I am a historian,
and I want to talk about the future.
I know that's a little bit strange because historians usually speak about the past,
right?
They talk about the 19th century and the British Empire, for instance.
But I think now is the time, when we all are interested
in this this crucial question of:
Will there be more peace in the 21st century?
Because that is exactly the century where we live, where our kids live,
and that's why we are interested in this question.
Right now, we know that we have both war and peace at the same time,
but in different countries.
As we gather here, we have a war in Syria right now, going on.
About 400,000 people killed.
And we realize that we can only have this gathering,
have these very interesting speeches that I much enjoy,
because we have peace in Budapest.
This picture to the left is a picture that shows that we can coexist peacefully
among different religions, and among different nations,
also among genders.
The picture to the right shows that at times, we find ourselves in wars.
This picture was taken in the Iraq war.
One million Muslims were killed in that war.
To me, it is a war for resources: an oil war.
So some researchers have suggested that technology should save us.
Green growth, solar cells,
should take us out of these wars that we fight for oil and gas.
You know, I have this hope.
I really hope that 100% renewable is something that we together can do
in the 21st century.
In fact, I live in Switzerland.
On my house, I put these solar cells.
In fact not these, that's not my house, I don't have a house that big.
But the solar cells, I put them on my house
and they create electricity.
It works, trust me.
I even bought the car.
It's an American car, I'm not allowed to say the brand.
But it's very fast and I really like it.
So I use the energy from the sun to drive around with my car
and I did 40,000 km with the car, and I tell you, it works.
But at the same time,
I advise you not to believe that this transition
from oil, coal, gas, and nuclear energy
to the renewable energies will be fast and easy.
I don't think it will be fast and I don't think it will be easy.
Why? We have old forces, they keep us captive.
This is a picture of the coal industry in Germany.
I don't want to say
that the coal industry in Germany is evil,
or that coal industry in China is evil.
It's not about nations, OK?
But these are business models and people make money.
So they're not going to say, "OK, then we stop with this business,"
because it is great idea of 100% renewable energies, OK?
They are not going to do that.
In fact, if we look in detail at our dependency on fossil fuels,
we realize that we need 90 million barrels of oil every day.
That's such a big number that we can't relate to it.
But is means that we need 45 of these ships every day.
That's a supertanker, OK?
45 of these ships every day is what we need
otherwise the world, as we know it, doesn't work.
In 1945, at the end of the second World War,
we only used six million barrels.
Now it's 90 million barrels.
Every barrel has 159 liters, so trust me, it's a lot of oil.
And what we really experience then during the last 70 years,
that's, you know, the period that we all shared,
some of you are not 70, others are 70,
but just generally speaking,
our life is a life in which our dependency on oil has grown.
And that's why we take greater risks to get at the oil.
In some cases we take oil that is not liquid.
We go to Canada, we cut down the wood,
and that's how it looks.
So really, I think we behave very much like a drug addict.
You know drug addicts?
Not in your vicinity, but just generally, from newspapers or so.
(Laughter)
A drug addict, OK?
He does whatever it takes to get at his drug.
He doesn't care about the damage he does
to his environment and to himself.
So really I think this transition will be difficult.
I think energy is a key issue in the 21st century.
If we think about war and we think about peace in the 21st century
we must try to go towards
100% renewable energy.
That is challenging, I know.
There is another thing which is even more challenging:
That is the military.
The military in every country - we have 200 countries in the world -
in every single country,
the military is convinced that they are a force for peace.
In Switzerland it is like that and in Hungary it is like that, I'll bet.
But historical data of the last 100 years
prove that that's not true.
I'm not going into the specifics.
Generally speaking, I think, we also have to reduce military spending.
And we have to ask ourselves,
what is the strongest, the biggest military?
It's the American military.
That's why us historians, we use the term "US Empire."
Some people find this term offensive.
I assure you, it's not offensive.
2000 years ago we had the Roman Empire,
100 years ago we had the British Empire.
Now we have the American Empire.
United States is the most powerful country in the world
and that's why it plays a key issue, a key role
when it comes to war and peace in the 21st century.
They have more then 700 military bases across the globe.
No other country has so many military bases.
If you look at defense spending,
US defense spending is almost 600 billion.
that's 2 billion dollars a day.
That's bigger than the TED budget, OK?
2 billion dollars a day.
If you look at defensive spending in China around 200 billion,
then Russia and Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world.
So my idea is that in all countries we should reduce military spending.
It's difficult.
Whether we can make it or not depends a lot on the media.
Because the media puts a lot of stories in our head.
Sometimes these stories help to promote peace,
and other times the media presents war propaganda.
So then media is not the solution, but more of the problem.
We heard the weapon of mass destruction story before the Iraq war.
I think, that's an example of how the media has misled us.
It's very critical that we learn to deal with media in the 21st century.
As historians, we research what US soldiers
who fight in Iraq are thinking.
There are interviews being done with those soldiers.
And trust me, they don't say, "We are here in Iraq to grab the oil.
This is a resource war, a war of conquest."
That's not what they say.
US soldiers in Iraq say, "We are here to retaliate for Saddam Hussein's role
in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001."
On their helmet they paint the twin towers on the Pentagon.
Now the problem is - and I can tell you as historian -
there was no role of Saddam Hussein in 9/11.
Nothing, OK?
These soldiers are terribly mistaken.
They are suffering from war propaganda.
What we then do is we go back to 9/11.
It's been 15 years since these attacks shocked the word.
Most of you in the room even remember where you were on that day
whether they were at the office,
or whether they were at home playing with the kids.
You know, wherever you were,
you probably remember, and that's very, very rare, OK?
What we research right now is we try to find out
what's the picture in our mind
that the media constructed with this event.
The picture is - this is a picture of New York, downtown Manhattan -
that one plane flew in the North Tower
and the other plane flew into the South Tower,
and than the towers collapsed.
That's basically 9/11 for most of us.
Plane, plane, tower, tower.
Now the problem is that in the background, you have a third tower.
It's called World Trade Center Number 7 and this tower also collapsed.
So we have three towers, but only two planes.
This is the third tower and it collapsed on 9/11.
Let me just very quickly check your knowledge on terrorism.
Who in the room was fully aware that three towers collapsed on that day?
Maybe a show of hands.
That's not the majority.
Let me ask you the other way.
Who did not know that three towers went down?
That's 80%.
Now keep in mind, that you are amongst the most clever people
that exist because that's, you know, because you come to TED that shows.
(Laughter)
I just urge you to, if you don't know that,
then this means, that we are not very well informed about terrorism at all.
At that time I was teaching history at Zurich University in Switzerland
and my students had to read the 9/11 commission report.
That's a 600-page thick document.
I wanted my students to find out why did the third tower collapsed, OK?
It was not hit by plane, why did it collapse?
We found that the third tower is not mentioned in that report.
You know, no mentioning that three towers collapsed, that's quite a big mistake.
You can't say, "Well three or four towers, let's not be picky."
(Laughter)
It is important, it matters.
All I learnt about 9/11, I learnt from my American friends.
I have researchers in the United States who told me there's a group:
It's called "Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth"
who says there's something wrong with this building.
And what this group says is
this building was brought down through controlled demolition.
In 2008, the US Government published a new report.
- the National Institute for Standards and Technology published that report -
which said: column 79 of the building was destroyed through office fires
and that led to the free fall of the building.
Think again.
The building has 81 columns, and the architects say,
in order for the building to fall symmetrically,
all 81 columns have to vanish at the same second.
For that you need controlled demolition.
The NIST says: no, fire destroyed one column and brought the building down.
Now I can't solve this riddle for you.
It's either fire or controlled demolition, and you have to think for yourself.
As historians we observe that politicians - very powerful politicians -
tell us not to ask these questions.
President Bush said, "Osama bin Laden did it."
Osama bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia.
We look very closely at the relationship between Bush and the Saudi royal family.
I took an interesting picture recently.
It's Bush and Abdullah in Crawford in Texas, hand in hand.
You know, it would be interesting to talk with Saudi Arabia
about 9/11, or with Bush.
But obviously we can't.
I'm just a small Swiss historian, I have no access to these people.
I can't talk with them about column 79.
What Bush said is, "Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories
concerning the attacks of September 11."
He said that immediately after the attacks.
And this word "conspiracy theories"
has blocked the entire 9/11 debate now for 15 years.
And I can only tell you that's total nonsense.
That doesn't tell us whether it's fire or controlled demolition.
It's not a scientific concept.
What I urge you to do is to go beyond this word "conspiracy theories",
and I urge you to question all power brokers
that we see, and their narratives.
Because now we have Putin and his war in Syria.
Ask yourself whether the story that Putin presents is true or wrong,
or look at IS: their story is that if you blow yourself up,
you're going to have virgins in heaven, OK?
Do you believe that?
Ask yourself.
I think within war and peace,
we always have to look at this crucial issue in the end:
how the media tells us stories.
In this case, ABC News in America said after 9/11:
"FBI investigators discovered the passport of Satam al Suqami."
- is not Saddam it's Satam al Suqami -
one of the terrorists aboard American Airlines Flight 11,
the first plane to hit the World Trade Center.
Where did they find that passport?
Here.
This passport was found here
and linked the Muslim world to terrorism.
Had it been a Hindu passport, too bad for the Hindus.
I tell you it is very important what we have in our head.
Because what we have in our head is our thoughts.
Our thoughts shape our actions,
they influence our feelings.
So ultimately, I think that is the story in your head
will decide whether we have more peace or more war in the 21st century.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)