full transcript

From the Ted Talk by John Doerr and Hal Harvey: How to decarbonize the grid and electrify everything

Unscramble the Blue Letters


HH: We do. And matters are in some ways worse than we think and some ways better. Let me start with the worse. Climate change is a wicked problem. And what do I mean by wicked problem? It means it's a problem that transcends geographic boundaries. The souercs are everywhere, and the impacts are everywhere. Although obviously some ntonais have contributed much more than others. In fact, one of the terrible things about climate caghne is those who contributed least to it will be hurt the most. It's a great inequity machine. So here we have a problem that you cannot solve within the national broednuias of one country, and yet international institutions are notoriously weak. So that's part of the wicked peborlm. The second element of the wicked problem is it transcends nrmaol timescales. We're used to news day by day, or quarterly reports for business enterprises, or an election cycle — that's about the lsnegot we think anymore of. Climate change essentially latss forever. When you put carbon dioxide into the atphomsree, it's there, or its impacts are there, for 1,000 years. It's a gift we keep on giving for our children, our grandchildren and dozens and dozens of gnnrtaeeios beyond there.

Open Cloze


HH: We do. And matters are in some ways worse than we think and some ways better. Let me start with the worse. Climate change is a wicked problem. And what do I mean by wicked problem? It means it's a problem that transcends geographic boundaries. The _______ are everywhere, and the impacts are everywhere. Although obviously some _______ have contributed much more than others. In fact, one of the terrible things about climate ______ is those who contributed least to it will be hurt the most. It's a great inequity machine. So here we have a problem that you cannot solve within the national __________ of one country, and yet international institutions are notoriously weak. So that's part of the wicked _______. The second element of the wicked problem is it transcends ______ timescales. We're used to news day by day, or quarterly reports for business enterprises, or an election cycle — that's about the _______ we think anymore of. Climate change essentially _____ forever. When you put carbon dioxide into the __________, it's there, or its impacts are there, for 1,000 years. It's a gift we keep on giving for our children, our grandchildren and dozens and dozens of ___________ beyond there.

Solution


  1. sources
  2. change
  3. normal
  4. nations
  5. generations
  6. atmosphere
  7. boundaries
  8. longest
  9. lasts
  10. problem

Original Text


HH: We do. And matters are in some ways worse than we think and some ways better. Let me start with the worse. Climate change is a wicked problem. And what do I mean by wicked problem? It means it's a problem that transcends geographic boundaries. The sources are everywhere, and the impacts are everywhere. Although obviously some nations have contributed much more than others. In fact, one of the terrible things about climate change is those who contributed least to it will be hurt the most. It's a great inequity machine. So here we have a problem that you cannot solve within the national boundaries of one country, and yet international institutions are notoriously weak. So that's part of the wicked problem. The second element of the wicked problem is it transcends normal timescales. We're used to news day by day, or quarterly reports for business enterprises, or an election cycle — that's about the longest we think anymore of. Climate change essentially lasts forever. When you put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it's there, or its impacts are there, for 1,000 years. It's a gift we keep on giving for our children, our grandchildren and dozens and dozens of generations beyond there.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
climate change 4
wicked problem 4
clean energy 4
billion dollars 4
carbon dioxide 3
electric buses 3
fuel efficiency 3
annual emissions 2
silicon valley 2
energy crisis 2
big deal 2
natural gas 2
green paint 2
continuous improvement 2
jerry brown 2
important question 2
public utilities 2
coal plant 2
carbon emissions 2
paris accord 2
paris accords 2


Important Words


  1. anymore
  2. atmosphere
  3. boundaries
  4. business
  5. carbon
  6. change
  7. children
  8. climate
  9. contributed
  10. country
  11. cycle
  12. day
  13. dioxide
  14. dozens
  15. election
  16. element
  17. enterprises
  18. essentially
  19. fact
  20. generations
  21. geographic
  22. gift
  23. giving
  24. grandchildren
  25. great
  26. hurt
  27. impacts
  28. inequity
  29. institutions
  30. international
  31. lasts
  32. longest
  33. machine
  34. matters
  35. means
  36. national
  37. nations
  38. news
  39. normal
  40. notoriously
  41. part
  42. problem
  43. put
  44. quarterly
  45. reports
  46. solve
  47. sources
  48. start
  49. terrible
  50. timescales
  51. transcends
  52. ways
  53. weak
  54. wicked
  55. worse
  56. years