even though we call it that. A true capitalist hates monopolies but todays capitalism is focused on big international conglomerate companies.
Also we have to also acknowledge that capitalism only works in a combination with a culture of moral similar to Protestant Christianity. Capitalism did not work until there was a culture that promoted honesty, responsibility, and loyalty to a higher ideal then yourself. Kenneth J. Barnes writes in his book, Redeeming Capitalism: “that capitalism, once rooted in a particular religious ethic, long since lost to the moral relativism of the modern era, need not be replaced, but needs instead to be redeemed.” He examines how the theology of Augustine, Aquinas, and John Calvin has contributed to the development of economic virtue. Barnes argues that, when taken together, the biblical theology of these church fathers gives us a “motif that is remarkably universal in its application,” that will provide a useful framework for redeeming our current economic system.
Jörgen Edlund
November 16, 2020 at 10:04 pm
At this late stage, capitalism can do little but paint itself into the fascist corner: “Push governments to put the right price into law, so that bottom feeders can’t survive.”