Sunday, April 29, 2012

TED blog #7 Paul Gilding



            Paul Gilding delivered an intensely motivating TED talk called, “The earth is full.” The way he did that was by mastering the “what you say,” as well as the “how you say it,” part of a speech. If anyone tries to deliver a speech with imperfections in either of these categories, the speech is as good as dead. Gilding effectively moved, and used his body language and facial expressions to convey his message. In the middle of his speech, he decided to emphasize one sense, hearing, by cutting out another one altogether, sight. The lights went completely black and without their visual aid to help them, the audience had to use the only helpful sense left, hearing, to understand what Gilding was saying. This emphasized the listening of the audience and made them think really hard about what he was trying to say. Gilding had very smooth transitions to different points, and concluded with a very dramatic, very inspiring lasting impression.
            What Gilding spoke about in his speech was the basic fact that the earth is full. He points out that we have too much stuff for the amount of space, just like Graham Hill spoke about in his TED talk. The astounding fact is that we need 1.5 earths to sustain the economy we have in 1 earth right now. This means, if something doesn’t change, our economy and earth will be unsustainable. This means it will stop and die out. We can’t imagine an earth without an economy, so this is very concerning. Gilding says it is absolutely possible to do this; the problem is, we are heading in the wrong direction faster and faster every year. It seems pretty obvious, what with the 50 years of scientific warnings and dangerous looking data analysis, that we would turn things around; however, we are taking this matter so lightly that many people are not even aware there is a problem. Gilding points out that the sooner we start, the easier it will be to head in the correct direction. This is nothing we are not capable of, but we need to change how we think and feel about his situation in order to deal with it properly. Gilding says it will take every entrepreneur, every artist, every scientist, mother, and father, etc., to change the world, and he is 100% correct. So start now.
            I would like to model my speech after Gilding’s speech because he had a topic he was passionate about like me, and took his case to a point where action was inspired in the audience. That is what I want my audience to do. I want them to take away a simple idea, but an idea that could change the world.

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