ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Edward Burtynsky - Photographer
2005 TED Prize winner Edward Burtynsky has made it his life's work to document humanity's impact on the planet. His riveting photographs, as beautiful as they are horrifying, capture views of the Earth altered by mankind.

Why you should listen

To describe Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky's work in a single adjective, you have to speak French: jolie-laide. His images of scarred landscapes -- from mountains of tires to rivers of bright orange waste from a nickel mine -- are eerily pretty yet ugly at the same time. Burtynsky's large-format color photographs explore the impact of humanity's expanding footprint and the substantial ways in which we're reshaping the surface of the planet. His images powerfully alter the way we think about the world and our place in it.

With his blessing and encouragement, WorldChanging.com and others use his work to inspire ongoing global conversations about sustainable living. Burtynsky's photographs are included in the collections of over 50 museums around the world, including the Tate, London and the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim in New York City. A large-format book, 2003's Manufactured Landscapes, collected his work, and in 2007, a documentary based on his photography, also called Manufactured Landscapes, debuted at the Toronto Film Festival before going on to screen at Sundance and elsewhere. It was released on DVD in March 2007. In 2008, after giving a talk at the Long Now Foundation, Burtynsky proposed "The 10,000 Year Gallery," which could house art to be curated over thousands of years preserved through carbon transfers in an effort to reflect the attitudes and changes of the world over time. 

When Burtynsky accepted his 2005 TED Prize, he made three wishes. One of his wishes: to build a website that will help kids think about going green. Thanks to WGBH and the TED community, the show and site Meet the Greens debuted at TED2007. His second wish: to begin work on an Imax film, which morphed into the jaw-dropping film Manufactured Landscapes with Jennifer Baichwal. And his third wish, wider in scope, was simply to encourage "a massive and productive worldwide conversation about sustainable living." Thanks to his help and the input of the TED community, the site WorldChanging.com got an infusion of energy that has helped it to grow into a leading voice in the sustainability community.

In 2016, he won a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for his work.

More profile about the speaker
Edward Burtynsky | Speaker | TED.com
TEDGlobal 2009

Edward Burtynsky: Photographing the landscape of oil

Edward Burtynsky fotografa i paesaggi del petrolio

Filmed:
550,970 views

Con le sue spettacolari fotografie panoramiche, Edward Burtynsky segue il percorso che il petrolio compie attraverso la società moderna -- dai pozzi agli oleodotti fino ai serbatoi delle auto -- e poi oltre, al preannunciato scenario finale del picco.
- Photographer
2005 TED Prize winner Edward Burtynsky has made it his life's work to document humanity's impact on the planet. His riveting photographs, as beautiful as they are horrifying, capture views of the Earth altered by mankind. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:15
I startediniziato my journeyviaggio 30 yearsanni agofa.
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Ho iniziato questo viaggio 30 anni fa,
00:18
And I workedlavorato in minesminiere. And I realizedrealizzato that
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mi ero occupato di miniere. E avevo compreso
00:20
this was a worldmondo unseeninvisibile.
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che questo era un mondo che restava invisibile.
00:22
And I wanted, throughattraverso colorcolore and largegrande formatformato camerasmacchine fotografiche
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Allora ho voluto, con fotocamere a colori e di grande formato,
00:24
and very largegrande printsstampe,
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e con stampe giganti,
00:26
to make a bodycorpo of work that somehowin qualche modo
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produrre un'opera che in qualche modo
00:28
becamedivenne symbolssimboli of our
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diventasse il simbolo del nostro
00:31
use of the landscapepaesaggio,
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uso del paesaggio,
00:33
how we use the landsbarcare.
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di come usiamo la terra.
00:35
And to me this was
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Per me il punto fondamentale
00:37
a keychiave componentcomponente that somehowin qualche modo, throughattraverso this mediummedio of photographyfotografia,
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è stato questo: usare il mezzo fotografico,
00:40
whichquale allowsconsente us to contemplatecontemplare these landscapespaesaggi,
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che ci permette di contemplare questi paesaggi,
00:43
that I thought photographyfotografia was perfectlyperfettamente suitedadatto
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la fotografia, ho pensato, è proprio adatta
00:46
to doing this typetipo of work.
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per fare questo lavoro.
00:48
And after 17 yearsanni of photographingFotografare largegrande industrialindustriale landscapespaesaggi,
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E dopo 17 anni che fotografavo questi grandi paesaggi industriali,
00:52
it occurredsi è verificato to me that
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mi è stato chiaro che
00:54
oilolio is underpinningsostegno alla the scalescala and speedvelocità.
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è il petrolio la causa dell'impatto e della velocità
00:56
Because that is what has changedcambiato,
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Perché questo è cambiato:
00:58
is the speedvelocità at whichquale we're takingpresa all our resourcesrisorse.
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il ritmo col quale sfruttiamo le nostre risorse.
01:01
And so then I wentandato out to developsviluppare a wholetotale seriesserie
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Così ho cominciato a sviluppare una intera serie
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on the landscapepaesaggio of oilolio.
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sui paesaggi del petrolio.
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And what I want to do is to kindgenere of mapcarta geografica an arcarco
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Quel che voglio fare è una specie di mappa del percorso:
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that there is extractionestrazione, where we're takingpresa it from the groundterra,
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c'è l'estrazione, quando prendiamo [il petrolio] dal sottosuolo,
01:13
refinementraffinatezza. And that's one chaptercapitolo.
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c'è la raffinazione. Questo è un capitolo.
01:15
The other chaptercapitolo that I wanted to look at was
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Un altro capitolo che ho considerato è
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how we use it -- our citiescittà,
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come lo utilizziamo: le nostre città,
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our carsautomobili, our motorculturesmotorcultures,
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le nostre auto, la nostra cultura dei motori,
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where people gatherraccogliere around the vehicleveicolo
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dove la gente si raccoglie intorno ai veicoli
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as a celebrationcelebrazione.
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come in una celebrazione.
01:27
And then the thirdterzo one is this ideaidea of the endfine of oilolio,
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E il terzo [capitolo] è l'idea del capolinea del petrolio,
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this entropicentropico endfine,
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questa fine entropica, disordinata,
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where all of our partsparti of carsautomobili, our tirespneumatici,
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dove [ci sono] i pezzi delle nostre auto, i nostri pneumatici,
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oilolio filtersfiltri,
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i filtri dell'olio,
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helicopterselicotteri, planesaerei --
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elicotteri, aeroplani.
01:38
where are the landscapespaesaggi where all of that stuffcose endsestremità up?
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Dove sono i paesaggi in cui tutte queste cose vanno a finire?
01:41
And to me, again, photographyfotografia was
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Per me, ancora una volta, la fotografia
01:43
a way in whichquale I could exploreEsplorare and researchricerca the worldmondo,
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ha rappresentato un modo per esplorare il mondo,
01:46
and find those placesposti.
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cercare e trovare quei luoghi.
01:48
And anotherun altro ideaidea that I had as well,
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E ho avuto anche un'altra idea,
01:50
that was broughtportato forwardinoltrare by an ecologistecologo --
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che è stata portata avanti da un ecologista --
01:54
he basicallyfondamentalmente did a calculationcalcolo where
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Fondamentalmente, lui ha fatto un calcolo.
01:57
he tookha preso one literlitro of gasgas and said,
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Preso un litro di benzina, ha detto:
01:59
well, how much carboncarbonio it would take, and how much organicbiologico materialMateriale?
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"Quanto carbonio serve, e quanto materiale organico?"
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It was 23 metricmetrico tonstonnellate for one literlitro.
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Il totale era 23 tonnellate per un litro.
02:06
So wheneverogni volta I fillriempire up my gasgas,
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Così ogni volta che faccio il pieno di benzina
02:08
I think of that literlitro, and how much carboncarbonio.
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penso a quanta materia organica rappresenta.
02:10
And I know that oilolio comesviene from the oceanoceano and phytoplanktonfitoplancton,
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Io so che il petrolio deriva dagli oceani e dal fitoplancton,
02:13
but he did the calculationscalcoli for our EarthTerra
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ma lui ha fatto i conti per l'intero pianeta,
02:16
and what it had to do to produceprodurre that amountquantità of energyenergia.
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considerando quanto è servito alla Terra per produrre quell'energia.
02:18
From the photosyntheticfotosintetici growthcrescita,
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Facendoli produrre alle piante,
02:20
it would take 500 yearsanni of that growthcrescita
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servirebbero 500 anni di fotosintesi
02:23
to produceprodurre what we use, the 30 billionmiliardo barrelsbotti we use perper yearanno.
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per produrre i 30 miliardi di barili che usiamo ogni anno.
02:28
And that alsoanche broughtportato me to the factfatto that
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Questi conti mi hanno portato a considerare
02:30
this posespose suchcome a riskrischio to our societysocietà.
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il grande rischio che corre la nostra società.
02:33
Looking at 30 billionmiliardo perper yearanno,
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Rispetto a questi 30 miliardi [di barili] all'anno,
02:38
we look at our two largestmaggiore suppliersfornitori,
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guardiamo i nostri due maggiori fornitori,
02:40
SaudiArabia Saudita ArabiaArabia and now CanadaCanada, with its dirtysporco oilolio.
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l'Arabia Saudita e adesso anche il Canada, col suo petrolio sporco:
02:42
And togetherinsieme they only formmodulo about 15 yearsanni of supplyfornitura.
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insieme rappresentano solo circa 15 anni di fornitura.
02:46
The wholetotale worldmondo, at 1.2 trilliontrilioni di estimatedstimato reservesriserve,
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Il mondo intero, con le sue riserve stimate in 1.200 miliardi [di barili],
02:49
only givesdà us about 45 yearsanni.
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ci dà solo circa 45 anni.
02:51
So, it's not a questiondomanda of if, but a questiondomanda of when
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Insomma: non è questione di "se", ma di quando
02:54
peakpicco oilolio will come uponsu us.
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il picco del petrolio piomberà su di noi.
02:56
So, to me, usingutilizzando photographyfotografia --
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Ecco, per me, usare la fotografia...
02:58
and I feel that all of us need to now begininizio to really
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io sento che tutti noi dobbiamo incominciare
03:01
take the taskcompito of usingutilizzando our talentstalenti,
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a prenderci il compito di usare i nostri talenti,
03:03
our waysmodi of thinkingpensiero,
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i nostri modi di pensare,
03:06
to begininizio to dealaffare with what I think is probablyprobabilmente
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per iniziare ad affrontare quella che penso sia
03:08
one of the mostmaggior parte challengingstimolante issuesproblemi of our time,
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forse la sfida più grande del nostro tempo:
03:11
how to dealaffare with our energyenergia crisiscrisi.
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come fare i conti con la crisi energetica.
03:13
And I would like to say that, on the other sidelato of it,
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E mi piacerebbe dire -- una volta passato l'ostacolo,
03:15
30, 40 yearsanni from now, the childrenbambini that I have,
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tra 30 o 40 anni -- ai miei bambini,
03:17
I can look at them and say, "We did everything
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[vorrei] poterli guardare e dire loro: "Abbiamo fatto
03:19
we possiblypossibilmente, humanlyumanamente could do,
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tutto quello che ci è stato umanamente possibile
03:22
to begininizio to mitigatemitigare this,
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per mitigare tutto ciò", e penso che questo
03:25
what I feel is one of the mostmaggior parte importantimportante and criticalcritico
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sia uno dei momenti più importanti
03:27
momentsmomenti in our time. Thank you.
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e critici del nostro tempo. Grazie.
03:30
(ApplauseApplausi)
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(Applausi)
Translated by Annalisa Paini
Reviewed by Francesco Rustichelli

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Edward Burtynsky - Photographer
2005 TED Prize winner Edward Burtynsky has made it his life's work to document humanity's impact on the planet. His riveting photographs, as beautiful as they are horrifying, capture views of the Earth altered by mankind.

Why you should listen

To describe Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky's work in a single adjective, you have to speak French: jolie-laide. His images of scarred landscapes -- from mountains of tires to rivers of bright orange waste from a nickel mine -- are eerily pretty yet ugly at the same time. Burtynsky's large-format color photographs explore the impact of humanity's expanding footprint and the substantial ways in which we're reshaping the surface of the planet. His images powerfully alter the way we think about the world and our place in it.

With his blessing and encouragement, WorldChanging.com and others use his work to inspire ongoing global conversations about sustainable living. Burtynsky's photographs are included in the collections of over 50 museums around the world, including the Tate, London and the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim in New York City. A large-format book, 2003's Manufactured Landscapes, collected his work, and in 2007, a documentary based on his photography, also called Manufactured Landscapes, debuted at the Toronto Film Festival before going on to screen at Sundance and elsewhere. It was released on DVD in March 2007. In 2008, after giving a talk at the Long Now Foundation, Burtynsky proposed "The 10,000 Year Gallery," which could house art to be curated over thousands of years preserved through carbon transfers in an effort to reflect the attitudes and changes of the world over time. 

When Burtynsky accepted his 2005 TED Prize, he made three wishes. One of his wishes: to build a website that will help kids think about going green. Thanks to WGBH and the TED community, the show and site Meet the Greens debuted at TED2007. His second wish: to begin work on an Imax film, which morphed into the jaw-dropping film Manufactured Landscapes with Jennifer Baichwal. And his third wish, wider in scope, was simply to encourage "a massive and productive worldwide conversation about sustainable living." Thanks to his help and the input of the TED community, the site WorldChanging.com got an infusion of energy that has helped it to grow into a leading voice in the sustainability community.

In 2016, he won a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for his work.

More profile about the speaker
Edward Burtynsky | Speaker | TED.com
THE ORIGINAL VIDEO ON TED.COM