I'm an ecologist, mostly a coral reef ecologist.

What can I, as an ecologist, do about that?

I'm an ecologist, and I study complexity. I love complexity.

And then my university education as an ecologist reinforced my beliefs.

But there was another scientist who had been watching this, an ecologist.

I started out in Chesapeake Bay and went diving in the winter and became a tropical ecologist overnight.

To an ecologist, the intersection of these is habitat, but to most people, the intersection of these is their home.

Now, when an ecologist looks at the ocean I have to tell you we look at the ocean in a very different way, and we see different things than when a regular person looks at the ocean because when an ecologist looks at the ocean, we see all those interconnections.

Here in 2009, you know, it's not an easy thing to be a forest ecologist, gripping ourselves with these kinds of questions and trying to figure out how we can answer them.

In this bracing talk, coral reef ecologist Jeremy Jackson lays out the shocking state of the ocean today overfished, overheated, polluted, with indicators that things will get much worse. Astonishing photos and stats make the case.

And another idea that I had as well, that was brought forward by an ecologist he basically did a calculation where he took one liter of gas and said, well, how much carbon it would take, and how much organic material?

Should we keep the outdoors out of hospitals? Ecologist and TED Fellow Jessica Green has found that mechanical ventilation does get rid of many types of microbes, but the wrong kinds the ones left in the hospital are much more likely to be pathogens.

Ecologist Eric Berlow doesn't feel overwhelmed when faced with complex systems. He knows that more information can lead to a better, simpler solution. Illustrating the tips and tricks for breaking down big issues, he distills an overwhelming infographic on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan to a few elementary points.