TEDxOslo - Angela Morelli - The Global Water Footprint of Humanity

Angela Morelli is an Italian information designer based in London. Her love of mathematics led to an engineering degree from the Politecnico of Milan. Her love of design led to a long journey through industrial, communication and information design. Her love for the planet led to a strong passion for global water issues. Her love for science led to dialogues and collaborations with research and commercial organisations in Europe.
She believes that bringing about change is not an easy task and it can only follow from a true understanding of a problem, from awareness and reflection. Design has a vital, irreplaceable role to play in achieving this understanding through empathic thinking and emotional intelligence.
She speaks regularly at international conferences and enjoys teaching as Associate Lecturer at Central St Martins.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

[@craigholman1161]

Excellent presentation. As you note the majority of the water issue is NOT from our domestic use, i.e. toilets, brushing teeth, showering. I don't minimize those as they are important. But the greatest area of water use is in the area of agribusiness. If there was one thing that could help dramatically the water problem it would be to go to a whole food plant based diet. It would be more healthy, more economical and more environmentally useful including climate change. Education of people to this end is invaluable. Tony Allen is outstanding. He would be proud of you for this presentation. Keep up your passion. Eat your broccoli.

[@camillablockhellum9637]

What a great speach and presentation! I really feel wiser after 17 minutes. Thank you!

[@MarkGregoryprofile]

Excellent presentation and very thought provoking.

[@reynaldothompson]

Extraordinary work, especially her animation about water. Congratulations

[@michaelbryant3512]

Excellent explanation of this global footprint of humanity.

[@mmatss]

The lions share of the water used in food production is used in irrigation systems, so if you want to tackle this subject from the food point of view and lessen the water footprint of your food in particular, you'd do wisely to choose locally prodused organic vegetables and pasture-raised animals. Done this way, the farming (and your subsequent eating habits) are more in line with the natural hydrological cycle - the pastures and small local farms are irrigated by rainfall and do not tap into water reserves through irrigation systems. At the same time transport miles (both of fodder for the animals - nonexistent since they naturally eat grass from the ground, and of the final farm products) are cut to a minimum, leading to an overall minimal environmental footprint. Things to avoid are rice and factory-raised beef, all the worse if it's foreign (extra mileage). This is coming from an engineering student currently taking a course in water- and evironmental technology, happy to share.

[@PaulAndersonDonegal]

Great Presentation full of so important information presented with such interesting expert enthusiasm and what a lovely accent too:-)

[@bossB38]

Excellent presentation, and very insightful to a future Hydrologist

[@aferpo83]

Anybody knows where can I find the translation of this video in Spanish?

[@german8284]

angela says: 92% of water we consume (an ave person in the world) is in the food we eat. comparatively, only 3.2% is in household water consumption (showers, dishwashers, clothes-washing, etc). [a comparison of ave persons in some different countries would be interesting for these stats too.] angela goes on to say: things that count include farming practices, and consumption choices (amount of meat, and amount of wasted food). [i also wondered about packaging.]

[@robertamerlo342]

WHAT should we eat then? HOW can we know what kind of food uses less water to get to our tables in order to choose it?

[@diesdasananas3696]

inform? when you really want it, you will find many websites with information

[@brownsugarbae902]

I wish i could understand it

[@mysarita88]

the sound quality isn't very good but she has a cute accent jejeje good video!

[@tamannamohapatra2837]

92% of our water footprint comes from food- big yikes! eating meat is a big cause of this as are inefficient production means, food waste etc.

[@Permaculturedesigner]

'Water is a fixed amount' please see chemical equation for photosythesis

[@boredlord6575]

+permaculturedesigner i am no chemist, but 6CO_2 + 6H_2O ------> C_2H_12O_6 + 6O_2 6H2 should contain the same amount of whater as H_12, isn't it?

[@Permaculturedesigner]

By that I meant that photosynthesis is the only reaction in the water cycle that breaks apart water and turns it into something else, carbohydrate. Otherwise total water is fixed as it requires a tremendous amount of energy to pry it apart.

[@boredlord6575]

sure, i was just making a point that it doesn't disapear :). In a way it's still there

[@Permaculturedesigner]

As oxygen. And carbohydrates. But it's not water any more. And so in biosphere/ atmosphere calculations, things like carbon dioxide/ photosythesis feedback, once photosynthesis has made it not water, it is no longer water, so WATER IS NOT A FIXED AMOUNT in the biospheric gas and water cycles.

[@saeedkarimzadeh3684]

maybe it's time to change our usual diet or at least consider virtual water while we are shopping.