Famed engineer Paul MacCready of AeroVironment described some of his projects, which have all been driven by his career ambition to "do more with much less." Among other things, MacCready helped develop low-power, solar-powered, and human-powered vehicles (including planes, such as the Gossamer Condor, Gossamer Albatross, and Solar Challenger).

MacCready believes that basic battery-powered electric vehicles make more sense than fuel cell vehicles. Automakers have been too timid in their efforts to develop such vehicles, MacCready suggested, and General Motors was too quick to give up on the Impact EV-1. (The EV-1, incidentally, had the lowest drag of any car ever commercially produced.) Focusing more on electric vehicle technology, MacCready argued, would also lead to more efficient hybrid vehicle. Yet, MacCready lamented, to his knowledge no automaker is devoting sufficient resources to such innovations.

MacCready also talked about other interesting technological innovations, such as mechanical “techno legs” that can help someone carry heavy loads for a great difference, a car with legs instead of wheels (to reduce rolling friction), and tiny electric-powered drone planes, including one only 15.2 centimeters(!) in length, and another with folding wings that could be launched out of a cannon or artillery battery.

MacCready also showed an interesting slide comparing the weight of humans and domesticated animals, on the one hand, and all wild air and land vertebrates on the other. By this measure, humanity accounts for well over 90 percent of the vertebrate weight on the planet, which is one measure of humanity’s domination of nature. On a more optimistic note, MacCready observed that information technology and knowledge are increasing at an exponential rate, which may lead to sufficient technological solutions.

He closed with the following thought: "Over billions of years, on a unique sphere, chance has painted a thin cover of life – complex, improbable, wonderful and fragile. Suddenly we humans (a recently species no longer subject to the checks and balances inherent in nature), have grown in population, technology, and intelligence to a position of terrible power: we now wield the paintbrush."

[As a side note, MacCready began with a few comments on Michael Crichton who, MacCready noted, once believed in some claims of the paranormal – a claim Crichton acknowledged in his book Travels.]