Days before this talk, journalist Naomi Klein was on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico, looking at the catastrophic results of BP's risky pursuit of oil.

Our societies have become addicted to extreme risk in finding new energy, new financial instruments and more ... and too often, we're left to clean up a mess afterward. Klein's question: What's the backup plan?

The future of green is local -- and entrepreneurial. At TEDxMidwest, Majora Carter brings us the stories of three people who are saving their own communities while saving the planet. Call it "hometown security."

Majora Carter redefined the field of environmental equality, starting in the South Bronx at the turn of the century. Now she is leading the local economic development movement across the USA.

Majora Carter is a visionary voice in city planning who views urban renewal through an environmental lens. The South Bronx native draws a direct connection between ecological, economic and social degradation. Hence her motto: "Green the ghetto!"

With her inspired ideas and fierce persistence, Carter managed to bring the South Bronx its first open-waterfront park in 60 years, Hunts Point Riverside Park. Here she is on EcoActivism, more about her after the talk:

Susan notes: Thanks to TED for making TED Talks downloadable and embeddable, and for providing the biographical information that goes along with them.

Think of penguins as ocean sentinels, says Dee Boersma -- they're on the frontlines of sea change. Sharing stories of penguin life and culture, she suggests that we start listening to what penguins are telling us.

Dee Boersma considers penguins ocean sentinels, helping us understand the effects of pollution, overfishing and climate change on the marine environment.

To Dee Boersma, penguins are more than charming birds in tuxes. Highly sensitive to variations in the ocean, penguins are sentinels, sounding the alarm on environmental threats to marine ecosystems. As director of the the Wildlife Conservation Society's Penguin Project, she has dedicated almost three decades to tracking them in the South Atlantic. Using "nametags" -- numbered metal bands -- Boersma and her team follow hundreds of individual penguins to learn where they go, what they eat and how they survive to the next breeding season.