WEBVTT 00:00:00.346 --> 00:00:02.176 What do you guys think? 00:00:02.706 --> 00:00:07.190 For those who watched Shere Khan's memorable TED talk, 00:00:07.190 --> 00:00:10.322 I am a typical example of what he describes 00:00:10.322 --> 00:00:12.706 as "a body carrying a head," 00:00:13.346 --> 00:00:15.737 a university professor, right? 00:00:15.737 --> 00:00:19.217 You might think it was not fair 00:00:19.217 --> 00:00:22.080 that I was lined up to speak after these first two talks, 00:00:22.080 --> 00:00:24.124 to talk about science. 00:00:24.774 --> 00:00:28.272 I can't move my body to the beat, 00:00:28.272 --> 00:00:31.184 and after a scientist who became a philosopher, 00:00:31.184 --> 00:00:33.126 I have to talk about hard science. 00:00:33.126 --> 00:00:36.154 It could be a very dry subject. 00:00:36.154 --> 00:00:39.679 Yet, I feel honored. 00:00:39.679 --> 00:00:41.462 Never in my career, 00:00:41.462 --> 00:00:43.023 and it's been a long career, 00:00:43.023 --> 00:00:45.256 have I had the opportunity to start a talk 00:00:45.256 --> 00:00:48.264 feeling so inspired. 00:00:48.264 --> 00:00:50.610 Usually, talking about science 00:00:50.610 --> 00:00:52.956 is like exercising in a dry place. 00:00:52.956 --> 00:00:55.304 However, I had the pleasure of being invited 00:00:56.284 --> 00:00:59.516 to come here and talk about water. 00:00:59.516 --> 00:01:02.895 The words water and dry don't match. 00:01:03.885 --> 00:01:06.768 Even better! 00:01:07.426 --> 00:01:10.916 Talk about water in the Amazon, 00:01:10.916 --> 00:01:15.950 which is the splendid cradle of fresh life, 00:01:15.950 --> 00:01:18.028 is what inspired me. 00:01:18.028 --> 00:01:20.230 That's why I'm here, 00:01:20.230 --> 00:01:22.143 although I'm carrying my head over here, like this, 00:01:22.143 --> 00:01:26.237 I am trying, or will try, to pass on this inspiration. 00:01:26.237 --> 00:01:29.617 I hope that this story will inspire you and that you will spread it. 00:01:31.317 --> 00:01:35.637 We know that there is controversy. 00:01:35.637 --> 00:01:38.160 The Amazon is the lungs of the world, right? 00:01:38.940 --> 00:01:44.426 Because of its massive power to exchange vital gases, 00:01:44.426 --> 00:01:46.245 between the forest and the atmosphere. 00:01:46.245 --> 00:01:50.345 We also hear about the storehouse of biodiversity, 00:01:50.345 --> 00:01:54.651 although many believe it, few know of it. 00:01:54.651 --> 00:01:56.197 If go through this riverbank outside 00:01:56.197 --> 00:01:58.075 you will marvel at the... 00:01:58.075 --> 00:02:01.913 you can barely see the animals. 00:02:01.913 --> 00:02:03.957 The Indians say that the forest has more eyes than leaves. 00:02:03.957 --> 00:02:08.011 This is true and I will try to show you something. 00:02:08.011 --> 00:02:10.987 But today I'm going to use a different approach, 00:02:10.987 --> 00:02:14.168 an approach that, inspired by these two initiatives here, 00:02:14.168 --> 00:02:17.188 a harmonic and a philosophical one, 00:02:17.188 --> 00:02:19.869 I will try to use an approach 00:02:19.869 --> 00:02:23.998 that is slightly materialistic, 00:02:23.998 --> 00:02:27.216 but it attempts to convey that there is also, in nature, 00:02:27.216 --> 00:02:30.310 an extraordinary philosophy and harmony. 00:02:30.310 --> 00:02:32.271 There will be no music in my presentation, 00:02:32.271 --> 00:02:36.494 but I hope that all of you will notice the music of the reality I'm going to show you. 00:02:36.494 --> 00:02:39.107 I'm going to discuss physiology, not of the lung, 00:02:39.107 --> 00:02:42.635 but other analogies with human physiology, 00:02:42.635 --> 00:02:44.744 especially the heart. 00:02:44.744 --> 00:02:46.762 We start by thinking that water is like blood. 00:02:49.132 --> 00:02:53.720 The circulation in our body distributes fresh blood, 00:02:54.500 --> 00:02:59.349 which feeds, nurtures, and supports us, 00:02:59.349 --> 00:03:01.959 and brings the used blood back to be renewed. 00:03:01.959 --> 00:03:06.337 In the Amazon, things happen similarly. 00:03:06.337 --> 00:03:10.659 We'll start talking about the power of all these processes. 00:03:10.659 --> 00:03:15.766 This is an image of rain in motion. 00:03:15.766 --> 00:03:20.387 What you can see there are the years passing at every second. 00:03:20.387 --> 00:03:23.198 The rains all over the world. What do you see? 00:03:23.198 --> 00:03:27.211 The equatorial region, in general, 00:03:27.211 --> 00:03:30.159 and the Amazon specifically, 00:03:30.159 --> 00:03:32.019 is extremely important for the world climate. 00:03:32.019 --> 00:03:33.882 It's a powerful engine. 00:03:33.882 --> 00:03:36.751 There is an intense evaporation taking place here. 00:03:36.751 --> 00:03:38.916 If we take a look at this other image 00:03:38.916 --> 00:03:44.212 that shows the water vapor flux... 00:03:44.212 --> 00:03:46.834 in black you have dry air, in grey, moist air, 00:03:46.834 --> 00:03:49.616 the clouds are white. 00:03:49.616 --> 00:03:52.801 What you see there is an extraordinary resurgence in the Amazon. 00:03:52.801 --> 00:03:54.232 What phenomenon, if it's not a desert, 00:03:54.232 --> 00:03:59.908 what phenomenon makes the water gush from the ground into the atmosphere 00:03:59.908 --> 00:04:02.031 with such power that we can see from space? 00:04:02.031 --> 00:04:07.277 What phenomenon is this? 00:04:07.277 --> 00:04:10.360 It could be a geyser. 00:04:10.360 --> 00:04:11.902 A geyser is underground water heated by the magma 00:04:11.902 --> 00:04:14.770 that explodes in the atmosphere, 00:04:14.770 --> 00:04:18.588 and transfers this water to the atmosphere. 00:04:18.588 --> 00:04:19.998 We don't have geysers in the Amazon, 00:04:19.998 --> 00:04:23.668 unless I am wrong, I don't know of any. 00:04:23.668 --> 00:04:26.534 However, we have something that has the same role, 00:04:26.534 --> 00:04:28.502 with much more elegance, 00:04:28.502 --> 00:04:32.906 our good old friends, the trees 00:04:32.906 --> 00:04:36.298 that, like geysers, 00:04:36.298 --> 00:04:39.194 transfer an enormous amount of water from the ground to the atmosphere. 00:04:39.194 --> 00:04:42.008 There are 600 billion trees in the Amazon forest, 600 billion geysers. 00:04:42.008 --> 00:04:47.086 This is done with an extraordinary sophistication, 00:04:47.086 --> 00:04:52.783 they don't need the heat of the magma. 00:04:52.783 --> 00:04:56.756 They use the sunlight to do this process. 00:04:56.756 --> 00:04:58.251 So, in a day, a typical sunny day in the Amazon, 00:04:58.251 --> 00:05:01.262 a big tree manages to transfer 1000 L of water 00:05:01.262 --> 00:05:04.793 by its transpiration. 00:05:04.793 --> 00:05:07.723 1000 L! 00:05:07.723 --> 00:05:10.032 If you take all the water from the Amazon, 00:05:10.032 --> 00:05:11.447 which is a very large area, 00:05:11.447 --> 00:05:16.642 and add up all this water that is released by transpiration, 00:05:16.642 --> 00:05:18.505 which is the sweat of the forest, 00:05:18.505 --> 00:05:21.585 you arrive at an incredible number, 00:05:21.585 --> 00:05:24.291 20 billion metric tons of water. 00:05:24.291 --> 00:05:26.985 You know, this is in a day. 00:05:26.985 --> 00:05:29.781 Do you know how much that is? 00:05:29.781 --> 00:05:31.375 The Amazon River, the largest river on Earth, 00:05:31.375 --> 00:05:33.562 one fifth of all the fresh water 00:05:33.562 --> 00:05:36.122 that leaves the continents of the whole world ends up in the oceans, 00:05:36.122 --> 00:05:37.593 it dumps 17 billion tons of water a day in the Atlantic Ocean. 00:05:37.593 --> 00:05:41.012 This river of vapor 00:05:41.012 --> 00:05:46.042 that comes from the forest and goes to the atmosphere, 00:05:46.042 --> 00:05:47.441 is greater than the Amazon River. 00:05:47.441 --> 00:05:49.566 Just to give you an idea, 00:05:49.566 --> 00:05:51.310 if we could take a gigantic kettle, 00:05:51.310 --> 00:05:53.187 one that you plugged into a power socket, an electric one, 00:05:53.187 --> 00:05:56.813 and put the 20 billion metric tons of water in it, 00:05:56.813 --> 00:05:59.642 how much power would you need 00:05:59.642 --> 00:06:02.140 to evaporate this water? 00:06:02.140 --> 00:06:05.490 Any idea? A really big kettle, 00:06:05.490 --> 00:06:08.247 a gigantic kettle. 00:06:08.247 --> 00:06:10.432 50 thousand Itaipus. 00:06:10.432 --> 00:06:12.518 For those who don't know it, Itaipu is still the largest hydroelectric plant in the world. 00:06:12.518 --> 00:06:16.264 It's something Brazil is very proud of 00:06:16.264 --> 00:06:18.027 because it provides more than 30% of the power 00:06:18.027 --> 00:06:20.136 consumed in Brazil. 00:06:20.136 --> 00:06:22.093 And the Amazon is here, doing it for free. 00:06:22.093 --> 00:06:26.785 It's alive and an extremely powerful plant, providing environmental services. 00:06:26.785 --> 00:06:31.657 Related to this subject, 00:06:34.137 --> 00:06:35.608 we are going to talk about what I call the “Paradox of Chance”, 00:06:35.608 --> 00:06:38.596 which is curious. 00:06:38.596 --> 00:06:40.764 If you look at the world map, 00:06:40.764 --> 00:06:42.476 it's easy to see this. 00:06:42.476 --> 00:06:43.835 You will see that in the equatorial zone, you have the forests, 00:06:43.835 --> 00:06:46.904 and the deserts are organized 00:06:46.904 --> 00:06:50.116 on 30º north latitude, on 30º south latitude, aligned. 00:06:50.116 --> 00:06:53.199 Look over there, in the southern hemisphere, the Atacama, 00:06:53.199 --> 00:06:56.243 Namibia Kalahari in Africa, the Australian desert, 00:06:56.243 --> 00:06:58.840 in the northern hemisphere, the Sahara, Sonoma, etc. 00:06:58.840 --> 00:07:01.994 There is an exception, and it's curious, 00:07:01.994 --> 00:07:06.433 It's the quadrangle that ranges from Cuiabá to Buenos Aires, 00:07:06.433 --> 00:07:09.520 from São Paulo to the Andes. 00:07:09.520 --> 00:07:11.323 This quadrangle was supposed to be a desert. 00:07:11.323 --> 00:07:14.437 It's on the line of deserts. 00:07:14.437 --> 00:07:16.956 Why isn't it? 00:07:16.956 --> 00:07:20.010 That's why I call it the “Paradox of Chance”. 00:07:20.010 --> 00:07:23.449 What do we have in South America that is different? 00:07:24.279 --> 00:07:26.448 If we can use the analogy 00:07:26.448 --> 00:07:30.580 of the blood circulating in our bodies, 00:07:30.580 --> 00:07:33.662 with the water circulating in the landscape, 00:07:33.662 --> 00:07:37.788 we see that the rivers are veins. 00:07:37.788 --> 00:07:42.333 They drain the landscape, they drain the tissue of nature. 00:07:42.333 --> 00:07:44.288 Where are the arteries? 00:07:44.288 --> 00:07:46.323 Any guess? 00:07:46.323 --> 00:07:48.139 What takes... 00:07:48.139 --> 00:07:53.402 how does the water irrigate nature's tissues 00:07:53.402 --> 00:07:56.585 and bring everything back through the rivers? 00:07:56.585 --> 00:07:59.606 There is a new type of river, 00:07:59.606 --> 00:08:02.897 which originates in the blue sea, 00:08:02.897 --> 00:08:06.247 which flows through the green ocean, 00:08:06.247 --> 00:08:09.244 it not only flows, but it is also pumped by the green ocean, 00:08:09.244 --> 00:08:12.299 and falls on our land. 00:08:12.299 --> 00:08:14.507 All our economy, that quadrangle, 00:08:14.507 --> 00:08:19.037 70% of the GDP in South America comes from that area, 00:08:19.037 --> 00:08:20.675 and depends on this river. 00:08:20.675 --> 00:08:22.727 This river flows invisible above us... 00:08:22.727 --> 00:08:24.915 we are floating here on this floating hotel, 00:08:24.915 --> 00:08:27.870 on one of the largest rivers on Earth, 00:08:27.870 --> 00:08:31.259 which is the Black River. It's a bit dry and rough, 00:08:31.259 --> 00:08:34.349 but we are floating here, 00:08:34.349 --> 00:08:37.516 and above us there is this invisible river passing. 00:08:37.516 --> 00:08:39.939 This river has a pulse. 00:08:39.939 --> 00:08:42.327 Here it is. 00:08:42.327 --> 00:08:44.562 That's why we also talk about the heart. 00:08:44.562 --> 00:08:47.763 You can see the season of the year there... There is the rainy season. 00:08:47.763 --> 00:08:49.936 In the Amazon, we used to have two seasons, 00:08:49.936 --> 00:08:51.962 the humid season and an even more humid one. 00:08:51.962 --> 00:08:54.671 Now we have a dry season. 00:08:54.671 --> 00:08:58.274 You can see it covering that region 00:09:01.633 --> 00:09:05.151 which, otherwise, would be a desert. 00:09:05.151 --> 00:09:07.634 It's not. 00:09:07.634 --> 00:09:13.031 We, scientists... 00:09:13.031 --> 00:09:17.718 you see that I have a problem here 00:09:17.718 --> 00:09:19.290 to take my head from one side to the other. 00:09:19.290 --> 00:09:22.283 Scientists study how it works, why, etc. 00:09:22.283 --> 00:09:24.668 and these studies are generating a series of discoveries 00:09:24.668 --> 00:09:27.649 which are absolutely fabulous 00:09:27.649 --> 00:09:29.997 to raise our awareness of the wealth, 00:09:29.997 --> 00:09:33.522 the complexity, and the wonder that we have, 00:09:33.522 --> 00:09:35.520 of the symphony we have in this process. 00:09:35.520 --> 00:09:38.493 One of them is how the rain is formed. 00:09:38.493 --> 00:09:39.952 Above the Amazon, there is clean air, 00:09:39.952 --> 00:09:44.366 as there is above the ocean. 00:09:44.366 --> 00:09:46.753 The blue sea has clean air and forms few clouds, 00:09:46.753 --> 00:09:48.423 it almost doesn't rain. 00:09:48.423 --> 00:09:51.361 The green ocean has the same clean air, but forms a lot of rain. 00:09:51.361 --> 00:09:53.625 What is happening here that is different? 00:09:53.625 --> 00:09:58.503 The forest emits smells, 00:09:58.503 --> 00:10:01.180 and these smells are condensation nuclei 00:10:01.900 --> 00:10:06.712 that form drops in the atmosphere. 00:10:06.712 --> 00:10:09.856 Then clouds are formed and there is torrential rain. 00:10:09.856 --> 00:10:12.133 The watering can of the Garden of Eden. 00:10:12.133 --> 00:10:17.464 This relation between a living thing, which is the forest, 00:10:17.464 --> 00:10:20.449 and a non-living thing, which is the atmosphere, 00:10:20.449 --> 00:10:23.961 is ingenious in the Amazon, 00:10:24.641 --> 00:10:25.950 because the forest provides water and seeds, 00:10:25.950 --> 00:10:27.344 and the atmosphere forms the rain and gives them back, 00:10:27.344 --> 00:10:30.654 guaranteeing the forest's survival. 00:10:30.654 --> 00:10:35.715 There are other factors as well. 00:10:35.715 --> 00:10:37.775 We've talked a little about the heart, 00:10:37.775 --> 00:10:43.487 let's now talk about another function, that is the liver! 00:10:43.487 --> 00:10:46.317 When humid air, with high humidity and radiation are combined 00:10:46.317 --> 00:10:48.637 with this organic material, 00:10:48.637 --> 00:10:50.041 which I call “exogenous vitamin C”, generous vitamin C is in the form of gas, 00:10:50.041 --> 00:10:53.538 plants release antioxidants 00:10:53.538 --> 00:10:57.045 that react with pollutants. 00:10:57.045 --> 00:10:59.662 You can rest assured 00:10:59.662 --> 00:11:01.715 that you are breathing the purest air on Earth, here in the Amazon 00:11:01.715 --> 00:11:05.569 because the plants take care of this characteristic as well. 00:11:05.569 --> 00:11:07.905 This benefits the way plants work, 00:11:07.905 --> 00:11:10.493 another ingenious cycle. 00:11:10.493 --> 00:11:14.024 Speaking of fractals, 00:11:14.024 --> 00:11:17.736 and their relation with the way we work, 00:11:17.736 --> 00:11:21.714 we can establish other comparisons. 00:11:21.714 --> 00:11:25.533 As in the upper airways of the lung, 00:11:25.533 --> 00:11:27.170 the air in the Amazon is free of excess dust. 00:11:27.170 --> 00:11:30.224 The dust in the air that we breathe is cleaned by the airways. 00:11:30.224 --> 00:11:32.426 This keeps the excess dust from harming the rainfall. 00:11:32.426 --> 00:11:35.057 When there are fires in the Amazon, 00:11:35.057 --> 00:11:37.009 the smoke stops the rain, it stops raining, 00:11:37.009 --> 00:11:39.805 the forest dries up and catches fire. 00:11:39.805 --> 00:11:41.834 There is another fractal analogy. 00:11:41.834 --> 00:11:46.120 Like the veins and arteries, 00:11:46.120 --> 00:11:48.863 the rain water is a feedback. 00:11:48.863 --> 00:11:52.495 It returns to the atmosphere. 00:11:52.495 --> 00:11:54.810 Like endocrinal glands and hormones, 00:11:55.490 --> 00:11:59.435 there are those gases which I told you about before 00:11:59.435 --> 00:12:01.234 that are formed and released into the atmosphere, like hormones, 00:12:01.234 --> 00:12:06.307 that help in the formation of rain. 00:12:06.307 --> 00:12:08.179 Like the liver and kidneys, as I've said, the cleaning of the air. 00:12:08.179 --> 00:12:11.581 And, at last, like the heart, 00:12:11.581 --> 00:12:15.731 pumping water from outside, from the sea, 00:12:15.731 --> 00:12:18.389 into the forest. 00:12:18.389 --> 00:12:20.627 We call it the "biotic moisture pump," 00:12:20.627 --> 00:12:22.181 a new theory that is explained in a very simple way. 00:12:22.181 --> 00:12:25.280 If there is a desert in the continent 00:12:25.280 --> 00:12:28.762 and a nearby sea, 00:12:28.762 --> 00:12:31.528 evaporation is greater in the sea, 00:12:31.528 --> 00:12:35.266 and it sucks the air above the desert. 00:12:35.266 --> 00:12:36.978 The desert is trapped in this condition, it will always be dry. 00:12:36.978 --> 00:12:39.281 If you have the opposite situation, a forest, 00:12:39.281 --> 00:12:42.179 the evaporation, as we showed, is much greater, because of the trees, 00:12:42.179 --> 00:12:46.676 it inverts the relationship. 00:12:46.676 --> 00:12:49.063 The air above the sea is sucked in 00:12:49.063 --> 00:12:50.418 and humidity is imported. 00:12:50.418 --> 00:12:53.462 This is a satellite photo taken one month ago. 00:12:53.462 --> 00:12:58.192 That's Manaus down there, we're down there, 00:12:58.192 --> 00:13:00.016 it shows this process. 00:13:00.016 --> 00:13:02.333 It is not a little river, one of those that flow into a canal. 00:13:02.333 --> 00:13:05.638 It is a mighty river that irrigates South America, 00:13:05.638 --> 00:13:10.208 among other things. 00:13:10.208 --> 00:13:11.786 This image shows those paths, all the hurricanes 00:13:11.786 --> 00:13:15.250 that have been recorded. 00:13:15.250 --> 00:13:17.485 You can see that in the red square, there hardly are any hurricanes. 00:13:17.485 --> 00:13:20.343 This is not by chance. 00:13:21.053 --> 00:13:25.645 This pump that sucks the moisture into the continent, 00:13:25.645 --> 00:13:28.265 also speeds up the air above the sea 00:13:28.265 --> 00:13:30.225 and this prevents hurricane formation. 00:13:30.225 --> 00:13:32.710 To close this part and summing up, 00:13:32.710 --> 00:13:36.341 I'd like to talk about something different. 00:13:36.341 --> 00:13:38.939 I have several colleagues 00:13:38.939 --> 00:13:41.684 who worked in the development of these theories. 00:13:41.684 --> 00:13:43.809 They think, and so do I, 00:13:43.809 --> 00:13:47.845 that we can save planet Earth. 00:13:47.845 --> 00:13:50.251 I'm not talking only about the Amazon. 00:13:50.251 --> 00:13:53.086 The Amazon teaches us a lesson 00:13:53.086 --> 00:13:54.993 of how pristine nature works. 00:13:54.993 --> 00:13:58.370 We didn't understand these processes before 00:13:58.370 --> 00:14:00.077 because the rest of the world is messed up. 00:14:00.077 --> 00:14:02.172 Here, we can understand it. 00:14:02.172 --> 00:14:05.597 These colleagues propose 00:14:05.597 --> 00:14:07.709 that we can, yes, we can, save other areas, 00:14:07.709 --> 00:14:10.324 even deserts. 00:14:10.324 --> 00:14:12.540 If we can establish forests 00:14:12.540 --> 00:14:15.614 in these other areas, we can revert climate change, 00:14:15.614 --> 00:14:20.508 including global warming 00:14:20.508 --> 00:14:22.286 I have a dear colleague in India 00:14:22.286 --> 00:14:25.284 named Suprabha Seshan, 00:14:25.284 --> 00:14:27.851 who has a motto, 00:14:27.851 --> 00:14:32.036 "Gardening back the biosphere", 00:14:32.036 --> 00:14:35.622 "Reajardinando a biosfera", in Portuguese. 00:14:35.622 --> 00:14:38.632 She does wonderful work rebuilding ecosystems, 00:14:38.632 --> 00:14:40.515 we need to do this. 00:14:40.515 --> 00:14:43.499 Having closed this quick introduction, 00:14:44.649 --> 00:14:48.282 we see the reality that we have out here 00:14:48.282 --> 00:14:52.169 of drought, this climate change, 00:14:52.169 --> 00:14:55.267 things that we already knew. 00:14:55.267 --> 00:14:57.462 I'd like to tell you a short story. 00:14:57.462 --> 00:15:00.087 Once, about four years ago, 00:15:00.087 --> 00:15:03.648 I attended the presentation of a text by Davi Copenaua, 00:15:03.648 --> 00:15:06.471 a wise representative of the Ianomami people 00:15:06.471 --> 00:15:08.464 that went more or less this: 00:15:08.464 --> 00:15:11.145 Doesn't the white man know 00:15:11.145 --> 00:15:12.588 that if he destroys the forest the rain will end? 00:15:12.588 --> 00:15:16.194 And that if the rain ends, there will be no drinking water 00:15:16.904 --> 00:15:19.034 or food? 00:15:19.034 --> 00:15:22.712 I heard that and my eyes welled up 00:15:22.712 --> 00:15:27.746 because, oh, my... 00:15:27.746 --> 00:15:30.385 I've been studying this for 20 years, with a super computer, 00:15:30.385 --> 00:15:34.327 tens, thousands of scientist, 00:15:34.327 --> 00:15:35.773 and we are starting to reach this conclusion that he already knows! 00:15:35.773 --> 00:15:39.536 A critical point is that the Ianomami have never deforested. 00:15:39.536 --> 00:15:45.342 How could they know the rain would end? 00:15:45.342 --> 00:15:50.157 That bugged me 00:15:50.157 --> 00:15:54.744 and I was befuddled. 00:15:54.744 --> 00:15:56.447 How could he know that? 00:15:56.447 --> 00:15:57.866 Some months later, I met him at another event and said: 00:15:57.866 --> 00:16:02.105 "Davi, how did you know that destroying the forest the rain ends? 00:16:02.105 --> 00:16:05.167 He replied: "The forest spirit told us." 00:16:05.167 --> 00:16:11.174 For me, this was a "game changer," 00:16:11.174 --> 00:16:13.127 a radical change. 00:16:15.697 --> 00:16:19.072 I said: 00:16:19.932 --> 00:16:23.140 "Gosh, why am I doing all this science, 00:16:23.140 --> 00:16:27.928 to reach a conclusion that he already knows?" 00:16:27.928 --> 00:16:30.712 Then something absolutely critical hit me. 00:16:30.712 --> 00:16:32.900 It is that... 00:16:32.900 --> 00:16:35.262 Seeing is believing. 00:16:35.262 --> 00:16:36.665 "Out of sight, out of heart." 00:16:36.665 --> 00:16:39.188 This is a need that who came before me pointed out 00:16:39.188 --> 00:16:40.932 that we need to see things... 00:16:40.932 --> 00:16:42.822 We, I mean, western society 00:16:42.822 --> 00:16:45.164 that is becoming global, civilized, 00:16:45.164 --> 00:16:48.130 we need to see, if we don't see, we don't register the information. 00:16:48.130 --> 00:16:50.837 We live in ignorance. 00:16:50.837 --> 00:16:52.797 Thus, I make this proposal: 00:16:52.797 --> 00:16:54.539 let's... of course, the astronomers would spend on this 00:16:54.539 --> 00:16:56.914 let's turn the Hubble upside down. 00:16:56.914 --> 00:17:00.734 And let's make the Hubble look down here, 00:17:00.734 --> 00:17:02.117 rather than to the end of the universe, 00:17:02.117 --> 00:17:05.787 the wonderful end of the universe. 00:17:05.787 --> 00:17:07.826 Now, we have a practical reality, 00:17:07.826 --> 00:17:09.492 we live in an unknown cosmos, 00:17:09.492 --> 00:17:12.778 we're ignorant, 00:17:12.778 --> 00:17:15.396 we're trampling on this wonderful cosmos 00:17:15.396 --> 00:17:16.969 that shelters and houses us. 00:17:16.969 --> 00:17:19.939 Talk to any astrophysicist, 00:17:19.939 --> 00:17:22.673 the Earth is a statistical improbability. 00:17:22.673 --> 00:17:24.922 The stability and comfort that we enjoy 00:17:24.922 --> 00:17:28.951 with the droughts of the Black River, 00:17:29.431 --> 00:17:31.541 all the heat and cold and all, 00:17:31.541 --> 00:17:32.920 there is nothing like it in the universe, that we know of. 00:17:32.920 --> 00:17:37.466 Then, let's turn the Hubble down here and look at the Earth. 00:17:37.466 --> 00:17:40.693 Let's start with the Amazon! 00:17:40.693 --> 00:17:42.744 Let's dive, 00:17:42.744 --> 00:17:44.773 let's reach out the reality we live in daily, 00:17:44.773 --> 00:17:46.678 and look at it, since that's what we need, 00:17:46.678 --> 00:17:48.589 Davi Copenaua doesn't need this. 00:17:48.589 --> 00:17:50.484 He already has something that I think I missed. 00:17:50.484 --> 00:17:54.864 I was educated by television. 00:17:54.864 --> 00:17:56.986 I think that I missed this, 00:17:56.986 --> 00:18:00.192 an ancestral record, 00:18:00.192 --> 00:18:03.563 a valuation of that which I don't know, which I haven't seen. 00:18:03.563 --> 00:18:06.337 He is no doubting Thomas. 00:18:06.337 --> 00:18:09.543 He believes with veneration and reverence, 00:18:09.543 --> 00:18:11.888 in that which the ancestors and the spirits taught them. 00:18:11.888 --> 00:18:13.758 As we can't, let's look into the forest. 00:18:13.758 --> 00:18:16.862 Even with the Hubble up there, 00:18:16.862 --> 00:18:19.148 looking into the sky... 00:18:19.148 --> 00:18:22.018 This is a bird's-eye view. 00:18:22.018 --> 00:18:24.256 Even when this happens, 00:18:24.256 --> 00:18:26.475 we also see something that we don't know. 00:18:26.475 --> 00:18:28.162 The Spanish called it the green inferno. 00:18:28.162 --> 00:18:31.309 If you leave here, go into the bushes, and get lost, 00:18:31.309 --> 00:18:34.563 and by any chance you head west, 00:18:34.563 --> 00:18:36.054 it's 550 miles to Colombia, 00:18:36.054 --> 00:18:38.350 and another 600 miles to somewhere else, 00:18:38.350 --> 00:18:40.135 then you can figure out why they called it the green inferno. 00:18:40.135 --> 00:18:44.691 But go and look at what is in there. 00:18:44.691 --> 00:18:48.749 It is a live carpet. 00:18:48.749 --> 00:18:50.401 Each color there is a tree species. 00:18:50.401 --> 00:18:53.645 Each tree, each tree top, 00:18:53.645 --> 00:18:56.554 has even 10,000 species of insects in it, 00:18:56.554 --> 00:18:59.983 let alone the millions of species of fungi, bacteria, and all. 00:19:00.983 --> 00:19:02.853 All invisible. 00:19:02.853 --> 00:19:04.664 All an even stranger cosmos to us 00:19:04.664 --> 00:19:06.708 than the galaxies billions of light years away from the Earth 00:19:06.708 --> 00:19:09.596 that the Hubble brings to our newspapers everyday. 00:19:09.596 --> 00:19:12.971 I close my talk here. 00:19:12.971 --> 00:19:15.632 I have a few seconds left, 00:19:15.632 --> 00:19:18.017 showing this wonderful being. 00:19:18.017 --> 00:19:20.548 When we see the Morpho butterfly in the forest, 00:19:20.548 --> 00:19:23.758 we feel like someone left the door to paradise open 00:19:23.758 --> 00:19:27.049 and that this creature escaped from there, 00:19:27.049 --> 00:19:28.773 Because it's so beautiful. 00:19:28.773 --> 00:19:30.150 However, I cannot close 00:19:30.150 --> 00:19:31.913 without showing a tech side, 00:19:31.913 --> 00:19:34.015 we are tech arrogant. 00:19:34.015 --> 00:19:39.456 We deprive nature of its technology. 00:19:39.456 --> 00:19:44.083 A robotic hand is technological, 00:19:44.083 --> 00:19:46.348 mine is biological, 00:19:46.348 --> 00:19:48.262 and we don't think about it anymore. 00:19:48.262 --> 00:19:52.465 Let's then look at the Morpho butterfly, 00:19:52.465 --> 00:19:53.935 an example of an invisible technological competence of life. 00:19:53.935 --> 00:19:59.011 It is at the very heart of our possibility of surviving on the planet. 00:19:59.011 --> 00:20:02.043 Let's zoom in on it. 00:20:02.043 --> 00:20:04.440 Again, there is the Hubble. 00:20:04.440 --> 00:20:07.968 Let's get into the butterfly's wings, 00:20:07.968 --> 00:20:10.836 the scholars have tried to explain: "Why is it blue?" 00:20:10.836 --> 00:20:14.529 Let's zoom in on it. 00:20:14.529 --> 00:20:19.019 What you see is that the architecture of the invisible humiliates 00:20:19.019 --> 00:20:20.673 the best architects in the world. 00:20:20.673 --> 00:20:23.327 All this on a tiny scale. 00:20:23.327 --> 00:20:24.696 Besides the beauty and functioning, there is another side to it. 00:20:24.696 --> 00:20:26.748 All in nature 00:20:26.748 --> 00:20:30.427 that is organized in extraordinary structures has a function. 00:20:30.427 --> 00:20:33.208 This function, of the Morpho butterfly, it is not blue, 00:20:33.208 --> 00:20:34.563 it does not have blue pigments. 00:20:34.563 --> 00:20:36.940 It has photonic crystals on the surface, 00:20:36.940 --> 00:20:41.350 according to the person who studied it, 00:20:41.350 --> 00:20:42.702 extremely sophisticated crystals. 00:20:42.702 --> 00:20:48.012 Our technology had nothing like that at the time. 00:20:48.012 --> 00:20:50.584 Hitachi has now made a monitor 00:20:50.584 --> 00:20:53.006 that uses this technology, 00:20:53.006 --> 00:20:54.913 and it is used in optical fibers to transmit... 00:20:54.913 --> 00:20:58.427 Janine Banes, who's been here several times, talks about it, biomimetics. 00:20:58.427 --> 00:21:01.454 My time is up. 00:21:01.454 --> 00:21:04.628 Then, I'll wrap up with what is at the base of this capacity, 00:21:04.628 --> 00:21:08.319 of this competence of biodiversity, 00:21:08.319 --> 00:21:11.159 of producing all these wonderful services. 00:21:11.159 --> 00:21:13.916 The living cell. 00:21:13.916 --> 00:21:17.927 It is a structure with a few microns, which is an internal wonder, 00:21:17.927 --> 00:21:19.985 there are TED talks about it, I won't drag on, 00:21:19.985 --> 00:21:21.869 but each person in this room, including myself, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 has 100 trillion of this micromachine in his body, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so that you can enjoy this well-being. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Imagine what is out there in the Amazon forest. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 100 trillion, this is greater than the number of stars in the sky. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We are not aware of it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Thank you so much.