TED Talks Daily - The satellite helping slow climate change — right now | Millie Chu Baird

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

Meet MethaneSAT: the satellite circling Earth right now to track global emissions from methane: a highly potent, short-term greenhouse gas. Environmental advocate Millie Chu Baird details the... heat-trapping side effects of a planet full of methane — and explains why understanding where it comes from and taking steps to reduce it is the single most important thing we can do to affect climate change in our lifetimes. (MethaneSAT is part of the Audacious Project, TED's initiative to inspire and fund global change.)

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Starting point is 00:00:00 TED Audio Collective. You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. You can't change what you can't measure. That's the idea behind the work of today's speaker, Millie Chu Baird. She's an environmental advocate working on a sweeping project to operate a satellite that tracks methane emissions.
Starting point is 00:00:30 Methane is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. Getting a better sense of where it's coming from is a powerful tool to reduce it and reduce climate change in our lifetimes. She explains after the break. Support for this show comes from Airbnb. If you know me, you know I love staying in Airbnbs when I travel. They make my family feel most at home when we're away from home. As we settled down at our Airbnb during a recent vacation to Palm Springs, I pictured my own home sitting empty.
Starting point is 00:01:03 Wouldn't it be smart and better put to use welcoming a family like mine by hosting it on Airbnb? It feels like the practical thing to do, and with the extra income, I could save up for renovations to make the space even more inviting for ourselves and for future guests. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. AI keeping you up at night? Wondering what it means for your business? Don't miss the latest season of Disruptors,
Starting point is 00:01:38 the podcast that takes a closer look at the innovations reshaping our economy. Join RBC's John Stackhouse and Sonia Sinek from Creative Destruction Lab as they ask bold questions like, why is Canada lagging in AI adoption and how to catch up? Don't get left behind. Listen to Disruptors, the innovation era, and stay ahead of the game in this fast-changing world. Follow Disruptors on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. I want to tell you about a podcast I love called Search Engine, hosted by PJ Vogt. Each week, he and his team answer these perfect questions, the kind of questions that, when you ask them at a dinner party, completely derail conversation. Questions about business, tech, and society, like,
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Starting point is 00:02:47 My husband, my daughters, and a lot of my colleagues love rockets and pretty much anything that has to do with space. It's never really been my thing. However, I recently went to a rocket launch, and I can honestly say that I got emotional. And the emotion that I felt wasn't just thrill or awe. It was hope. Because my colleagues and I helped put something on that rocket
Starting point is 00:03:12 that will address the single most important thing we can do to affect climate change in our lifetimes. We often hear about things we can do to help our grandchildren and the Earth that they'll inherit, and everything we're doing to reduce carbon dioxide will certainly help in the long run. But what if we could do something that would help people's lives now? I believe we can, because we're taking on methane.
Starting point is 00:03:39 Methane is a highly potent, short-term greenhouse gas. Let's compare this year's carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels with this year's methane pollution. There is a lot more CO2. However, because methane is over 80 times as powerful at trapping heat in the short term, methane will cause as much warming as all that CO2. And methane is easier to control if we know where it's coming from.
Starting point is 00:04:11 So what was on that rocket that makes me so hopeful? MethaneSat. It's one of thousands of active satellites orbiting the Earth. But it's my favorite, not just because we helped put it there, but because we designed it for a purpose, to have a profound impact on methane and Zoon. For the past 20 years,
Starting point is 00:04:36 my job has been to understand climate from a variety of angles, to be a bridge between scientists, policymakers, and companies, ensuring that we're all working towards the same big vision. And the vision for MethaneSat is to deliver actionable data quickly, putting it in the hands of people in the trenches pushing for change. Now, methane comes from several sources.
Starting point is 00:04:59 It comes from cows, it comes from landfills, it comes from coal mines, and a lot of it comes from leaks from the oil and gas infrastructure. For a while, we've known what the overall concentration of methane is in the atmosphere, but we haven't been able to pinpoint sources and tell how much was coming from where. In fact, companies and governments often under-report their emissions
Starting point is 00:05:26 because they simply haven't had good data. But now they will. When we looked at the data we were collecting using airplanes, we realized that we would never get a comprehensive enough view. We simply cannot fly an airplane over every oil and gas field in the world every day. We realized that we needed to be collecting our data using a satellite. And that satellite would need spectrometers that did not yet exist. So we went to the world's most innovative instrument experts, and they helped us build two spectrometers that would allow us to see methane
Starting point is 00:06:05 emissions from 590 kilometers away from space. They had to develop a new manufacturing technique to create a prism that would allow us to see how even the smallest concentrations of methane interact with light. It's pretty amazing. And now, back to the episode. To give you a sense of the power of methane sat, we'll be able to zoom in and out and circle back weekly to see how emissions have changed. Methane sat will show the total picture. Not just point sources or large leaks,
Starting point is 00:06:46 but also the smaller, more spread-out sources that actually make up the majority of emissions most of the time. Methane sat will show how much methane is coming from where over time. But after we do our analysis on it, we still have to solve a people challenge and change human behavior. So we'll put our analysis directly in the hands of those who can take action to reduce methane from oil and gas. That would be government regulators,
Starting point is 00:07:18 the companies themselves, and non-profits who will be receiving our data at no cost. Fixing leaks is actually not a technical challenge. the companies themselves, and nonprofits who will be receiving our data at no cost. Fixing leaks is actually not a technical challenge. Often, it's as easy as fixing a crack in a pipe. Companies know how to do this. It's just a matter of priority, and that's what I mean by a people challenge.
Starting point is 00:07:44 Environmental Defense Fund is taking this on as the first environmental nonprofit to own and operate a satellite. We are supporting both the technology and the advocacy. MethaneSat would not exist without generous donors, some of whom are a part of this TED community. We'd like to thank you for your belief in our mission. We'd also like to thank government entities like the New Zealand Space Agency, who have invested in MethaneSat to build their space capacity,
Starting point is 00:08:11 but also to better understand methane emissions from agriculture. With powerful data and boots on the ground, our goal is to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas facilities by 75 percent in the next six years. That's 75 percent. It's a lot, and we have momentum. Fifty companies representing 40 percent of global oil and gas production have already pledged to cut their methane emissions by 90 percent by 2030.
Starting point is 00:08:54 Over 150 countries have signed the Global Methane Pledge to be a part of the solution. Purchasers can also influence sellers. The largest importer of natural gas in the world, the European Union, and they've already started the solution. Purchasers can also influence sellers. The largest importer of natural gas in the world, the European Union, is already taking steps to extend its rules to apply to imports and setting in place rules
Starting point is 00:09:18 that will allow them to buy from suppliers that have the least methane emissions. And MethaneSat will help track all of that. It's powerful when countries and companies have this knowledge, but it's even more powerful when we all have the knowledge, because it provides the information and the incentive for people to fulfill their commitments. This kind of radical transparency changes the dynamic. It's what makes me hopeful, and I hope you share that feeling as well. With methane sat in space and the power of people on Earth, let's do everything we can, as quickly as we can, to slow the rate of global warming in our lifetimes. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:10:12 Support for this show comes from Airbnb. If you know me, you know I love staying in Airbnbs when I travel. They make my family feel most at home when we're away from home. As we settled down at our Airbnb during a recent vacation to Palm Springs, I pictured my own home sitting empty. Wouldn't it be smart and better put to use welcoming a family like mine by hosting it on Airbnb? It feels like the practical thing to do, and with the extra income, I could save up for renovations to make the space even more inviting for ourselves and for future guests. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. That was Millie Chu Baird at TED 2024. And this ambitious idea is part of the Audacious Project, TED's initiative to inspire and fund
Starting point is 00:10:57 global change. You can learn more at audaciousproject.org. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at ted.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Autumn Thompson, and Alejandra Salazar. It was mixed by Christopher Faisy-Bogan.
Starting point is 00:11:21 Additional support from Emma Taubner, Daniela Balarezo, and Will Hennessey. I'm Elise Hugh. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening. Looking for a fun challenge to share with your friends and family? TED now has games designed to keep your mind sharp while having fun. Visit TED.com slash games to explore the joy and wonder of TED Games.

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