Danny Dorling's TEDxExeter talk featured on TED.com

“There are a huge number of good news stories in the world,” says Danny Dorling in his 2016 TEDxExeter talk: Imagining the world anew – redrawing the world map. And now his talk is on TED.com many more people around the world will hear about the constant, incremental changes for the better that rarely feature in the print and broadcast media. This is the 6th TEDxExeter talk to be featured on TED.com

Danny Dorling, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford, challenges us to examine some of our beliefs about the world and open our minds to a new, often unreported reality. Using beautiful and unfamiliar world maps created by Ben Hennig (and shown in colour for the first time) he shows us that in many ways life is slowly getting better and there’s much to be optimistic about, as long as we continue to connect with each other.

“I’m very glad TED.com has decided to feature the talk I gave at TEDxExeter,” said Danny Dorling. “In it I examine new ways of viewing the world, its future, and how we can be a little less afraid if we do not see other people as being our enemy as much as we currently do. We currently fear people from other countries too much, we fear that those in faraway places are taking ‘our jobs’, we fear what we do not know. But if we begin to see the world as a whole, as the place from which we all get our food, as the place that we all pollute, then as our global population begins to stabilise we can learn to become less fearful. Some people learn faster than others. The British Prime Minister, Teresa May, recently said that 'if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere'. It is not her fault that she was taught geography at a time before we could map all the citizens of the world and see that we are each just such a citizen."

“I hope you watch the talk if only to see the weird and wonderful ways in which Benjamin Hennig has remapped the planet. Seeing the earth shaped in proportion to the amount of rain that falls, and how that changes over a year, shows the planet as a single entity that almost appears to have an annual heartbeat. Seeing all the humans of the world drawn on a single projection can help us realise that imagining all of humanity as one is not beyond the scope of our collective imaginations. Let’s see the world anew!”

“Ben has also used this method of remapping the world to map the result of the US presidential election and show that not only did most voters who voted not vote for Trump (which people know), but also that an even larger majority of Americans live in areas which did not vote for Trump.

Democrat areas are coloured blue on Ben’s map of the election result. On the traditional map it looks as if Trump had a great deal of support. On the correct map it is made clear that only a very small minority of Americans supported him and that he has only won office due to the US voting system and because there is so much disaffection there (so many people don’t vote). You can find out more on Ben Hennig’s website Views of the World”

TEDxExeter’s licensee and curator Claire Kennedy adds: “We work hard to bring exceptional speakers to share their ideas at TEDxExeter and we are delighted that Danny’s TEDxExeter talk has been selected for TED.com. Our experience with previous talks featured on TED.com shows that this talk of global importance will reach a huge audience all around the world.

“Ideas generated here at TEDxExeter inspire and impact people in incredible ways. Our audience grows bigger each year, both the audience watching our event live on the day and through the livestream, and those who watch our talks online afterwards. Our TEDxExeter talks have been viewed over 7.5 million times, and rising, and having more talks on TED.com will increase the reach and impact of our speakers’ ideas.”

This is the 6th TEDxExeter talk to be featured on TED.com. Karima Bennoune shares stories of real people fighting against fundamentalism in their own communities; Scilla Elworthy speaks on non violence; Bandi Mbubi calls for fair trade phones; and slam poet Harry Baker wins over audiences with his love poem for lonely prime numbers. Four of our TEDxExeter 2016 talks have been selected to be featured on TED.com including this talk by Danny Dorling and Manwar Ali’s powerful plea to reclaim the meaning of jihad.
Some TEDxExeter talks have been featured by TED as among the best of the best. Two of the nine talks on TED.com’s Road to Peace playlist are from TEDxExeter, the Talks to Restore your Faith in Humanity contains a talk from TEDxExeter, and Michelle Ryan’s 2015 talk tops the TEDx YouTube playlist on The Way we Work.

Tickets for TEDxExeter 2017 - HOPE - will be released for sale at 10am on 1 December from the Exeter Northcott Theatre.