Developing a Plan B for the planet | Juan Enriquez | TEDxBoston

Fri Mar 21, 2025

When you hear, "don't go in the basement" it conjures a flood of horror movie tropes. Why do they always go into the creepy basement? If the climate crisis is the scary plot and humanity is the cast, our current approach is much like those poor, ill-fated actors that move irrationally towards the threat. How can we change our fate? We know the monster and we know what will happen if we don't act. Global warming is creating extreme heat effects foreshadowing the scarier reality that the majority of human-created warming has so far been absorbed by the global oceans. That heat is already fueling superstorms and threatening climate tipping points. We need to start talking about and researching tangible tactics to cool the planet, before it's too late. An active investor in early stage private companies in the life sciences and big data sectors, Juan Enriquez is one of the world’s leading authorities on the uses and benefits of genomic code. Juan writes, speaks, and teaches about the profound changes that genomics and other life sciences will cause in business, technology, politics, and society. He is the co-author of the book “Evolving ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation Are Shaping Life on Earth”, exploring how humans increasingly shape the environment, themselves, and other living species.He is the managing director of Excel Venture Management, a life sciences VC firm. He also served as founding director of the Harvard Business School Life Sciences Project and is on the Genetics Advisory Council for the Harvard Medical School. Juan has published papers and articles in a variety of forums including The Harvard Business Review, Foreign Policy, Science, Nature, and The New York Times. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

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