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 a paisagem do petróleo

Filmed:
550,970 views

Em impressionantes fotografias em grande formato, Edward Burtynsky segue o trajeto do petróleo através da sociedade moderna, do poço ao gasoduto ao motor de carro - e, em seguida, além para o pico projetado para o fim do petróleo.
- 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.

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I started my journey 30 years ago.
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Comecei minha jornada há 30 anos atrás.
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And I worked in mines. And I realized that
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Eu trabalhei em minas. E percebi que
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this was a world unseen.
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este era um mundo invisível.
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And I wanted, through color and large format cameras
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E eu quis, através de cores e câmeras para formatos grandes
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and very large prints,
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e impressões gigantes,
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to make a body of work that somehow
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criar um conjunto de obras que de alguma forma
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became symbols of our
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se tornou símbolos do nosso
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use of the landscape,
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uso da paisagem,
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how we use the land.
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como usamos os terrenos.
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And to me this was
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E para mim isto foi
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a key component that somehow, through this medium of photography,
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um componente chave que de alguma forma, através deste meio da fotografia,
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which allows us to contemplate these landscapes,
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que nos permite contemplar essas paisagens,
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that I thought photography was perfectly suited
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as quais imaginei se encaixarem perfeitamente em fotografias
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to doing this type of work.
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para fazer este tipo de trabalho.
00:48
And after 17 years of photographing large industrial landscapes,
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E depois de 17 anos fotografando grandes paisagens industriais,
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it occurred to me that
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me veio à mente que
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oil is underpinning the scale and speed.
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o petróleo está sustentando a escala e velocidade,
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Because that is what has changed,
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porque isto é o que tem mudado,
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is the speed at which we're taking all our resources.
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é a velocidade na qual estamos consumindo os recursos.
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And so then I went out to develop a whole series
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Então eu comecei a desenvolver uma série inteira
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on the landscape of oil.
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sobre o panorama do petróleo.
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And what I want to do is to kind of map an arc
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E o que eu quero fazer é algo como mapear a curva
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that there is extraction, where we're taking it from the ground,
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de onde há extração, de onde estamos tirando do solo,
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refinement. And that's one chapter.
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refinamento. E isso é um capítulo.
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The other chapter that I wanted to look at was
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O outro capítulo que eu gostaria de examinar é
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how we use it -- our cities,
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como utilizamos isso, nossas cidades,
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our cars, our motorcultures,
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nossos carros, nossas culturas de veículos motorizados,
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where people gather around the vehicle
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nas quais as pessoas se juntam ao redor do veículo
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as a celebration.
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para celebrá-lo.
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And then the third one is this idea of the end of oil,
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O terceiro capítulo é sobre esta idéia do fim do petróleo,
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this entropic end,
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este fim entrópico,
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where all of our parts of cars, our tires,
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no qual todas as partes dos carros, nossos pneus,
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oil filters,
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filtros de óleo,
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helicopters, planes --
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helicópteros, aviões --
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where are the landscapes where all of that stuff ends up?
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onde estão os cenários onde todas estas coisas vão parar?
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And to me, again, photography was
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E para mim, novamente, a fotografia foi
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a way in which I could explore and research the world,
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a forma na qual eu poderia explorar e pesquisar o mundo,
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and find those places.
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e encontrar esses lugares.
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And another idea that I had as well,
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E uma outra idéia que eu também tive,
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that was brought forward by an ecologist --
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que foi levada adiante por um ecologista --
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he basically did a calculation where
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Ele basicamente fez um cálculo no qual
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he took one liter of gas and said,
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ele considerou um litro de gasolina e disse,
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well, how much carbon it would take, and how much organic material?
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bem, quanto de carbono teria ali, e quanto material orgânico?
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It was 23 metric tons for one liter.
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Era 23 toneladas por litro.
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So whenever I fill up my gas,
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Então toda vez que encho o tanque,
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I think of that liter, and how much carbon.
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penso naquele litro e na quantidade de carbono.
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And I know that oil comes from the ocean and phytoplankton,
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E eu sei que o petróleo vem do oceano, do fitoplâncton.
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but he did the calculations for our Earth
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Mas ele fez os cálculo para nosso planeta Terra
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and what it had to do to produce that amount of energy.
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e o que ele teria que fazer para produzir aquela quantidade de energia.
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From the photosynthetic growth,
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De crescimento fotosintético,
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it would take 500 years of that growth
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levaria 500 anos daquele crescimento
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to produce what we use, the 30 billion barrels we use per year.
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para produzir o que usamos, os 30 milhões de barris que consumimos por ano.
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And that also brought me to the fact that
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Isso também me alertou para o fato do
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this poses such a risk to our society.
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enorme risco para a nossa sociedade.
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Looking at 30 billion per year,
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Olhando para 30 bilhões por ano,
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we look at our two largest suppliers,
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vemos nossos dois maiores fornecedores,
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Saudi Arabia and now Canada, with its dirty oil.
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Arábia Saudita, e agora Canadá, com seu petróleo sujo.
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And together they only form about 15 years of supply.
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E juntos eles só formam cerca de 15 anos de suprimento.
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The whole world, at 1.2 trillion estimated reserves,
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O mundo inteiro com reservas estimadas em 1.2 trilhões,
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only gives us about 45 years.
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nos dá apenas 45 anos.
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So, it's not a question of if, but a question of when
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Então, não é uma questão de se, é uma questão de quando
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peak oil will come upon us.
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o pico do petróleo virá sobre nós.
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So, to me, using photography --
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Então, para mim, usando a fotografia --
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and I feel that all of us need to now begin to really
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e sinto que todos nós agora realmente necessitamos
03:01
take the task of using our talents,
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assumir a tarefa de usar nossos talentos,
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our ways of thinking,
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nossas maneiras de pensar,
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to begin to deal with what I think is probably
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para começar a lidar com o que eu acho que é provavelmente
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one of the most challenging issues of our time,
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uma das questões mais desafiadoras do nosso tempo,
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how to deal with our energy crisis.
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como lidar com a crise energética.
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And I would like to say that, on the other side of it,
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E eu gostaria de dizer que, do outro lado disso,
03:15
30, 40 years from now, the children that I have,
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daqui a 30, 40 anos, para os meus filhos,
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I can look at them and say, "We did everything
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podendo olhar para elas e dizer. "Fizemos tudo
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we possibly, humanly could do,
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que humanamente foi possível ser feito,
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to begin to mitigate this,
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para começar a atenuar isto,
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what I feel is one of the most important and critical
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o que sinto que é um dos mais importantes e críticos
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moments in our time. Thank you.
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momentos de nosso tempo. Obrigado.
03:30
(Applause)
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(Aplausos)
Translated by Rafael Eufrasio

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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

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