Abstract

“Feedback is more than a reflection, an evaluation, or the sign of a defect in a sound system. It is at the heart of what makes all natural systems work. Nature plays with feedback just as a musician plays with sound. Ecological systems are full of positive and negative feedbacks, chains of effects of species on each other and their non-living environment that loop back on themselves, forces of divergence and convergence. The strengths of all these feedbacks together do not create a cacophony, they show harmony and rhythm. Feedbacks define the melody of ecosystem functioning. Each ecosystem a song.”

With this pitch, we presented an idea for a short educational video to TED . I will show the resulting (5 min.) video, tell you about the process and encourage you to make one yourself.

TED is a nonprofit organisation devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages.