Podcasts about Millennium Villages Project

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Best podcasts about Millennium Villages Project

Latest podcast episodes about Millennium Villages Project

In Pursuit of Development
Why we need a different system of global development — Jeffrey D. Sachs

In Pursuit of Development

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 19, 2022 48:00


Jeffrey D. Sachs is University Professor at Columbia University in New York. He was the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University (2002-2016) and currently heads the Center for Sustainable Development. He is a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, an SDG Advocate for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.Books by Jeff SachsRecent news articlesBook club with Jeffrey SachsJeffrey Sachs' speech at the UN Food Systems Pre-Summit (video)Host:Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik  @GlobalDevPodhttps://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.com/ 

Aid, Evolved
The Tip of the Spear with Matt Berg of Ona

Aid, Evolved

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 16, 2021 40:16


Today's episode is a far-ranging conversation with Matt Berg, founder and CEO of Ona. We peel apart the many layers of Matt's life as an immigrant, a celebrity, a geek, a maker, and a founder. We marvel at all the crazy technologies we thought might work in the 90's. We hear the surprising role music had in bringing Matt back to this continent. We unpack how Matt drew from talent in Africa for Africa, when he founded Ona jointly in Kenya and the United States. In the second half, Matt highlights the untapped potential of new satellite imagery to help us reach people in the most remote parts of the world. Prior to founding ONA, Matt led a social enterprise initiative at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he served as ICT Director for the Millennium Villages Project. He has previously been Technology Director for ChildCount+ and a member of Columbia University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering research group in the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. Matt was born in Cameroon, grew up in Senegal, and has worked in Africa for 15+ years. He is a PopTech! Social Innovation Fellow and was named to the 2010 Time 100 List of Most Influential People of the World. Matt has an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, and has taught ICT4D at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University where he was adjunct faculty.   To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com  Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Community Solutions
Episode 24: TIME TO TALK ABOUT GLOBAL POVERTY ERADICATION - LESSONS LEARNED

Community Solutions

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 8, 2019 15:32


This episode of the Community Solutions podcast will be discussing key points from “The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty” by Nina Munk. This book is about Jeffrey Sachs, a world-renowned economist, and his Millennium Villages Project.This project was based in Africa with one major goal in mind - to raise people out of poverty in rural African villages. In this podcast, we delve into the planning, implementation, and progress of the Millennium Villages Project,including the achievements and pitfalls. Is this project the answer to end poverty once and for all? Keep listening to find out. We hope you enjoy the podcast and learn something new about how to better your own communities! To learn more about Jeffrey Sachs and his current work, please visit: www.jeffsachs.org

B&H Photography Podcast
Lost Rolls America – Telescope into the Past

B&H Photography Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 6, 2019 58:28


Do you have undeveloped rolls of film that have been sitting around forever? Maybe you don’t even realize that you have unprocessed rolls from the “good ol’ days of analog” in an old camera bag or a dresser drawer. Now is the time to look into this matter and have the chance to explore and share your memories, perhaps even rediscover events and people that memory has left behind. On this week’s episode of the B&H Photography Podcast, we welcome the directors of Lost Rolls America, Ron Haviv and Lauren Walsh. Inspired by Haviv’s own The Lost Rolls book, they have initiated this project to create a national archive of lost, yet now found, images “to form a collective memory that prioritizes the role of photos in constructing our personal and shared pasts. In revisiting the past, this project also encourages contemplation of how the present and future will be remembered.” The idea is simple, but one look at the growing archive and the memories shared, and it becomes clear how powerful this project can be. With Haviv and Walsh, we recount the genesis of the project, how PhotoShelter, PhotoWings, and FUJIFILM came onboard as partners, and they offer insight on the future plans for the project. They also discuss a few of the more interesting images and recollections submitted, how the submission process works and, of course, they encourage our listeners to submit lost rolls. Ron Haviv is a is an Emmy nominated, award-winning photojournalist and co-founder of the photo agency VII, dedicated to documenting conflict and raising awareness about human rights issues around the globe. He has worked in more than one hundred countries and published four critically acclaimed collections of photography. His work has been featured in numerous museums and galleries, including the Louvre, the United Nations, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Lauren Walsh is a professor and writer who teaches at The New School and NYU, where she is the Director of NYU Gallatin’s Photojournalism Lab. She is editor of Macondo, a photo book documenting the long-term conflict in Colombia, and coeditor of the collection, The Future of Text and Image, as well as the Millennium Villages Project, a photography book about efforts to relieve extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. She has appeared on CNN as a scholar of photography and digital culture, as well as in the documentary 9/11: Ten Years Later. Guests: Lauren K. Walsh and Ron Haviv Photograph © Mette Lampcov/Lost Rolls America B&H Photography Podcast

The Lancet Global Health
Millennium Villages Project

The Lancet Global Health

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 11, 2018 15:44


Nina Putnis of The Lancet Global Health talks to Eran Bendavid about the Millennium Villages Project and its impact on the history, and future, of global health.

lancet global health millennium villages project
Venture Vignettes
Taking Inventions from the Lab to the Real World - Dr. Jonathan Levine, CEO Folia Water/500 Startups

Venture Vignettes

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 27, 2017 30:41


This week, Venture Vignettes host Riana Shah sat down with the co-founder and CEO of Folia Water, Dr. Jonathan Levine. Levine received his Ph.D from Columbia University in Earth and Environmental Engineering and worked on African water supply for the U.N. Millennium Villages Project for his masters. Folia Water is a wholesale technology manufacturer that sells and distributes paper filters so that middle-income consumers in emerging markets have more affordable access to clean, filtered water instead of paying ten times more for bottled water. In this lively podcast, we talk about the impact of his scientific background on running a business, being part of 500 Startups, and doing customer discovery in emerging markets. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/venture-vignettes/support

Center on Global Energy Policy
New York's Renewable Energy Future (5/2/17)

Center on Global Energy Policy

Play Episode Listen Later May 16, 2017 91:36


CGEP hosted a conversation on the future of renewable energy in New York. Jason Bordoff, Professor of Practice in International and Public Affairs at SIPA and Founding Director of the Center on Global Energy Policy, moderated a conversation with a group of distinguished speakers: Knut M. Aanstad, President, Statoil Wind US LLC; Dan Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy, Yale University; Richard Kauffman, Chairman of Energy and Finance for New York; Eric Martel, President and CEO, Hydro-Quebec; and Vijay Modi, Professor of Mechanical Engineering; Director, Infrastructure Programs, Millennium Villages Project.

Rob Wiblin's top recommended EconTalk episodes v0.2 Feb 2020
Jeffrey Sachs on the Millennium Villages Project

Rob Wiblin's top recommended EconTalk episodes v0.2 Feb 2020

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 17, 2014 84:03


Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University and the Millennium Villages Project talks with EconTalk host about poverty in Africa and the efforts of the Millennium Villages Project to fight hunger, disease, and illiteracy. The project tries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in a set of poor African villages using an integrated strategy fighting hunger, poverty, and disease. In this lively conversation, Sachs argues that this approach has achieved great success so far and responds to criticisms from development economists and Nina Munk in her recent EconTalk interview.

EconTalk
Jeffrey Sachs on the Millennium Villages Project

EconTalk

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 17, 2014 84:03


Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University and the Millennium Villages Project talks with EconTalk host about poverty in Africa and the efforts of the Millennium Villages Project to fight hunger, disease, and illiteracy. The project tries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in a set of poor African villages using an integrated strategy fighting hunger, poverty, and disease. In this lively conversation, Sachs argues that this approach has achieved great success so far and responds to criticisms from development economists and Nina Munk in her recent EconTalk interview.

EconTalk Archives, 2014
Jeffrey Sachs on the Millennium Villages Project

EconTalk Archives, 2014

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 17, 2014 84:03


Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University and the Millennium Villages Project talks with EconTalk host about poverty in Africa and the efforts of the Millennium Villages Project to fight hunger, disease, and illiteracy. The project tries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in a set of poor African villages using an integrated strategy fighting hunger, poverty, and disease. In this lively conversation, Sachs argues that this approach has achieved great success so far and responds to criticisms from development economists and Nina Munk in her recent EconTalk interview.

Development Drums
Episode 42: The Idealist (Nina Munk on Jeff Sachs)

Development Drums

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2014 57:58


Nina Munk's latest book, The Idealist, is about Jeffrey Sachs and the Millennium Villages Project. It is also a book about the efforts that people in industrialised countries make to help poor people. It is a book about vision, passion and hubris. In this episode of Development Drums, Nina Munk tells the story of how she came to write the book, and what she learned about Jeff Sacha, and about development aid, as she did so.

sachs idealist jeffrey sachs millennium villages project nina munk
Development Drums
Episode 42: The Idealist (Nina Munk on Jeff Sachs)

Development Drums

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2014 57:58


Nina Munk’s latest book, The Idealist, is about Jeffrey Sachs and the Millennium Villages Project. It is also a book about the efforts that people in industrialised countries make to help poor people. It is a book about vision, passion and hubris. In this episode of Development Drums, Nina Munk tells the story of how she came to write the book, and what she learned about Jeff Sacha, and about development aid, as she did so.

sachs idealist jeffrey sachs millennium villages project nina munk
EconTalk
Nina Munk on Poverty, Development, and the Idealist

EconTalk

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 27, 2014 63:38


Nina Munk, journalist and author of The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about her book. Munk spent six years following Jeffrey Sachs and the evolution of the Millennium Villages Project--an attempt to jumpstart a set of African villages in hopes of discovering a new template for development. Munk details the great optimism at the beginning of the project and the discouraging results after six years of high levels of aid. Sach's story is one of the great lessons in unintended consequences and the complexity of the development process.

EconTalk Archives, 2014
Nina Munk on Poverty, Development, and the Idealist

EconTalk Archives, 2014

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 27, 2014 63:38


Nina Munk, journalist and author of The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about her book. Munk spent six years following Jeffrey Sachs and the evolution of the Millennium Villages Project--an attempt to jumpstart a set of African villages in hopes of discovering a new template for development. Munk details the great optimism at the beginning of the project and the discouraging results after six years of high levels of aid. Sach's story is one of the great lessons in unintended consequences and the complexity of the development process.

Spectrum
Pedro Sanchez

Spectrum

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 24, 2012 30:00


Pedro Sanchez is a soil scientist, Director of the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program, and Director of the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Dr. Sanchez was elected into the National Academy of Sciences in 2012.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next [inaudible] look at this picture and typology show on k a l s Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists [00:00:30] and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 2: Good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. This week on spectrum. Our guest is Professor Pedro Sanchez, a soil scientist who is director of the tropical agriculture and the rural environment program. Senior research scholar and the director of the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Dr. Sanchez was director general of the World Agroforestry Center headquartered [00:01:00] in Nairobi, Kenya from 1991 to 2001 and served as co-chair of the UN Millennium Project Hunger Task Force. He is also professor Ameritus of Soil Science and forestry at North Carolina State University and was a visiting professor at the University of California Berkeley. Dr Pedro Sanchez was elected into the National Academy of Sciences in 2012 in late April, 2012 Dr. Sanchez presented the [inaudible] any memorial lecture at the invitation of the UC Berkeley College of natural [00:01:30] resources. Prior to that lecture, Professor Sanchez talked with me about his life and work. Welcome to spectrum Pedro Sanchez. Thank you very much. Want to ask about how you initially got interested in soil science? Speaker 3: Oh boy. Well it goes way back. I'm from Cuba. My dad own a fairly small farm and I always liked to play with dirt. Still I'm [00:02:00] and getting paid for it. But during those days it was just playing. I always liked the, when I took a shower after being out all day to see, uh, to see the drain turn red with all the red mud. And uh, my dad, uh, wanted me to follow his steps, uh, with a farm fertilizer business he had in Cuba when he said he would send me to Cornell because uh, he had gone there and I said, fine. That was all fine with me. I started studying agronomy. [00:02:30] Ah, yeah, I'm majoring in soils. And then I changed hearing seminars from outside people, but that time telling us that Indian with 200 million people, what it's going to start on, this will be a global catastrophe. Oh. I said, well, this will be something I could dedicate my life with and I had been lucky enough to to say that I've done it. Yeah, I've dedicated my life to this. Speaker 2: How did your work, tropical agriculture Speaker 3: [00:03:00] and rural environment issues evolve? The hope was first my interest in tropical soils, not Doyle's in general, but tropical soils. Then the opportunities at Cornell offered me to go to the Philippines. I get my phd degree there. Then out of there I learned about the green revolution and I worked at my first international center, the international rice research and CCU, and from there arm became a assistant professor at North Carolina State [00:03:30] University, the first professor of tropical soil Sekai because they wanted to start a discipline on that. Send me to Peru and work on the green revolution of rice and brew and then afterwards into campus and start teaching tropical soils. You get research money and and right. The first edition of my book. Speaker 2: How do you describe and characterize world hunger and then rural poverty? How are they different? How are they similar overlap? Speaker 3: [00:04:00] They usually are the same person who suffers hunger. It's almost invariably poor. They're both rural and urban. All of the majority of the poor are, are indeed in rural areas of the world still Speaker 2: because it's only recently that the 50% of people now live in cities and that's mostly in the developed world. Speaker 3: No, and in Latin America is 75% [00:04:30] urban. Uh, a Shar is about the same sub Saharan Africa is the only large piece of land in the world where the majority of the people are still rural, about 70% but in the next 20 years they're probably going to be 50, 50 or less. Rural to urban migration continues. Cities get incredibly huge Speaker 2: hunger I guess then for you is caloric intake. Speaker 3: [00:05:00] Okay. Uh, there is a, there is a metric that it's approved by the United Nations on hunger and that is stumping Charles stunting, stunting being been short in height for your age and below a certain level you're considered stunted. That is a product of, of hunger and disease and on all sorts of things. What is the best metric we'd have for measuring hunger [00:05:30] is in children. So that's, that's the best metric. There are many other ones that can related to the amount of food you consume in terms of calories, broken vitamins and micronutrients and the amount of food you're able to, you're able to acquire by money, by buying food like most of us do, and then the utilization of food within your body. That also, that also has some same important variables. I should have. You have sites since [inaudible] and so on. [00:06:00] To me, however, hunger is the state of mind is the state of, not that I really been hungry for very long, I've been very lucky, but it's a state of powerlessness. When you're hungry, nothing else matters. You really have to satisfy that hunger and it's our survival instinct. For example, you cannot possibly think about the environment when you're hungry, so it's a mindset. That [00:06:30] brings us back to our most basic instance. Speaker 4: Today's guest on spectrum is Pedro Sanchez, director of the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute. You are listening to KALX Berkeley. Speaker 3: You've been involved in the United Nations Millennium Village project. Your key part of that, [00:07:00] and can you give us an overview of that project? It's an ongoing project, isn't it? Yeah, it is an ongoing project. I'm not bashful. It was my idea. And that is after finishing all of this recommendations on the UN Millennium Development Goals, my committee working with hunger and similar committees, working on health in sanitation and the environment and poverty and and so on. I was in India, I've seen some model, uh, or they call, uh, bio abilities [00:07:30] of my co-chair, professors forming Athan. And I said to myself, why don't we do this in Africa where the situation is much worse, but how can we help in impoverish villages achieve all the millennium development goals, not only over the whole thing. So I'm talking with my wife and at that time we had received some price money. We had quarter of a million dollars we could invest. Speaker 3: So we decided to let's go invest that money and try to do [00:08:00] it in a village in western Kenya. That will be both working. But when I went to see my director, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, he says, oh no, this is such a great idea. You're not going to do it with your money. We're going to raise lots of money and do it again. He did it within four or five months. We had about a hundred billion dollars in our coffers, so to speak, mostly from private philanthropists. And then we started conceiving. Then that brought me, the program says, okay, let's look for villages of about 5,000 people. [00:08:30] English, they're more than 20% malnourished kids under the age of five. Again, that famous metric on stunting that was, and the people that are making less than a dollar a day, very hard to quantify. So we started one in western Kenya [inaudible] and then as more funds came out, I know they winter in northern Ethiopia. Speaker 3: Oh, Colorado. And within a year and a half or so, we had 80 such feels clustered [00:09:00] and uh, around the 14 sites in 10 African countries, each of them representing a major agricultural zone or farming system where hunger is coming. In other words, who didn't have any, in South Africa, for example, the villages were selected by us. We always have to go basically to the head of states, a precedent or prime minister and ask for permission. But we would make sure that they wouldn't say, well, you have to do, listen, Mike Rich and some tribe didn't succeed. [00:09:30] Basically the way it started as a bunch of us from different disciplines, people working in health, people working infrastructure, water and sanitation and so on. We went to the village how to village meeting and there was some government people who represented different than we asking, well, do you want to become a millennium villages? Speaker 3: You're going to have to work very hard because we're not going to give you any money. We're going to do is help you out with things that you don't have in kind and get a lot of training on many things and [00:10:00] you're going to be asking a zillion questions with the questionnaires that we do. So that was the deal. And then the priorities were selected working with committees of the villagers and specialists from our side on the university site balance the knowledge that the villagers had gotten by themselves with scientific, scientifically grounded idea. So the villages basically said, well, we need [00:10:30] inputs for agriculture because the yields were very low. Said, what are you needs? Well, we use better seats, hybrids, seats, and so on and we need fertilizer. Well, we agreed with that. The other thing they asked right away, in addition to agricultural inputs to grow more food was a clinic. Speaker 3: And we said, okay, but let's get the plants from the Ministry of Health. So it's a proper government clinic. You guys build it, [00:11:00] you guys make the bricks and do all the things they know how to do and we'll provide you with a, with cement, with 10 roof, iron doors and the things I couldn't buy but not a, not a dollar or any shilling change hands. And they did that on their very problem. They did that for schools and even for warehouses later using the same principle that they do most of the work and we come in and provide the necessary things like cement [00:11:30] or whatever. And that's been the rule in pretty much in all the abilities with very, very few exceptions. Nice thing about that. They said they own it, they own it. They have a sense of ownership, they take care of it. And it's very different than if the government or some NGO or some foundation bill such things and gave him the keys to it. Are they in some way cooperatives? You're surely I ended up vigil in the villages, donates the land [00:12:00] for the clinic to be built then, I don't know the ownership, but in most cases basically the clinic is part of the Minister of health and the case of fertilizers and seed. No. Speaker 2: Well and then warehouses and things like that. Speaker 3: Yeah. Warehouses on all ladders. Uh, there, there's a, there, there it's usually built on a place that is donated by a member of the community walk that line. Speaker 2: So there's a certain collective spirit. Speaker 3: Oh, very much so. I mean every farmer farms his or her piece of land [00:12:30] like blank, they harvest, they sell it, share information, all of that share a lot of information. And right now that basic learning development goal has been achieved. They're getting more into different kinds of cooperatives and they band together to sell specific high value products such as milk or tomatoes or things like that. In most cases that are already registered as formal cooperatives. I mean means they can get a line of credit from the banks. They're [00:13:00] going through the process. Now we're going from a subsidize based economy, not only to getting into irregular financial arrangements wholesale. We on other institutions stuff work with banks to convince them to lend to these people. They say they have no collateral. It's true, uh, an institution, uh, Agora, which just starts for the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa, broke ground by promising, not making a deal with it, with one of the banks and the credit guarantees they would refund [00:13:30] the bank 50% of whatever they are, who is, who? People not paying their loans out of hundreds of millions of dollars. And it has happened to have had to pay $4,000 the recovery rate of their loans from this people who have no collateral. It's the same as other people. And now banks now are beginning to look at agriculture, small holder agriculture, the bottom billion, so to speak, as SMH or source. Speaker 4: This is spectrum [00:14:00] KALX Berkeley. I'm talking with Professor Pedro Sanchez about hunger and agriculture in light of a global population of nine to 10 billion people by 2050 Speaker 2: and so does this project then in some ways answer the the critics of aid to developing nations that has failed for so long, decade after decade of just dumping money on countries as opposed to this kind of an integrated project [00:14:30] that you've, Speaker 3: well first, yeah, first let me say that this, this idea that all this money has been wasted is incorrect. I mean there are certainly a lot of wastage, but certainly not. When I started working, and it was like 40 years ago, and by that time countries like Mexico and Brazil and Korea were receiving aid and most of that America now there's no more aid and now they're our best customers in terms of and by [00:15:00] an American experts. So it has worked. The fact that that India is no longer starving, but India, so foot exporter has worked and not all the credit is, is to serve by the aid that donors select the United States gift, but also by their own resources and their own loan and work. But no aid has worked and it has worked then. Yeah, no, ideally and very subject to criticism. But by and large, I think eight in general in broad terms has work specifically [00:15:30] not Speaker 2: do you think there's an attainable rebalancing of agricultural incentives and markets in the developed world and in the developing world that would, uh, work to, you know, accommodate nine to 10 billion people in the world? Speaker 3: Well, first let me say that in either case, developed or undeveloped, there's no such a thing as a, I see ideal market or the perfect market, which my economist friends say, well, this, [00:16:00] oh, you mean you're subsidizing fertilizer? Well, that's sort of distorting the market for fertilizers. And I said, what markets one market are you talking about? It doesn't exist. Uh, I don't believe in perfect markets because I've never seen one. I'm not an economist, but mine are in economics, so knows a little bit about them and they're very distorted by, by subsidies. We subsidize very many rich farmers here who are really starting to the point of the ridiculous. The question [00:16:30] is, are we going to be able to feed 9 billion people by 2050 I would say probably yes. And a, the bigger actors there are going to be South America and Africa to be able to feed themselves. Yes. Unexplored food. Yes. The land resources are there. Of course all this has to do with politics. Nobody can predict what the politics over their specific country going to be. Right. Speaker 2: Like the molecular, like Molly, Speaker 3: Molly or reflect who's going to work [00:17:00] here. Yeah. So, uh, so I mean all this food is political presidents get reelected because it was a successful food programs in Africa, but uh, that it's perfectly feasible. It is. I don't know how much, what's your question about that? Speaker 2: And right now the percentage of land dedicated to agricultural activities, about 12%. Speaker 3: Yeah. And if you include pastures for a cow [00:17:30] production and so on, it's about 30% of the world's land area Speaker 2: and do you see that number? Being able to go up Speaker 3: little bit, maybe one or two percentage points, maybe one percentage points, but no more than that. But there will be an elements and South America on an that will be in opening new Lorenz lands that are not ecologically critical. Tropical rain forest. There's white lines or stuff like that that are [00:18:00] environmental protected. No Way. And there is additional land that can be used, but the main, the main effort is to increase the yields per acre of the land already been used and the best ways to do that in a going forward, sustainable way. What do you feel about that? You need improved plants and you need a balanced set of inputs and not too many and not too few. The genetically modified plants [00:18:30] are, in my opinion, fine. They've gotten a very bad rap, tumbled them or ecologically extremely sound like a bt corn and bt cotton. Speaker 3: They have a genes from a [inaudible] that when the insects bite and trying to suck the SAP or something, they get killed, stuck said to them so that only kill the bad bugs and lose all the other books who have no interested in getting involved with uh, with a corn crop fine as opposed to having insecticides that would kill [00:19:00] all insects. So, uh, there are a lot of good things in genetic modification anyway. We are all genetically modified organisms. We certainly are all of us and has been done by nature by, by random, but it's so much different if you do it in a, in a lab. Conceptually it's the same thing or very clear evidence study of the National Academy of Science August last year and Europe, two big studies, one in the UK and one in Switzerland and they all show [00:19:30] the same thing, that there is no harm done to the environment and to human health where the use of GMOs that have been released. Speaker 3: Then this is basically no different from the development of hybrid corn, which wasn't genetically modified in the sense of transporting one gene from one place to another one, but it was genetically modified by combining plants that would combine their own genes. So, um, we need plants that produce a lot, that have deep roots, that are told them to diseases [00:20:00] and insects and more tolerant to drought and floods because of climate change. You need better plants. And uh, without them we'd be nowhere. And the issue of inputs, agriculture is different from natural systems. Agriculture takes a tremendous amount of nutrients and energy and everything out of the system and it's not returned back and something has to be returned back. That's why we need to fertilizers, fertilizers, whether they're mineral or they're organic, we need to add additional [00:20:30] nutrients on. And there's no question about it. Speaker 3: The issue of organic versus mineral, the plant doesn't care the best way to do it. It's a combination of both, which is called conventional agriculture. Organic farming. If it produces higher premium price, go to it. But we know that the deals are lower and it requires more labor. So my view on all this is not to beat up matic you say you want to have a good balance, the, the time horizon [00:21:00] on the mineral fertilizers, phosphorus and potassium. Do you see that running out at some point in the future and not grading? Uh, the, uh, of course nitrogen is taken from the air and we live in an atmosphere of 78% nitrogen. So it's for all practical purposes, infant. But that's you comes from minds or I know there enormous research, unfortunately concentrated in two or three countries. Canada and Russia. Phosphorus is the one we worry [00:21:30] the most about. Speaker 3: But no, I've been about almost 50 years in this business and every five years or so here we're gonna run out of phosphorus in the next, uh, 50 to a hundred years. And then you keep [inaudible] in the past and best buy, there's more efficiency on the use on there, more that bus it's found. So I, I'm really not worried, not worried, frankly, not worried. I've heard that you're, you're taking a project with the gates foundation to [00:22:00] map all the soils of Africa is yes, yes. The digital soul map of Africa. Okay. And what's going to happen with the data? Um, we're doing it now. At first I saw map of Africa on a scale of a hundred by hundred meters. That's how about a Hector pixel. It will be Hector, two and a half acres of saw properties and that'll come out later in the year of the first approximation. It'll be, it'll be rough. Speaker 3: We're looking now for [00:22:30] continuation of the project for another four years to really do it better and uh, mainstream it into, into countries. And I forgot the other one too, but all the data will be accessible by the way, for the way, in a way that you can sort of like Google earth. You can pin 0.1 place and you can see a hundred by hundred meter pixels and it'll tell you how much sand has and all that. And then you can query [00:23:00] and it will give you a map of sand content. I know their map of organic matter or slow or whatever, whatever you want. Professor Sanchez, thanks very much for joining us on spectrum. You are very welcome. My pleasure. Glad to be back in Berkeley. Speaker 4: [00:23:30] Regular feature of spectrum is to highlight some of the science and technology events happening locally over the next two weeks. Here's Rick Kaneski and Lisa cabbage with the calendar on Wednesday, Speaker 5: August 29th at 6:00 PM the Commonwealth Club at five nine five market street in San Francisco. It's presenting a talk by the president of the Ocean Conservation Society, Madelina Beersy entitled Dolphin Confidential Confessions [00:24:00] of a field biologist. She'll talk about her experiences at sea from her earliest travels. You're a transformations into an advocate for conservation and dolphin protection. She takes us inside the world of a marine scientist and offer as a firsthand understanding of marine mammal behavior as well as the frustrations, delights, and creativity that makeup Dolphin research bears these fieldwork investigates Dolphin social behavior and intelligence. She shares an honest down to [00:24:30] earth analysis of what it means to be a marine biologist in the field today and the life among the dolphins and addresses the critical environmental and conservation problems they face. The lecture is $20 or $8 for Commonwealth club members or $7 for students with valid id. Visit Commonwealth club.org for more info, Speaker 6: find out what ideas are percolating in the mind of William Gibson, one of our greatest contemporary science fiction writers on Tuesday, September 4th [00:25:00] at 7:00 PM at the Jewish community center in San Francisco, 3,200 California Street, author of the groundbreaking cyberpunk novel Neuro Mansur. Gibson described the internet before it existed and coined the term cyberspace. His first collection of nonfiction writings, distrust that particular flavor, offers provocative insights on everything from the future of technology to compulsive online watch collecting to drug trafficking and Singapore. Again, [00:25:30] that's Tuesday, September 4th at 7:00 PM for tickets and more information. Go to www dot JCC s f. Dot Org Speaker 5: September. His seminar about longterm thinking from the long now foundation will be on Wednesday the fifth at 7:30 PM Tim O'Reilly is discussing the birth of the global mind. The evolution of communication and intelligence. Speech allowed us to communicate and coordinate writing allowed that coordination to spend time and space, [00:26:00] but that's not all in one breakthrough computer application. After another, we see a new kind of manmade symbiosis. The Google autonomous vehicle turns out not to be just a triumph of artificial intelligence algorithms. The car is guided by the cloud memory of roads driven before by Human Google Street view drivers augmented by powerful and precise new sensors in the same way. Crowdsource data from sensor enabled humans is leading to smarter cities, breakthroughs in healthcare and new economies. [00:26:30] The future belongs not to artificial intelligence, but the collective intelligence. This event will take place at the cal theater and San Francisco is Fort Mason. It is $10 or is free for members Speaker 6: visit long now.org for tickets and more info. The September East Bay Science Cafe Welcomes John Duber, assistant professor in the Department of bioengineering at UC Berkeley. He will talk about using synthetic biology to build microbial factories producing biofuels. [00:27:00] One promising direction for the production of liquid transportation fuels is re-engineering the metabolism of microbes like Baker's yeast to convert sugar into a chemical with desirable bio fuel characteristics. Dubar roiled described work being done to produce biofuels using the rapidly emerging approaches of synthetic biology. John Dubar was a 2012 winner of the US Department of Energy's early career research award. East Bay Science cafe is Wednesday, [00:27:30] September 5th in the [inaudible] lounge adjacent to cafe Valparaiso at La Pena Cultural Center from seven to 9:00 PM location 31 oh five Shattuck avenue in Berkeley. Now, Lisa Katovich with two new stories, science news reports that two studies find that nanoscale pollutants can intercrop roots triggering a host of changes to plants growth in health. These tiny particles can stunt plant growth, boost the plants absorption [00:28:00] of pollutants, and increase the need for crop fertilizers. Speaker 6: The new data now for Warren of agriculturally associated human and environmental risks from the accelerating use of manufactured nanomaterials. According to Patricia Holden at UC Santa Barbara and her colleagues. Their report is published online August 20th in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, nanomaterials that get released in the exhaust from diesel fueled tractors can rain down onto crop fields. Those used in fabrics, [00:28:30] sunscreens and other products collect in the solid, separated out of sewage and wastewater. The new studies offer glimpse at the toxic effects. Such nanoparticles may pose to future crops. As exposures rise, the ability of soil and other legumes to fix nitrogen is one of the most important microbial processes in agriculture. So the ability of Nano Sirium to shut this process down was the most significant and most troubling new finding. The UC Berkeley Solar Car Club [00:29:00] team, cal soul placed forth in a field of 12 cars in the 2012 American solar challenge in July, the race was run in stages from Rochester, New York, ending in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Congratulations to the castle team. Speaker 1: The [inaudible] show is by Mozcon and David. This album, [00:29:30] folk and acoustic made available [inaudible] comments, license 3.0 thank you. Listen to spectrum [inaudible] spectrum [inaudible] hi John. [inaudible]. [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Spectrum
Pedro Sanchez

Spectrum

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 24, 2012 30:00


Pedro Sanchez is a soil scientist, Director of the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program, and Director of the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Dr. Sanchez was elected into the National Academy of Sciences in 2012.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next [inaudible] look at this picture and typology show on k a l s Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists [00:00:30] and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 2: Good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. This week on spectrum. Our guest is Professor Pedro Sanchez, a soil scientist who is director of the tropical agriculture and the rural environment program. Senior research scholar and the director of the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Dr. Sanchez was director general of the World Agroforestry Center headquartered [00:01:00] in Nairobi, Kenya from 1991 to 2001 and served as co-chair of the UN Millennium Project Hunger Task Force. He is also professor Ameritus of Soil Science and forestry at North Carolina State University and was a visiting professor at the University of California Berkeley. Dr Pedro Sanchez was elected into the National Academy of Sciences in 2012 in late April, 2012 Dr. Sanchez presented the [inaudible] any memorial lecture at the invitation of the UC Berkeley College of natural [00:01:30] resources. Prior to that lecture, Professor Sanchez talked with me about his life and work. Welcome to spectrum Pedro Sanchez. Thank you very much. Want to ask about how you initially got interested in soil science? Speaker 3: Oh boy. Well it goes way back. I'm from Cuba. My dad own a fairly small farm and I always liked to play with dirt. Still I'm [00:02:00] and getting paid for it. But during those days it was just playing. I always liked the, when I took a shower after being out all day to see, uh, to see the drain turn red with all the red mud. And uh, my dad, uh, wanted me to follow his steps, uh, with a farm fertilizer business he had in Cuba when he said he would send me to Cornell because uh, he had gone there and I said, fine. That was all fine with me. I started studying agronomy. [00:02:30] Ah, yeah, I'm majoring in soils. And then I changed hearing seminars from outside people, but that time telling us that Indian with 200 million people, what it's going to start on, this will be a global catastrophe. Oh. I said, well, this will be something I could dedicate my life with and I had been lucky enough to to say that I've done it. Yeah, I've dedicated my life to this. Speaker 2: How did your work, tropical agriculture Speaker 3: [00:03:00] and rural environment issues evolve? The hope was first my interest in tropical soils, not Doyle's in general, but tropical soils. Then the opportunities at Cornell offered me to go to the Philippines. I get my phd degree there. Then out of there I learned about the green revolution and I worked at my first international center, the international rice research and CCU, and from there arm became a assistant professor at North Carolina State [00:03:30] University, the first professor of tropical soil Sekai because they wanted to start a discipline on that. Send me to Peru and work on the green revolution of rice and brew and then afterwards into campus and start teaching tropical soils. You get research money and and right. The first edition of my book. Speaker 2: How do you describe and characterize world hunger and then rural poverty? How are they different? How are they similar overlap? Speaker 3: [00:04:00] They usually are the same person who suffers hunger. It's almost invariably poor. They're both rural and urban. All of the majority of the poor are, are indeed in rural areas of the world still Speaker 2: because it's only recently that the 50% of people now live in cities and that's mostly in the developed world. Speaker 3: No, and in Latin America is 75% [00:04:30] urban. Uh, a Shar is about the same sub Saharan Africa is the only large piece of land in the world where the majority of the people are still rural, about 70% but in the next 20 years they're probably going to be 50, 50 or less. Rural to urban migration continues. Cities get incredibly huge Speaker 2: hunger I guess then for you is caloric intake. Speaker 3: [00:05:00] Okay. Uh, there is a, there is a metric that it's approved by the United Nations on hunger and that is stumping Charles stunting, stunting being been short in height for your age and below a certain level you're considered stunted. That is a product of, of hunger and disease and on all sorts of things. What is the best metric we'd have for measuring hunger [00:05:30] is in children. So that's, that's the best metric. There are many other ones that can related to the amount of food you consume in terms of calories, broken vitamins and micronutrients and the amount of food you're able to, you're able to acquire by money, by buying food like most of us do, and then the utilization of food within your body. That also, that also has some same important variables. I should have. You have sites since [inaudible] and so on. [00:06:00] To me, however, hunger is the state of mind is the state of, not that I really been hungry for very long, I've been very lucky, but it's a state of powerlessness. When you're hungry, nothing else matters. You really have to satisfy that hunger and it's our survival instinct. For example, you cannot possibly think about the environment when you're hungry, so it's a mindset. That [00:06:30] brings us back to our most basic instance. Speaker 4: Today's guest on spectrum is Pedro Sanchez, director of the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute. You are listening to KALX Berkeley. Speaker 3: You've been involved in the United Nations Millennium Village project. Your key part of that, [00:07:00] and can you give us an overview of that project? It's an ongoing project, isn't it? Yeah, it is an ongoing project. I'm not bashful. It was my idea. And that is after finishing all of this recommendations on the UN Millennium Development Goals, my committee working with hunger and similar committees, working on health in sanitation and the environment and poverty and and so on. I was in India, I've seen some model, uh, or they call, uh, bio abilities [00:07:30] of my co-chair, professors forming Athan. And I said to myself, why don't we do this in Africa where the situation is much worse, but how can we help in impoverish villages achieve all the millennium development goals, not only over the whole thing. So I'm talking with my wife and at that time we had received some price money. We had quarter of a million dollars we could invest. Speaker 3: So we decided to let's go invest that money and try to do [00:08:00] it in a village in western Kenya. That will be both working. But when I went to see my director, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, he says, oh no, this is such a great idea. You're not going to do it with your money. We're going to raise lots of money and do it again. He did it within four or five months. We had about a hundred billion dollars in our coffers, so to speak, mostly from private philanthropists. And then we started conceiving. Then that brought me, the program says, okay, let's look for villages of about 5,000 people. [00:08:30] English, they're more than 20% malnourished kids under the age of five. Again, that famous metric on stunting that was, and the people that are making less than a dollar a day, very hard to quantify. So we started one in western Kenya [inaudible] and then as more funds came out, I know they winter in northern Ethiopia. Speaker 3: Oh, Colorado. And within a year and a half or so, we had 80 such feels clustered [00:09:00] and uh, around the 14 sites in 10 African countries, each of them representing a major agricultural zone or farming system where hunger is coming. In other words, who didn't have any, in South Africa, for example, the villages were selected by us. We always have to go basically to the head of states, a precedent or prime minister and ask for permission. But we would make sure that they wouldn't say, well, you have to do, listen, Mike Rich and some tribe didn't succeed. [00:09:30] Basically the way it started as a bunch of us from different disciplines, people working in health, people working infrastructure, water and sanitation and so on. We went to the village how to village meeting and there was some government people who represented different than we asking, well, do you want to become a millennium villages? Speaker 3: You're going to have to work very hard because we're not going to give you any money. We're going to do is help you out with things that you don't have in kind and get a lot of training on many things and [00:10:00] you're going to be asking a zillion questions with the questionnaires that we do. So that was the deal. And then the priorities were selected working with committees of the villagers and specialists from our side on the university site balance the knowledge that the villagers had gotten by themselves with scientific, scientifically grounded idea. So the villages basically said, well, we need [00:10:30] inputs for agriculture because the yields were very low. Said, what are you needs? Well, we use better seats, hybrids, seats, and so on and we need fertilizer. Well, we agreed with that. The other thing they asked right away, in addition to agricultural inputs to grow more food was a clinic. Speaker 3: And we said, okay, but let's get the plants from the Ministry of Health. So it's a proper government clinic. You guys build it, [00:11:00] you guys make the bricks and do all the things they know how to do and we'll provide you with a, with cement, with 10 roof, iron doors and the things I couldn't buy but not a, not a dollar or any shilling change hands. And they did that on their very problem. They did that for schools and even for warehouses later using the same principle that they do most of the work and we come in and provide the necessary things like cement [00:11:30] or whatever. And that's been the rule in pretty much in all the abilities with very, very few exceptions. Nice thing about that. They said they own it, they own it. They have a sense of ownership, they take care of it. And it's very different than if the government or some NGO or some foundation bill such things and gave him the keys to it. Are they in some way cooperatives? You're surely I ended up vigil in the villages, donates the land [00:12:00] for the clinic to be built then, I don't know the ownership, but in most cases basically the clinic is part of the Minister of health and the case of fertilizers and seed. No. Speaker 2: Well and then warehouses and things like that. Speaker 3: Yeah. Warehouses on all ladders. Uh, there, there's a, there, there it's usually built on a place that is donated by a member of the community walk that line. Speaker 2: So there's a certain collective spirit. Speaker 3: Oh, very much so. I mean every farmer farms his or her piece of land [00:12:30] like blank, they harvest, they sell it, share information, all of that share a lot of information. And right now that basic learning development goal has been achieved. They're getting more into different kinds of cooperatives and they band together to sell specific high value products such as milk or tomatoes or things like that. In most cases that are already registered as formal cooperatives. I mean means they can get a line of credit from the banks. They're [00:13:00] going through the process. Now we're going from a subsidize based economy, not only to getting into irregular financial arrangements wholesale. We on other institutions stuff work with banks to convince them to lend to these people. They say they have no collateral. It's true, uh, an institution, uh, Agora, which just starts for the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa, broke ground by promising, not making a deal with it, with one of the banks and the credit guarantees they would refund [00:13:30] the bank 50% of whatever they are, who is, who? People not paying their loans out of hundreds of millions of dollars. And it has happened to have had to pay $4,000 the recovery rate of their loans from this people who have no collateral. It's the same as other people. And now banks now are beginning to look at agriculture, small holder agriculture, the bottom billion, so to speak, as SMH or source. Speaker 4: This is spectrum [00:14:00] KALX Berkeley. I'm talking with Professor Pedro Sanchez about hunger and agriculture in light of a global population of nine to 10 billion people by 2050 Speaker 2: and so does this project then in some ways answer the the critics of aid to developing nations that has failed for so long, decade after decade of just dumping money on countries as opposed to this kind of an integrated project [00:14:30] that you've, Speaker 3: well first, yeah, first let me say that this, this idea that all this money has been wasted is incorrect. I mean there are certainly a lot of wastage, but certainly not. When I started working, and it was like 40 years ago, and by that time countries like Mexico and Brazil and Korea were receiving aid and most of that America now there's no more aid and now they're our best customers in terms of and by [00:15:00] an American experts. So it has worked. The fact that that India is no longer starving, but India, so foot exporter has worked and not all the credit is, is to serve by the aid that donors select the United States gift, but also by their own resources and their own loan and work. But no aid has worked and it has worked then. Yeah, no, ideally and very subject to criticism. But by and large, I think eight in general in broad terms has work specifically [00:15:30] not Speaker 2: do you think there's an attainable rebalancing of agricultural incentives and markets in the developed world and in the developing world that would, uh, work to, you know, accommodate nine to 10 billion people in the world? Speaker 3: Well, first let me say that in either case, developed or undeveloped, there's no such a thing as a, I see ideal market or the perfect market, which my economist friends say, well, this, [00:16:00] oh, you mean you're subsidizing fertilizer? Well, that's sort of distorting the market for fertilizers. And I said, what markets one market are you talking about? It doesn't exist. Uh, I don't believe in perfect markets because I've never seen one. I'm not an economist, but mine are in economics, so knows a little bit about them and they're very distorted by, by subsidies. We subsidize very many rich farmers here who are really starting to the point of the ridiculous. The question [00:16:30] is, are we going to be able to feed 9 billion people by 2050 I would say probably yes. And a, the bigger actors there are going to be South America and Africa to be able to feed themselves. Yes. Unexplored food. Yes. The land resources are there. Of course all this has to do with politics. Nobody can predict what the politics over their specific country going to be. Right. Speaker 2: Like the molecular, like Molly, Speaker 3: Molly or reflect who's going to work [00:17:00] here. Yeah. So, uh, so I mean all this food is political presidents get reelected because it was a successful food programs in Africa, but uh, that it's perfectly feasible. It is. I don't know how much, what's your question about that? Speaker 2: And right now the percentage of land dedicated to agricultural activities, about 12%. Speaker 3: Yeah. And if you include pastures for a cow [00:17:30] production and so on, it's about 30% of the world's land area Speaker 2: and do you see that number? Being able to go up Speaker 3: little bit, maybe one or two percentage points, maybe one percentage points, but no more than that. But there will be an elements and South America on an that will be in opening new Lorenz lands that are not ecologically critical. Tropical rain forest. There's white lines or stuff like that that are [00:18:00] environmental protected. No Way. And there is additional land that can be used, but the main, the main effort is to increase the yields per acre of the land already been used and the best ways to do that in a going forward, sustainable way. What do you feel about that? You need improved plants and you need a balanced set of inputs and not too many and not too few. The genetically modified plants [00:18:30] are, in my opinion, fine. They've gotten a very bad rap, tumbled them or ecologically extremely sound like a bt corn and bt cotton. Speaker 3: They have a genes from a [inaudible] that when the insects bite and trying to suck the SAP or something, they get killed, stuck said to them so that only kill the bad bugs and lose all the other books who have no interested in getting involved with uh, with a corn crop fine as opposed to having insecticides that would kill [00:19:00] all insects. So, uh, there are a lot of good things in genetic modification anyway. We are all genetically modified organisms. We certainly are all of us and has been done by nature by, by random, but it's so much different if you do it in a, in a lab. Conceptually it's the same thing or very clear evidence study of the National Academy of Science August last year and Europe, two big studies, one in the UK and one in Switzerland and they all show [00:19:30] the same thing, that there is no harm done to the environment and to human health where the use of GMOs that have been released. Speaker 3: Then this is basically no different from the development of hybrid corn, which wasn't genetically modified in the sense of transporting one gene from one place to another one, but it was genetically modified by combining plants that would combine their own genes. So, um, we need plants that produce a lot, that have deep roots, that are told them to diseases [00:20:00] and insects and more tolerant to drought and floods because of climate change. You need better plants. And uh, without them we'd be nowhere. And the issue of inputs, agriculture is different from natural systems. Agriculture takes a tremendous amount of nutrients and energy and everything out of the system and it's not returned back and something has to be returned back. That's why we need to fertilizers, fertilizers, whether they're mineral or they're organic, we need to add additional [00:20:30] nutrients on. And there's no question about it. Speaker 3: The issue of organic versus mineral, the plant doesn't care the best way to do it. It's a combination of both, which is called conventional agriculture. Organic farming. If it produces higher premium price, go to it. But we know that the deals are lower and it requires more labor. So my view on all this is not to beat up matic you say you want to have a good balance, the, the time horizon [00:21:00] on the mineral fertilizers, phosphorus and potassium. Do you see that running out at some point in the future and not grading? Uh, the, uh, of course nitrogen is taken from the air and we live in an atmosphere of 78% nitrogen. So it's for all practical purposes, infant. But that's you comes from minds or I know there enormous research, unfortunately concentrated in two or three countries. Canada and Russia. Phosphorus is the one we worry [00:21:30] the most about. Speaker 3: But no, I've been about almost 50 years in this business and every five years or so here we're gonna run out of phosphorus in the next, uh, 50 to a hundred years. And then you keep [inaudible] in the past and best buy, there's more efficiency on the use on there, more that bus it's found. So I, I'm really not worried, not worried, frankly, not worried. I've heard that you're, you're taking a project with the gates foundation to [00:22:00] map all the soils of Africa is yes, yes. The digital soul map of Africa. Okay. And what's going to happen with the data? Um, we're doing it now. At first I saw map of Africa on a scale of a hundred by hundred meters. That's how about a Hector pixel. It will be Hector, two and a half acres of saw properties and that'll come out later in the year of the first approximation. It'll be, it'll be rough. Speaker 3: We're looking now for [00:22:30] continuation of the project for another four years to really do it better and uh, mainstream it into, into countries. And I forgot the other one too, but all the data will be accessible by the way, for the way, in a way that you can sort of like Google earth. You can pin 0.1 place and you can see a hundred by hundred meter pixels and it'll tell you how much sand has and all that. And then you can query [00:23:00] and it will give you a map of sand content. I know their map of organic matter or slow or whatever, whatever you want. Professor Sanchez, thanks very much for joining us on spectrum. You are very welcome. My pleasure. Glad to be back in Berkeley. Speaker 4: [00:23:30] Regular feature of spectrum is to highlight some of the science and technology events happening locally over the next two weeks. Here's Rick Kaneski and Lisa cabbage with the calendar on Wednesday, Speaker 5: August 29th at 6:00 PM the Commonwealth Club at five nine five market street in San Francisco. It's presenting a talk by the president of the Ocean Conservation Society, Madelina Beersy entitled Dolphin Confidential Confessions [00:24:00] of a field biologist. She'll talk about her experiences at sea from her earliest travels. You're a transformations into an advocate for conservation and dolphin protection. She takes us inside the world of a marine scientist and offer as a firsthand understanding of marine mammal behavior as well as the frustrations, delights, and creativity that makeup Dolphin research bears these fieldwork investigates Dolphin social behavior and intelligence. She shares an honest down to [00:24:30] earth analysis of what it means to be a marine biologist in the field today and the life among the dolphins and addresses the critical environmental and conservation problems they face. The lecture is $20 or $8 for Commonwealth club members or $7 for students with valid id. Visit Commonwealth club.org for more info, Speaker 6: find out what ideas are percolating in the mind of William Gibson, one of our greatest contemporary science fiction writers on Tuesday, September 4th [00:25:00] at 7:00 PM at the Jewish community center in San Francisco, 3,200 California Street, author of the groundbreaking cyberpunk novel Neuro Mansur. Gibson described the internet before it existed and coined the term cyberspace. His first collection of nonfiction writings, distrust that particular flavor, offers provocative insights on everything from the future of technology to compulsive online watch collecting to drug trafficking and Singapore. Again, [00:25:30] that's Tuesday, September 4th at 7:00 PM for tickets and more information. Go to www dot JCC s f. Dot Org Speaker 5: September. His seminar about longterm thinking from the long now foundation will be on Wednesday the fifth at 7:30 PM Tim O'Reilly is discussing the birth of the global mind. The evolution of communication and intelligence. Speech allowed us to communicate and coordinate writing allowed that coordination to spend time and space, [00:26:00] but that's not all in one breakthrough computer application. After another, we see a new kind of manmade symbiosis. The Google autonomous vehicle turns out not to be just a triumph of artificial intelligence algorithms. The car is guided by the cloud memory of roads driven before by Human Google Street view drivers augmented by powerful and precise new sensors in the same way. Crowdsource data from sensor enabled humans is leading to smarter cities, breakthroughs in healthcare and new economies. [00:26:30] The future belongs not to artificial intelligence, but the collective intelligence. This event will take place at the cal theater and San Francisco is Fort Mason. It is $10 or is free for members Speaker 6: visit long now.org for tickets and more info. The September East Bay Science Cafe Welcomes John Duber, assistant professor in the Department of bioengineering at UC Berkeley. He will talk about using synthetic biology to build microbial factories producing biofuels. [00:27:00] One promising direction for the production of liquid transportation fuels is re-engineering the metabolism of microbes like Baker's yeast to convert sugar into a chemical with desirable bio fuel characteristics. Dubar roiled described work being done to produce biofuels using the rapidly emerging approaches of synthetic biology. John Dubar was a 2012 winner of the US Department of Energy's early career research award. East Bay Science cafe is Wednesday, [00:27:30] September 5th in the [inaudible] lounge adjacent to cafe Valparaiso at La Pena Cultural Center from seven to 9:00 PM location 31 oh five Shattuck avenue in Berkeley. Now, Lisa Katovich with two new stories, science news reports that two studies find that nanoscale pollutants can intercrop roots triggering a host of changes to plants growth in health. These tiny particles can stunt plant growth, boost the plants absorption [00:28:00] of pollutants, and increase the need for crop fertilizers. Speaker 6: The new data now for Warren of agriculturally associated human and environmental risks from the accelerating use of manufactured nanomaterials. According to Patricia Holden at UC Santa Barbara and her colleagues. Their report is published online August 20th in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, nanomaterials that get released in the exhaust from diesel fueled tractors can rain down onto crop fields. Those used in fabrics, [00:28:30] sunscreens and other products collect in the solid, separated out of sewage and wastewater. The new studies offer glimpse at the toxic effects. Such nanoparticles may pose to future crops. As exposures rise, the ability of soil and other legumes to fix nitrogen is one of the most important microbial processes in agriculture. So the ability of Nano Sirium to shut this process down was the most significant and most troubling new finding. The UC Berkeley Solar Car Club [00:29:00] team, cal soul placed forth in a field of 12 cars in the 2012 American solar challenge in July, the race was run in stages from Rochester, New York, ending in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Congratulations to the castle team. Speaker 1: The [inaudible] show is by Mozcon and David. This album, [00:29:30] folk and acoustic made available [inaudible] comments, license 3.0 thank you. Listen to spectrum [inaudible] spectrum [inaudible] hi John. [inaudible]. [inaudible]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.