0:00:12.620,0:00:15.660
I'd like you to imagine the world anew.

0:00:16.989,0:00:19.522
I'd like to share some ideas with you,

0:00:20.394,0:00:22.660
that I first shared with my friend

0:00:22.784,0:00:26.250
Carl Lee, and which we've got[br]for many other people

0:00:26.363,0:00:28.299
about how you can look at the world

0:00:28.648,0:00:30.181
in very different ways.

0:00:31.040,0:00:33.216
I'd like to show you some maps,

0:00:33.239,0:00:35.976
which have been drawn by Ben Hennig,

0:00:36.000,0:00:37.895
of the planet in a way

0:00:37.920,0:00:43.000
that most of you will never[br]have seen the planet depicted before.

0:00:44.381,0:00:48.349
I want to talk about[br]how everything is connected

0:00:48.508,0:00:49.775
to everything else.

0:00:50.831,0:00:53.164
The phrase is normally attributed

0:00:53.427,0:00:54.427
to Lenin,

0:00:55.093,0:00:58.160
but it was used recently[br]by my friend George Monbiot,

0:00:58.751,0:01:00.684
when he was trying to explain

0:01:00.720,0:01:03.587
the importance of whale poo[br]in the oceans.

0:01:04.411,0:01:06.029
If we kill the whales,

0:01:06.069,0:01:07.640
we don't get the whale poo

0:01:07.673,0:01:10.139
if the oceans don't get the whale poo

0:01:10.173,0:01:11.974
things go badly wrong.

0:01:13.080,0:01:16.160
Here's an image[br]that you're very familiar with.

0:01:16.880,0:01:20.936
I'm old enough that I was actually born[br]before we saw this image.

0:01:20.960,0:01:23.536
Apparently some of my first words[br]were "moona, moona,"

0:01:23.560,0:01:26.656
but I think that's my mom[br]having a particular fantasy

0:01:26.680,0:01:28.936
about what her baby boy could see

0:01:28.960,0:01:32.240
on the flickering[br]black and white TV screen.

0:01:32.480,0:01:34.096
It's only been a few centuries

0:01:34.120,0:01:37.360
since we've actually, most of us,[br]thought of our planet as spherical.

0:01:38.960,0:01:42.016
When we first saw[br]these images in the 1960s,

0:01:42.040,0:01:45.320
the world was changing[br]at an incredible rate.

0:01:47.120,0:01:50.440
In my own little discipline[br]of human geography,

0:01:51.400,0:01:54.136
a cartographer called Waldo Tobler

0:01:54.160,0:01:56.696
was drawing new maps of the planet,

0:01:56.720,0:01:58.216
and these maps have now spread,

0:01:58.240,0:02:00.247
and I'm going to show you one of them now.

0:02:00.600,0:02:03.080
This map is a map of the world,

0:02:04.120,0:02:06.536
but it's a map which looks to you

0:02:06.560,0:02:08.000
a little bit strange.

0:02:08.600,0:02:12.416
It's a map in which we stretched places,

0:02:12.440,0:02:17.136
so that those areas which contain[br]many people are drawn larger,

0:02:17.160,0:02:20.096
and those areas,[br]like the Sahara and the Himalayas,

0:02:20.120,0:02:22.600
in which there are few people,[br]have been shrunk away.

0:02:23.160,0:02:26.800
Everybody on the planet[br]is given an equal amount of space.

0:02:27.520,0:02:30.360
The cities are shown shining bright.

0:02:31.080,0:02:34.656
The lines are showing you[br]submarine cables and trade routes.

0:02:34.680,0:02:38.336
And there's one particular line[br]that goes from the Chinese port of Dalian

0:02:38.360,0:02:40.056
through past Singapore,

0:02:40.080,0:02:41.816
through the Suez Canal,

0:02:41.840,0:02:44.176
through the Mediterranean[br]and round to Rotterdam.

0:02:44.200,0:02:45.696
And it's showing you the route

0:02:45.720,0:02:49.656
of what was the world's[br]largest ship just a year ago,

0:02:49.680,0:02:55.696
a ship which was taking[br]so many containers of goods

0:02:55.720,0:02:57.576
that when they were unloaded,

0:02:57.600,0:03:01.840
if the lorries had all gone in convoy,[br]they would have been 100 kilometers long.

0:03:03.080,0:03:05.816
This is how our world is now connected.

0:03:05.840,0:03:11.816
This is the quantity of stuff[br]we are now moving around the world,

0:03:11.840,0:03:14.576
just on one ship, on one voyage,

0:03:14.600,0:03:15.800
in five weeks.

0:03:18.320,0:03:20.840
We've lived in cities[br]for a very long time,

0:03:21.640,0:03:23.856
but most of us didn't live in cities.

0:03:23.880,0:03:27.016
This is Çatalhöyük,[br]one of the world's first cities.

0:03:27.040,0:03:30.280
At its peak 9,000 years ago,

0:03:31.160,0:03:37.360
people had to walk over the roofs[br]of others' houses to get to their home.

0:03:38.080,0:03:41.376
If you look carefully[br]at the map of the city,

0:03:41.400,0:03:43.320
you'll see it has no streets,

0:03:44.280,0:03:46.960
because streets are something we invented.

0:03:47.760,0:03:49.976
The world changes.

0:03:50.000,0:03:51.880
It changes by trial and error.

0:03:53.400,0:03:56.296
We work out slowly and gradually

0:03:56.320,0:03:58.120
how to live in better ways.

0:03:58.580,0:04:03.580
And the world has changed[br]incredibly quickly most recently.

0:04:04.700,0:04:08.636
It's only within the last six,[br]seven, or eight generations

0:04:08.660,0:04:11.740
that we have actually realized[br]that we are a species.

0:04:12.940,0:04:15.500
It's only within the last few decades

0:04:16.339,0:04:19.100
that a map like this could be drawn.

0:04:21.339,0:04:25.540
Again, the underlying map[br]is the map of world population,

0:04:26.660,0:04:32.316
but over it, you're seeing arrows[br]showing how we spread out of Africa

0:04:32.340,0:04:36.116
with dates showing you[br]where we think we arrived

0:04:36.140,0:04:37.900
at particular times.

0:04:38.780,0:04:42.636
I have to redraw this map[br]every few months,

0:04:42.660,0:04:47.636
because somebody makes a discovery[br]that a particular date was wrong.

0:04:47.660,0:04:52.180
We are learning about ourselves[br]at an incredible speed.

0:04:54.700,0:04:55.900
And we're changing.

0:04:57.740,0:04:59.996
A lot of change is gradual.

0:05:00.020,0:05:01.516
It's accretion.

0:05:01.540,0:05:04.396
We don't notice the change

0:05:04.420,0:05:06.236
because we only have short lives,

0:05:06.260,0:05:08.860
70, 80, if you're lucky 90 years.

0:05:09.660,0:05:11.676
This graph is showing you

0:05:11.700,0:05:14.420
the annual rate of population[br]growth in the world.

0:05:15.220,0:05:19.156
It was very low until around about 1850,

0:05:19.180,0:05:21.796
and then the rate of population growth

0:05:21.820,0:05:23.060
began to rise

0:05:23.940,0:05:25.956
so that around the time I was born,

0:05:25.980,0:05:30.700
when we first saw those images[br]from the moon of our planet,

0:05:31.740,0:05:35.100
our global population[br]was growing at two percent a year.

0:05:36.540,0:05:40.500
If it had carried on growing[br]at two percent a year

0:05:41.700,0:05:44.540
for just another couple of centuries,

0:05:45.660,0:05:47.916
the entire planet would be covered

0:05:47.940,0:05:50.996
with a seething mass of human bodies

0:05:51.020,0:05:53.060
all touching each other.

0:05:54.100,0:05:55.916
And people were scared.

0:05:55.940,0:05:57.756
They were scared of population growth

0:05:57.780,0:06:01.116
and what they called[br]"the population bomb" in 1968.

0:06:01.140,0:06:03.340
But then, if you look[br]at the end of the graph,

0:06:04.340,0:06:06.940
the growth began to slow.

0:06:07.820,0:06:09.196
The decade...

0:06:09.220,0:06:12.676
The '70s, the '80s,[br]the '90s, the noughties,

0:06:12.700,0:06:14.940
and in this decade, even faster...

0:06:15.700,0:06:17.316
Our population growth is slowing.

0:06:17.340,0:06:18.596
Our planet is stabilizing.

0:06:18.620,0:06:21.636
We are heading towards nine,[br]10, or 11 billion people

0:06:21.660,0:06:22.900
by the end of the century.

0:06:23.500,0:06:26.836
Within that change, you can see tumult.

0:06:26.860,0:06:28.676
You can see the Second World War.

0:06:28.700,0:06:32.876
You can see the pandemic[br]in 1918 from influenza.

0:06:32.900,0:06:34.780
You can see the great Chinese famine.

0:06:35.500,0:06:37.796
These are the events[br]we tend to concentrate on.

0:06:37.820,0:06:41.756
We tend to concentrate[br]on the terrible events in the news.

0:06:41.780,0:06:45.436
We don't tend to concentrate[br]on the gradual change

0:06:45.460,0:06:47.100
and the good news stories.

0:06:48.580,0:06:50.276
We worry about people.

0:06:50.300,0:06:52.556
We worry about how many people there are.

0:06:52.580,0:06:55.740
We worry about how you can[br]get away from people.

0:06:56.300,0:06:59.700
But this is the map of the world[br]changed again to make area large,

0:07:00.860,0:07:05.236
the further away[br]people are from each area.

0:07:05.260,0:07:09.196
So if you want to know[br]where to go to get away from everybody,

0:07:09.220,0:07:11.796
here's the best places to go.

0:07:11.820,0:07:14.636
And every year, these areas get bigger,

0:07:14.660,0:07:17.916
because every year,[br]we are coming off the land globally.

0:07:17.940,0:07:19.396
We are moving into the cities.

0:07:19.420,0:07:21.596
We are packing in more densely.

0:07:21.620,0:07:23.236
There are wolves again in Europe,

0:07:23.260,0:07:27.180
and the wolves are moving west[br]across the continent.

0:07:28.300,0:07:29.700
Our world is changing.

0:07:32.020,0:07:33.340
You have worries.

0:07:34.780,0:07:39.676
This is a map showing[br]where the water falls on our planet.

0:07:39.700,0:07:41.396
We now know that.

0:07:41.420,0:07:45.196
And you can look at where Çatalhöyük was,

0:07:45.220,0:07:47.796
where three continents meet,[br]Africa, Asia, and Europe,

0:07:47.820,0:07:50.796
and you can see there are[br]a large number of people living there

0:07:50.820,0:07:52.396
in areas with very little water.

0:07:52.420,0:07:56.116
And you can see areas in which[br]there is a great deal of rainfall as well.

0:07:56.140,0:07:58.300
And we can get a bit more sophisticated.

0:07:59.540,0:08:02.916
Instead of making[br]the map be shaped by people,

0:08:02.940,0:08:05.156
we can shape the map by water,

0:08:05.180,0:08:07.036
and then we can change it every month

0:08:07.060,0:08:08.716
to show the amount of water

0:08:08.740,0:08:11.940
falling on every small part of the globe.

0:08:13.020,0:08:16.316
And you see the monsoons[br]moving around the planet,

0:08:16.340,0:08:19.940
and the planet almost appears[br]to have a heartbeat.

0:08:20.820,0:08:25.340
And all of this only became possible

0:08:26.020,0:08:27.796
within my lifetime

0:08:27.820,0:08:30.980
to see this is where we are living.

0:08:31.740,0:08:32.940
We have enough water.

0:08:34.860,0:08:39.220
This is a map of where[br]we grow our food in the world.

0:08:40.380,0:08:44.820
This is the areas that we will rely on[br]most for rice and maize and corn.

0:08:46.860,0:08:49.716
People worry that there won't[br]be enough food, but we know,

0:08:49.740,0:08:54.516
if we just ate less meat[br]and fed less of the crops to animals,

0:08:54.540,0:08:56.956
there is enough food for everybody

0:08:56.980,0:09:01.300
as long as we think of ourselves[br]as one group of people.

0:09:03.220,0:09:04.500
And we also know

0:09:06.380,0:09:08.436
about what we do

0:09:08.460,0:09:11.020
so terribly badly nowadays.

0:09:12.580,0:09:17.420
You will have seen this map[br]of the world before.

0:09:18.580,0:09:20.516
This is the map

0:09:20.540,0:09:23.916
produced by taking satellite images,

0:09:23.940,0:09:26.716
if you remember those satellites[br]around the planet

0:09:26.740,0:09:28.500
in the very first slide I showed,

0:09:30.340,0:09:33.340
and producing an image[br]of what the Earth looks like at night.

0:09:34.820,0:09:36.716
When you normally see that map,

0:09:36.740,0:09:40.260
on a normal map, the kind of map[br]that most of you will be used to,

0:09:41.260,0:09:44.540
you think you are seeing[br]a map of where people live.

0:09:45.220,0:09:47.700
Where the lights are shining up[br]is where people live.

0:09:48.420,0:09:52.796
But here, on this image of the world,

0:09:52.820,0:09:54.700
remember we've stretched the map again.

0:09:56.420,0:10:00.780
Everywhere has the same density[br]of people on this map.

0:10:01.580,0:10:03.756
If an area doesn't have people,

0:10:03.780,0:10:05.676
we've shrunk it away

0:10:05.700,0:10:07.236
to make it disappear.

0:10:07.260,0:10:09.396
So we're showing everybody

0:10:09.420,0:10:10.860
with equal prominence.

0:10:12.420,0:10:15.716
Now, the lights no longer show you[br]where people are,

0:10:15.740,0:10:17.180
because people are everywhere.

0:10:18.220,0:10:20.156
Now the lights on the map,

0:10:20.180,0:10:23.156
the lights in London,[br]the lights in Cairo, the lights in Tokyo,

0:10:23.180,0:10:26.116
the lights on the Eastern Seaboard[br]of the United States,

0:10:26.140,0:10:29.076
the lights show you where people live

0:10:29.100,0:10:31.300
who are so profligate with energy

0:10:32.260,0:10:33.780
that they can afford

0:10:34.780,0:10:36.316
to spend money

0:10:36.340,0:10:39.796
powering lights to shine up into the sky,

0:10:39.820,0:10:42.900
so satellites can draw an image like this.

0:10:43.940,0:10:46.060
And the areas that are dark on the map

0:10:46.820,0:10:50.540
are either areas where people[br]do not have access to that much energy,

0:10:51.500,0:10:53.596
or areas where people do,

0:10:53.620,0:10:58.460
but they have learned to stop[br]shining the light up into the sky.

0:10:59.060,0:11:02.596
And if I could show you this map[br]animated over time,

0:11:02.620,0:11:06.196
you would see that Tokyo[br]has actually become darker,

0:11:06.220,0:11:09.020
because ever since the tsunami in Japan,

0:11:09.980,0:11:12.396
Japan has had to rely[br]on a quarter less electricity

0:11:12.420,0:11:15.420
because it turned[br]the nuclear power stations off.

0:11:16.340,0:11:17.740
And the world didn't end.

0:11:18.500,0:11:21.196
You just shone less light up.

0:11:21.720,0:11:24.696
There are a huge number

0:11:24.720,0:11:27.160
of good news stories in the world.

0:11:28.280,0:11:31.696
Infant mortality is falling

0:11:31.720,0:11:35.600
and has been falling[br]at an incredible rate.

0:11:36.320,0:11:37.760
A few years ago,

0:11:38.640,0:11:42.576
the number of babies dying[br]in their first year of life in the world

0:11:42.600,0:11:45.680
fell by five percent in just one year.

0:11:48.000,0:11:50.496
More children are going to school

0:11:50.520,0:11:53.136
and learning to read and write

0:11:53.160,0:11:55.976
and getting connected to the Internet

0:11:56.000,0:11:59.016
and going on to go to university

0:11:59.040,0:12:02.936
than ever before at an incredible rate,

0:12:02.960,0:12:08.416
and the highest number of young people[br]going to university in the world

0:12:08.440,0:12:10.320
are women, not men.

0:12:11.560,0:12:15.456
I can give you good news story[br]after good news story

0:12:15.480,0:12:18.096
about what is getting[br]better in the planet,

0:12:18.120,0:12:20.680
but we tend to concentrate

0:12:22.280,0:12:25.016
on the bad news that is immediate.

0:12:25.040,0:12:28.240
Rebecca Solnit, I think,[br]put it brilliantly,

0:12:29.560,0:12:34.000
when she explained: "The accretion[br]of incremental, imperceptible changes

0:12:34.920,0:12:37.736
which can constitute progress[br]and which render our era

0:12:37.760,0:12:40.576
dramatically different from the past"...

0:12:40.600,0:12:42.640
The past was much more stable...

0:12:44.640,0:12:49.616
"a contrast obscured by the undramatic[br]nature of gradual transformation,

0:12:49.640,0:12:52.600
punctuated by occasional tumult."

0:12:52.820,0:12:55.180
Occasionally, terrible things happen.

0:12:55.940,0:12:58.676
You are shown those terrible things

0:12:58.700,0:13:02.356
on the news every night of the week.

0:13:02.380,0:13:06.356
You are not told about[br]the population slowing down.

0:13:06.380,0:13:09.396
You are not told about the world[br]becoming more connected.

0:13:09.420,0:13:13.076
You are not told about the incredible[br]improvements in understanding.

0:13:13.100,0:13:16.236
You are not told about[br]how we are learning to begin

0:13:16.260,0:13:18.716
to waste less and consume less.

0:13:18.740,0:13:19.940
This is my last map.

0:13:20.160,0:13:22.536
On this map, we have taken the seas

0:13:22.560,0:13:24.360
and the oceans out.

0:13:25.280,0:13:27.296
Now you are just looking

0:13:27.320,0:13:31.176
at about 7.4 billion people

0:13:31.200,0:13:34.120
with the map drawn[br]in proportion to those people.

0:13:35.040,0:13:37.096
You're looking at over a billion in China,

0:13:37.120,0:13:39.936
and you can see the largest[br]city in the world in China,

0:13:39.960,0:13:41.440
but you do not know its name.

0:13:42.880,0:13:44.736
You can see that India

0:13:44.760,0:13:46.840
is in the center of this world.

0:13:47.440,0:13:50.736
You can see that Europe is on the edge.

0:13:50.760,0:13:53.816
And we in Exeter today

0:13:53.840,0:13:56.776
are on the far edge of the planet.

0:13:56.800,0:13:59.776
We are on a tiny scrap of rock

0:13:59.800,0:14:01.496
off Europe

0:14:01.520,0:14:04.136
which contains less than one percent

0:14:04.160,0:14:06.176
of the world's adults,

0:14:06.200,0:14:08.736
and less than half a percent

0:14:08.760,0:14:10.600
of the world's children.

0:14:11.440,0:14:16.056
We are living in a stabilizing world,[br]an urbanizing world,

0:14:16.080,0:14:18.056
an aging world,

0:14:18.080,0:14:20.216
a connecting world.

0:14:20.240,0:14:23.680
There are many, many things[br]to be frightened about,

0:14:24.520,0:14:29.736
but there is no need for us[br]to fear each other as much as we do,

0:14:29.760,0:14:34.000
and we need to see[br]that we are now living in a new world.

0:14:34.760,0:14:35.976
Thank you very much.

0:14:36.000,0:14:38.640
(Applause)