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09:26

Introduction: The Oceans and Sustainable Development

The global ocean connects us all and provides our livelihoods, the oxygen we breathe, and transportation, among other things. The ocean is included in SDG 14. This course will try to provide a deeper understanding of the complex understanding of the ocean, environment, and climate system. Humans receive resources from the ocean, as well as risks. There will be weekly lectures on different topics, including the basic physics of ocean circulation, the ocean ecosystem, how the deep ocean works,…

08:44

Our Ocean: A Finite Resource

The ocean has always sparked human curiosity. In the mid-20th century, people began to realize that there are limits to what humanity should do to our planet before it cannot support life as we know it, limits known as the planetary boundaries. The human population of the planet has reached 7 billion people and will soon approach 11 billion people. We rely on the earth to support us with ecosystem services; the ocean provides these services by regulating the climate system. The oceans have a…

59:05

Conversation with Robert Lustig, Metabolical

In this conversation, Professor Jeffrey Sachs and Dr. Robert Lustig discuss the relationship between nutrition and non-communicable disease, the dangers of processed foods, and Lustig's new book Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine. This video is licensed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

12:33

How a Company Decides to Invest in a Project

This chapter overviews investments in oil, gas and mining projects. It includes a comparison of private and state ventures. Sources of income include: cash from existing projects and retained earnings, bank borrowings against the corporate balance sheet, or project finance specifically loaned against the capacity of that project. The chapter also details the various analyses and assessments done by companies technical, social, governmental, and financial. Sir Mark Moody Stuart stresses that…

05:00

Project Tujenge: Solar-powered water purification

In 2022, the University of Pretoria's "Team Tujenge" earned second place in the international student competition “Universities for Goal 13” for their small-scale, solar-powered water purification system using plasma technology. The competition is an annual partnership between SDSN and SIEMENS Gamesa. Team Tujenge (meaning “Let’s build” in Swahili) worked under the supervision of Dr Samuel Iwarere, Head of the UP Plasma Research Unit and Senior…

07:52

The Role of Global Partnerships for Sustainable Development

The international context of achieving the sustainable development goals. Agenda 2030 puts a big emphasis on global partnerships and SDG 17 is about global partnerships. This video is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA license.

10:11

The Holistic Design of Public Policies for SDG 15

In this chapter, Virgilio Viana discusses holistic approaches to the design of public policies policies for sustainable development using his experience as state secretary in the state of Amazonas. Government manages forests, agro-ecology, research programs on ecology, economic policies and resource management. Economic incentives such as taxes are necessary to manage externalities to society as a whole. Rural development, which is mainly agriculture and land tenure, is important for forest…

07:39

Ecosystem Degradation

The Amazon has seen a fair amount of environmental degradation and humans have been degrading the environment since the use of fire. Thomas Lovejoy argues that we need to be proactive in protecting the biological wealth of the planet while also thinking about how we can manage the land to support human aspirations, because degradation is diminishing the capacity of the planet to support humans and other forms of life. Professor Lovejoy cites Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic and Haiti) as an…

10:45

The Rights to Health, Education, and Decent Work

In this chapter, Professor Jeffrey Sachs gives an overview of health, education, and labor rights, tying each one to the overall goals of sustainable development. This video is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA license.