Submitted by Paul G. Allen on Tue, 03/24/2009 - 1:47pm
Boiling Point
About the Author
Investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen creates and advances world-class projects and high-impact initiatives that change and improve the way people live, learn, work, and experience the world through arts, education, entertainment, sports, business, and technology. He co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975, remained the company's chief technologist until he left in 1983, and is the founder and chairman of Vulcan Inc. and chairman of Charter Communications.
In addition, Allen's multibillion dollar investment portfolio includes diverse holdings in real estate, technology, media, and other companies. In 2004 Allen funded SpaceShipOne, the first privately backed effort to successfully put a civilian in suborbital space and winner of the Ansari X-Prize competition. Allen also owns the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League, the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association, and is part of the primary ownership group for the Seattle Sounders FC, Seattle's new Major League Soccer team.
With lifetime giving totaling nearly $1 billion, Allen has been named one of the top philanthropists in America. Allen's philanthropy takes many forms. His family foundation, The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, supports nonprofits working to strengthen communities in the Pacific Northwest. In 2003, Allen contributed $75 million to create the Allen Institute for Brain Science, a research facility dedicated to performing innovative basic research on the brain and disseminating its discoveries to researchers around the world. In 2006 the Allen Institute completed its inaugural project, the Allen Brain Atlas, a Web-based, three-dimensional map of gene expression in the mouse brain. Detailing more than 21,000 genes at the cellular level, the Atlas, which is freely accessible online, continues to lead scientists to new insights and propel the field of neuroscience dramatically forward.
Allen is also founder of Experience Music Project, Seattle's critically acclaimed interactive music museum; the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame; the Flying Heritage Collection, an assemblage of rare World War II aircraft restored to flying condition and shared with the public; and Vulcan Productions, the independent film production company behind the award-winning feature Hard Candy; the Evolution series on PBS; The Blues, executive-produced by Martin Scorsese in conjunction with Allen and Jody Patton; the Emmy Award-winning Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge; and the Peabody Award-winning Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.
About This Video
As the cost of gas skyrocketed last year, I wondered how high it would go before people began to change their behavior. I asked my production company to capture on video how people kept adapting as prices climbed – peaking at three times what they were 10 years ago.
Now the high prices are gone, and so are the headlines and complaints at the pump. But the energy crisis is real. It isn’t about the price of gas. It is about limited resources and environmental damage. It’s about consumption, and our own complacency and resistance to change. It’s a story about us, really – a story of a major threat to our long term survival, and our children’s. When it comes to energy, we’re chasing an unsustainable model. We need to meet the challenge of the future through innovation, discipline, and investments in new forms of energy production. I’ve seen an idea that was hatched in a single garage change the world, so I know it can happen. When the crisis inevitably heats up again, will we respond?
Studies by MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and by McKinsey & Company show that with the right combination of leadership, policy and near-term technology, it’s possible to build a low-carbon economy now.
The most recent report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that human activity is causing an increase in the planet’s average global temperature.
The statistic at the end of Boiling Point is backed by information from the Energy Information Administration.
Boiling Point was made with the help of a terrific team.
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14 comments for "Boiling Point".
1. The frog metaphor captures
The frog metaphor captures the difficulty of getting action against global warming.
The post from teapartyPlanet makes an important message in an unfortunate way. Harmonizing with the resources of planet earth is a good way to move forward.
So how do we do it? Yes, we need true creativity. And we need the motivation of recognizing the problem, because creativity is more likely to spring from email extractor necessity. Inventions usually involve some acceptance of changed ways of doing things.
However, where new concepts honor our choices of the past, those concepts are more likely to be accepted.
2. Video
This video was very helpful. I never realized how bad things were.
3. Boiling point
The frog metaphor captures the difficulty of getting action against global warming.
The post from teapartyPlanet makes an important message in an unfortunate way. Harmonizing with the resources of planet earth is a good way to move forward.
So how do we do it? Yes, we need true creativity. And we need the motivation of recognizing the problem, because creativity is more likely to spring from necessity. Inventions usually involve some acceptance of changed ways of doing things.
However, where new concepts honor our choices of the past, those concepts are more likely to be accepted.
A very different approach to cars and a related electric power generation concept can be seen at www.miastrada.com While this approach is shocking to conventional perceptions of cars, it would enable and even enhance our present distributed life style. Were there to be widespread acceptance of this approach, major reductions in the use of fuel and emission of CO2 would result.
4. Ignoring half the comsumption
It seems like the media always concentrates on the automobile, ignoring the rest of the transportation sector.
Freight trains all over Europe and increasingly in China run on electricity, yet the subject is never heard in the US? Why? Property taxes and private ownership? Do we have a system that is destined to be inefficient because it favors roads and trucks?
Electric cars take more capital investment on the part of their owners than internal combustion cars at present. The same is true of the railroads. Why is the emphasis on the private passenger car? Electric cars are a novelty in the world, electric trains are becoming more common in India and China, but not the US.
In Los Angeles there is a story that they would not convert their buses to trolley buses like some in San Francisco, because they didn't want to look at the wires. Instead they spent fortune on testing fuel cell buses that couldn't be easily maintained. Why so little attention to this?
5. Walk the Talk
Cause if he does, maybe he should lay off the conspicuous consumption himself.
6. Thanks Paul
Good Message. Does Paul Allen think Peak Oil is here?
7. great video
Says a lot in a very simple way.
8. sky-high hypocrisy
So let me get this straight - the guy who burns hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel to fling wealthy "West Egg" thrill seekers into sub-orbital space, and who flies to cocktail parties and football games in his own personal 727 airliner for fun is looking down at the little people commuting to work each day and telling them they need to sacrifice and consume less gas? ...to "change their behavior" because "...its about limited resources and environmental damage."
Indeed.
This video is like watching Ted Haggard preach about the sanctity of marriage vows.
Or it's like watching an Al Gore motorcade arriving to give a speech on the sins of auto emissions.
Mr. Allan is busy living the American dream, reveling in the spoils of a real-life American free-enterprise success story, and all the while telling others they need to play by a set of altruistic second-class-citizen standards he defines for them.
This disconnect and hypocrisy is a vivid illustration of the heart of America's energy challenge. Personal freedom colliding with collective consequence. ...Everybody should conserve and feel guilty ...everybody except me, of course...
This is the real topic that is worthy of exploration.
Can't planetary stewardship be owned by everyone? Shouldn't the "preachers" also sit in the "pews?"
If he wants to improve the world, stop teaching our kids how to blame shift, and take a moment to re-evaluate the "do as the uber-elite say, not as they do" image you project. ...And maybe even show how the economic aristocrats can transcend biological urge and walk the talk.
Get truly creative - show a new lifestyle, one where idle pleasures don't blow a whole in the mesosphere. Harmonize with the resources of planet earth, redefine adventure (remember 20,000 leagues?), and maybe fund the invention of a solar powered jetpack. ...now THAT would be a cool video...
9. This Little Froggy...
Rarely does one see such an important message conveyed in such a catchy and watchable manner!
10. Energy Crisis
Upbeat and sends an important message.
11. You need a frog to tell you?
The literal jump from frogs to gas prices snaps you out of the story and right into reality: we don't care enough about our natural resources. Our friends in Europe pay double for a gallon of gas in comparison, which forces them to take public transportation. I'm afraid we won't get it unless it comes to that!
12. Boiling Point
Good job getting to the point quickly. The music and pacing made me want to watch the vid. This crisis is only going to get worse. Keep educating the public.
13. Important Message!
Driving your car to work is a selfish luxury.
14. Boiling Frog
Great video!
Gas prices going through the roof is CERTAIN to happen again. Do the Math!