SciShow
The Strange Case of the Missing Sunscreen Gene
If you've ever spent too much time in the sun and forgotten to put on sunscreen, you know how painful a sunburn can be. But for some animals, forgetting the sunscreen wouldn't be a problem because they can just produce their own!
TED Talks
TED: Leave only footprints that will wash away | Children of Palau
The people of Palau -- a pristine ocean state made up of more than 300 islands in the western Pacific -- warmly welcome travelers to their home every year. But the guests don't always know how to protect the country's beautiful beaches...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: What is the tragedy of the commons? - Nicholas Amendolare
Is it possible that overfishing, super germs, and global warming are all caused by the same thing? In 1968, a man named Garrett Hardin sat down to write an essay about overpopulation. Within it, he discovered a pattern of human behavior...
TED Talks
TED: Our campaign to ban plastic bags in Bali | Melati and Isabel Wijsen
Plastic bags are essentially indestructible, yet they're used and thrown away with reckless abandon. Most end up in the ocean, where they pollute the water and harm marine life; the rest are burned in garbage piles, where they release...
SciShow
Quiz Show: How Well Do You Really Know the Human Body?
It's another round of Hank facing off against one of the VidCon elite—this time, Executive Vice President Colin Hickey. Will Colin's surprise expertise help him dominate?
TED Talks
TED: How to stop banks from investing in dirty energy | Lucie Pinson
Money is pollution's biggest driving force -- particularly, the cash invested in dirty energy projects, says financial responsibility campaigner Lucie Pinson. She shares a three-pronged approach to stop banks from funding fossil fuel...
SciShow
The Strange Scourge of Light Pollution
Light pollution -- it's not just the bane of light sleepers and frustrated astronomers. It also is tinkering with the biological cycles of all kinds of living things, including us! SciShow takes you behind the glare to understand the...
TED Talks
Joanne Chory: How supercharged plants could slow climate change
Plants are amazing machines -- for millions of years, they've taken carbon dioxide out of the air and stored it underground, keeping a crucial check on the global climate. Plant geneticist Joanne Chory is working to amplify this special...
TED Talks
TED: uber's plan to get more people into fewer cars | Travis Kalanick
uber didn't start out with grand ambitions to cut congestion and pollution. But as the company took off, co-founder Travis Kalanick wondered if there was a way to get people using uber along the same routes to share rides, reducing costs...
SciShow
The World's 5 Rarest Animals
Today's extraordinarily depressing dose comes to you in honor of Lonesome George, the world's last Pinta Island tortoise, who passed away earlier this summer - Hank brings us the stories of five more extremely rare animals who may be...
TED Talks
TED: A smog vacuum cleaner and other magical city designs | Daan Roosegaarde
Daan Roosegaarde uses technology and creative thinking to produce imaginative, earth-friendly designs. He presents his latest projects -- from a bike path in eindhoven, where he reinterpreted "The Starry Night" to get people thinking...
Crash Course
Environmental Econ: Crash Course Economics
So, if economics is about choices and how we use our resources, econ probably has a lot to say about the environment, right? Right! In simple terms, pollution is just a market failure. The market is producing more pollution than society...
TED Talks
Rob Hopkins: Transition to a world without oil
Rob Hopkins reminds us that the oil our world depends on is steadily running out. He proposes a unique solution to this problem -- the Transition response, where we prepare ourselves for life without oil and sacrifice our luxuries to...
TED Talks
TED: The inside story of the Paris climate agreement | Christiana Figueres
What would you do if your job was to save the planet? When Christiana Figueres was tapped by the uN to lead the Paris climate conference (COP 21) in December 2015, she reacted the way many people would: she thought it would be impossible...
TED Talks
TED: Why the "wrong side of the tracks" is usually the east side of cities | Stephen DeBerry
What do communities on the social, economic and environmental margins have in common? For one thing, they tend to be on the east sides of cities. In this short talk about a surprising insight, anthropologist and venture capitalist...
TED Talks
Morgan Vague: These bacteria eat plastic
Humans produce 300 million tons of new plastic each year -- yet, despite our best efforts, less than 10 percent of it ends up being recycled. Is there a better way to deal with all this waste? Morgan Vague describes her research with...
TED Talks
TED: In praise of conflict | Jonathan Marks
Conflict is bad; compromise, consensus and collaboration are good -- or so we're told. Lawyer and bioethicist Jonathan Marks challenges this conventional wisdom, showing how governments can jeopardize public health, human rights and the...
TED Talks
TED: Art made of the air we breathe | emily Parsons-Lord
emily Parsons-Lord re-creates air from distinct moments in earth's history -- from the clean, fresh-tasting air of the Carboniferous period to the soda-water air of the Great Dying to the heavy, toxic air of the future we're creating. By...
TED Talks
TED: Let's launch a satellite to track a threatening greenhouse gas | Fred Krupp
When we talk about greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide gets the most attention -- but methane, which often escapes unseen from pipes and wells, has a far greater immediate impact on global warming. Environmentalist Fred Krupp has an idea to...
TED Talks
Munir Virani: Why I love vultures
As natural garbage collectors, vultures are vital to our ecosystem -- so why all the bad press? Why are so many in danger of extinction? Raptor biologist Munir Virani says we need to pay more attention to these unique and misunderstood...
TED Talks
TED: Why we need to imagine different futures | Anab Jain
Anab Jain brings the future to life, creating experiences where people can touch, see and feel the potential of the world we're creating. Do we want a world where intelligent machines patrol our streets, for instance, or where our...
TED Talks
TED: The fastest way to slow climate change now | Ilissa Ocko
Cutting methane is the single fastest, most effective opportunity to reduce climate change risks in the near term, says atmospheric scientist Ilissa Ocko. That's because, unlike carbon dioxide, methane's warming power doesn't come from a...
TED Talks
Kelly Wanser: Emergency medicine for our climate fever
As we recklessly warm the planet by pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, some industrial emissions also produce particles that reflect sunshine back into space, putting a check on global warming that we're only starting to...
TED Talks
TED: This app makes it fun to pick up litter | Jeff Kirschner
The earth is a big place to keep clean. With Litterati -- an app for users to identify, collect and geotag the world's litter -- TED Resident Jeff Kirschner has created a community that's crowdsource-cleaning the planet. After tracking...