Theme: Planet, Protection

The California State Senate Digital Nudge Initiative is collaborating with TED to bring livestreaming opportunities to the State Senate through TEDxCaliforniaCapitol. With it, we will not only join an international community to learn from experts around the world but also begin to share our own ideas by hosting experts on the platform on a variety of issues.

On April 27th, staff have the rare opportunity to see the livestreamed TED 2017 conference and watch the talk session, "Planet, Protection." The session highlights climate change, environmental policy, urban design, and similar topics. Speakers include a NASA climate scientist, a Computer Theorist with Applied Minds, a Geoengineer from Oxford University, a Meteorologist and former naval officer from Pennsylvania State University, among others.

Venue: Room 3191 of the California State Capitol
Time: Noon - 1:30 pm

This Livestream event is open to members of the California state government, including all officials and staff. No RSVP necessary, and food may not be brought into the room. For more information, contact Gayle Miller at Gayle.Miller@sen.ca.gov and Julianne McCall at Julianne.McCall@sen.ca.gov.

California State Capitol
1315 10th Street
Sacramento, California, 95814
United States

Daan Roosegaarde

Artist

With his futuristic artworks, Roosegaarde illuminates the intersection of technology, humanity and our urban environments. He builds jaw-dropping artworks that redefine humanity's relationship to city spaces. Along with his team at Studio Roosegaarde, he is deoted to "Landscapes of the Future," city prototypes and urban adornments that fuse aesthetics with sustainability. From Smog Free Project in Beijing -- a tower that purifies its surrounding atmosphere and harvests pollutants to preserve as jewelry -- to an interactive dance floor that generates electricity from dancers, Roosegaarde's designs revolutionize the role of technology in the built environment.

Danny Hillis

Computer theorist

Inventor, scientist, author, engineer -- over his broad career, Danny Hillis has turned his ever-searching brain on an array of subjects, with surprising results. Danny Hillis is an inventor, scientist, author, and engineer. While completing his doctorate at MIT, he pioneered the concept of parallel computers that is now the basis for most supercomputers, as well as the RAID array. He holds over 100 US patents, covering parallel computers, disk arrays, forgery prevention methods and various electronic and mechanical devices, and he has recently been working on problems in medicine as well. He is also the designer of a 10,000-year mechanical clock, and he gave a TED Talk in 1994 that is practically prophetic. Throughout his career, Hillis has worked at places like Disney and now Applied Minds, always looking for the next fascinating problem.

David Titley

Meteorologist

Scientists and retired Navy officer Dr. Davis Titley asks a big question: Could the US military play a role in combating climate change? Titley is a Professor of Practice in Meteorology and a Professor of International Affairs at the Pennsylvania State University. He is the founding director of Penn State's Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk. He served as a naval officer for 32 years and rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. Titley's career included duties as commander of the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command; oceanographer and navigator of the Navy; and deputy assistant chief of naval operations for information dominance. He also served as senior military assistant for the director, Office of Net Assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. While serving in the Pentagon, Titley initiated and led the US Navy's Task Force on Climate Change. After retiring from the Navy, Titley served as the Deputy Undersecretary of Commerce for Operations.

Kate Marvel

Climate Scientist

Climate scientist Kate Marvel looks at the big picture of environmental change. Kate Marvel is a scientist at Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute of Space studies. She uses computer models and satellite observations to monitor and explain the changes happening around us. Her work has suggested that human activities are already affecting global rainfall and cloud patterns. Marvel is committed to sharing the joy and beauty of science with wider audiences. She has advised journalists, artists and policymakers, written a popular science blog and given frequent public talks. Her writing has appeared in Nautilus Magazine.

Kristin Poinar

Glaciologist

Kristin Poinar uses remote sensing and numerical models to study the interaction of meltwater with ice flow, especially on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Hidden under many meters of ice, a pool of meltwater lies under the Greenland Ice Sheet. Kristin Poinar studies how the meltwater forms and flows in this dynamic glacial system. She asks: How did this water get there, and where does it go? How much water is in there? And how is climate change affecting this system? Using data from Operation IceBridge flights and from field instruments, she's building a numerical model of how crevasses form and channel water. In fact, a NASA report released in February 2017 revealed a new pathway her team discovered for meltwater to reach the ocean. Using physically based models to constrain the bounds of what is realistic has shaped Poinar's interest in glaciology.

Peter Calthorpe

Urban designer

Through his writing and his realized projects, Peter Calthorpe has spread the vision of New Urbanism, a framework for creating sustainable, human-scaled places. His 30-year design practice is informed by the idea that successful places -- whether neighborhoods, towns, urban districts or metropolitan regions -- must be diverse in uses and users, must be scaled to the pedestrian and human interaction, and must be environmentally sustainable. In the early 1990s, he developed the concept of Transit Oriented Development -- an idea that is now the foundation of many regional policies and city plans around the world. His 2010 book is Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change. Calthorpe Associates' work in Europe, Asia and the Middle East has demonstrated that community design with a focus on sustainability and scale can be adapted throughout the globe. His current work throughout China is focused on developing standards and examples of Low Carbon Cities in Beijing, Chongqing, and other cities.

Ted Halstead

Policy entrepreneur, climate expert, author

Ted Halstead in breathing new life into US climate policy by mobilizing conservative leaders and CEOs around a breakthrough carbon dividends solution. When not writing or sailing around the world, Ted Halstead launches cutting-edge think tanks. His first, founded when he was 25, introduced new measures of progress and coordinated the Economists' Statement on Climate Change, signed by 18 Nobel laureate economists. His second, New America, has become one of the most influential think tanks in Washington. Halstead's newest creation, the Climate Leadership Council, is transforming climate policy and politics by advancing a more effective, popular and equitable climate solution, based on the conservative principles of free markets and limited government. He has published numerous articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Fortune, Atlantic, National Review, Los Angeles Times and Harvard Business Review. He has also published two books.

Tim Kruger

Geoengineering researcher

Tim Kruger researches geoengineering: techniques to counteract climate change by deliberate, large-scale intervention in the earth system, by reflecting sunlight back into space or by reducing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. While our first priority should be to reduce global carbon emissions, geoengineering could prove vital in the fight to protect our planet. At the Oxford Geoengineering Programme, Tim Kruger aims to assess the range of proposed geoengineering techniques to determine which, if any, could be both technically feasible and benign environmentally, socially and ethically. He is a co-author of the Oxford Principles, a draft code of conduct that calls for geoengineering to be regulated as a public good, for public participation in decision-making and for disclosure of research and open publication of results. He is involved in developing a process that uses natural gas to generate electricity in a way that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.