I'm blogging from Idea City this week, Toronto's answer to TED.
We had a wonderful line-up of speakers this morning, and I'm not going to try to capture all the good stuff. Instead, I thought I would just share a few of the most interesting quotes, and a couple of personal insights.
First insight: A very lively rendition including a drum solo is a great way to energize the start of a conference. [Note to self: use music more often everywhere to set the mood.] Isaiah Gibbons, 12, was our drummer.
From Chris Wood, author of Dry Spring: The Coming Water Crisis of North America: "We're in ecological overdraft".
From Donald Yeomans, who studies asteroids at the Jet PRopulsion laboratory: Asteroid contact "is the only natural disaster that you can actually do something about."
From Alfons Weersink, a food economist: "Human creativity is not finite"
From Gina Mallet, food critic and author: "There's been a rise in the puritanical eater; you're either saving your life, or you're saving the planet's life."
From Claudio Aprile, molecular chef, talking about his first job at a donut shop at age 14: "I filled the donuts up with three or four times the prescribed amount of jelly. I pushed the envelope to see how far I coud go before the donut exploded."
Steve Scherer, molecular geneticist, called a standard medical visit an "observational interview".
There's more, but I'm keeping people waiting who want to party and eat. So there's more tomorrow.
