Bioneers Buzz 03/07: Greenbacks

In Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future - Author Bill McKibben sets out to challenge the prevailing view of our economy. For the first time in human history, "more" is no longer synonymous with "better"—indeed, for many of us, they have become almost opposites. The time has come to move beyond "growth" as the paramount economic ideal and begin pursuing prosperity in a more local direction, with cities, suburbs, and regions producing more of their own food, generating more of their own energy, and even creating more of their own culture and entertainment. Deep Economy offers a realistic, if challenging, scenario for a hopeful future.

Look for the book at your local library, bookstore, or online at billmckibben.com

Unlike mega-stores and multi-national chains like Wal-Mart, small businesses stimulate the economy by buying supplies and services locally, adapt to (rather than fight against) higher local environmental and labor regulations, and stick around for many years, often many generations.

The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses are Beating the Global Competition by Michael Shuman details dozens of specific strategies small and home-based businesses are using to successfully out-compete the world's largest companies.

Listen to a podcast of the Bioneers radio series program Going Local: From Wal-Mart to Small Mart

Look for the book at your local library, bookstore, or online at smallmart.org

Rainforest Action Network (RAN) uses hard-hitting marketing campaigns to align the policies of multinational corporations with widespread public support for environmental protection. They believe that logging ancient forests for copy paper or destroying an endangered ecosystem for a week's worth of oil is not just destructive, but outdated and unnecessary.

On Thursday, October 18, 2007 RAN and friends will gather for REVEL, an annual benefit party. Come celebrate The Art of Activism that is changing business as usual on Wall Street and in boardrooms beyond. Share food, drink, live music and inspiration, and be part of the solution this world so desperately needs. Invest in our future – support RAN – and have a great night out! For more information visit www.ran.org/give/revel.

Tradition and Revolution in Latin American Agriculture

An interview with Miguel Altieri by Arty Mangan

AM: You do a lot of work in Latin America with farmers. How are Latin American farmers dealing with the pressures of globalization?

Miguel: In Latin America we have a dual agriculture. There is a large-scale commercial sector of agriculture and also what we call the peasants, or small farmer sector. The small farmers are responsible for the food security of the region. About 60 percent of the corn, beans and potatoes – most of the food crops – are grown by the small farmers. The large-scale farmers are basically trapped in the agro-export model. They are the biggest users of the pesticides and fertilizers and also now the transgenic crops, particularly soybeans in Brazil and Argentina. Read More

Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil. But while we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields.

Black Gold chronicles the journeys of Ethiopia's Tadesse Meskela – one man on a mission to save 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy.

Black Gold was screened at the Bioneers Moving Image Festival in 2006 and was supported by groups like Global Exchange and Oxfam.

Learn more about the movie and the issues of the worldwide coffee trade at blackgoldmovie.com

On October 19-21, 2007 nearly two dozen local Bioneers conferences will take place across North America:

Anchorage, Alaska
Baltimore, Maryland
Bloomington, Indiana
Boulder, Colorado
Bozeman, Montana
Carbondale, Illinois
Cleveland, Ohio
Cobleskill, New York
Detroit, Michigan
Grinnell, Iowa
Houston, Texas
Logan, Utah
- Brigham City, Utah
Marion, Massachusetts
Minneapolis / St. Paul, Minnesota
Portland, Oregon
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Seattle, Washington
Spokane, Washington
Traverse City, Michigan
Turlock, California
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Organizers of this year's 22 Bioneers satellite conferences will be gathering later this month with Bioneers staff in California to network, share best practices and build leadership capacity to create positive change at the local level. We encourage you to get involved with Bioneers in your community!

Get in touch and stay tuned at: http://beaming.bioneers.org/

• Take Back Your Time: Ten steps you can take right now
• Bill McKibben leads the charge for Step It Up 2007 taking place April 14^th
• Curing the drug industry - Get involved by hosting a house party screening of Money Talks - Profits Before Patient Safety. Click here and use the coupon code: health2007 to receive 20% off a DVD purchase
• Have you ever wondered what would happen if the people of the world talked to each other about the most important questions of our times – and the world listened? Conversation Week March 25-31
• Help keep David Brower's vision alive

Book

"Natural capitalism as a metaphor is an attempt to describe an integrated application and program of the economics of restoration." – Paul Hawken from Nature's Operating Instructions

DVD

"Welcome to what some have coined, 'a corporate state,' in which our own governmental institutions, language, and even our brains are wielded against our own best interest..." – Thomas Linzey, Bioneers 2006 plenary speaker

Audio Download

"There are two big reasons to want to win the oil endgame - both national security and national competitiveness." – Amory Lovins in the Bioneers radio series program Aligning Business with Biology: Breakthrough Eco-nomics

Mar 16 - 18 2007
EPIC 2007
Vancouver, Canada
More Information

Make sure to visit the Bioneers Events Calendar to view and post events for 2007.