BIONEERS CONFERENCE DETAILED SCHEDULE

Following are session notes and descriptions for the 2008 Bioneers Conference.

Leveraging Business Innovations for Environmental Breakthroughs
Moderated by Matt Petersen, president of Global Green USA. With: Ray Anderson; Erin Meezan, Interface’s director of sustainable development; and Jack Hidary, brilliant entrepreneur and innovation maven, first funder of the Automotive XPrize, and founder and chairman of the Freedom Prizes. (A1)

Green Cities Initiatives
Presented by Blackstone Ranch Institute. As cities become the make-it-or-break-it pivot for large-scale ecological transformation, Green Cities initiatives are at the forefront of innovation and design. Hosted by Blackstone’s executive director John Richardson. With: Debbie Raphael, toxics reduction program manager at the San Francisco Dept. of the Environment; Dave Davis, executive director of the Community Environmental Council in Santa Barbara; and Carol Misseldine, coordinator of Green Cities California, a mushrooming urban renewal network. (A2)

What’s Democracy Got To Do With It? Politics and Environment
Cleaning up the environment is dependent on cleaning up politics. With: Susan Griffin, influential thinker and writer, author of Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy, On Being an American Citizen; Riki Ott, Alaskan marine biologist turned activist in the oily wake of Exxon Valdez; and long-time Native American activist Marlowe Sam on water, power and politics. (A3)

Seeding the Future: Seed Saving and Biodiversity Gardening
Nature’s diversity is replenished from new generations of seeds, yet this collective heritage is under severe pressure from corporate consolidation of seed companies, climate change and genetic engineering. Moderated by Arty Mangan, Bioneers food & farming director. With: Gabriel Howearth, seed diversity master, founder of Buena Fortuna botanical garden, Baja, Mexico; Doug Gosling, seed diversity master, Occidental Arts and Ecology Center; and Claire Hope Cummings, environmental lawyer and author of Uncertain Peril on GMOs. (A4)

Women Rising Globally
The leadership, empowerment and education of women are key drivers for positive change. How are women innovating successful strategies? Hosted by Bryony Schwan, executive director of the Biomimicry Institute. With: Atema Eclai, director of programs at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, and member of Women Waging Peace; Jensine Larsen, founding editor of World Pulse magazine and pulsewire.net; Melinda Kramer, director of Women’s Earth Alliance; and Kavita Ramdas, president and CEO of Global Fund for Women. (A5)

Resilience Thinking: Adapting to System-Shifting Social and Ecological Change
Presented with support from The Christensen Fund. The Resilience Alliance, a groundbreaking multidisciplinary international research group, explores approaches for adapting to radical ecological and societal changes. How can we develop more resilient approaches to reconciling apparently conflicting objectives of “national security,” economic viability, social equity, and environmental sustainability? Moderated by Mark Sommer, award-winning journalist, radio producer and founder/executive director of Mainstream Media Project. With: Jorge Ishizawa, a Lima, Peru-based systems engineer who has devoted his professional career to diverse aspects of socio-economic planning; and J. Marty Anderies, Associate Professor, Human Evolution and Social Change and School of Sustainability,
Arizona State University. (A6)

It Takes a Movement to Save the Planet: Race, Class, and the Power to Transform
Presented by Tides Foundation. This all-star workshop addresses the nuts and bolts of working effectively at the intersection of racial justice, environmental protection, economic opportunity, social movement building and democracy. Moderated by Maya Wiley, Center for Social Inclusion, NYC. With: Madeline Janis, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy; Erica Fernandez, youth environmental justice activist; and Angela Glover Blackwell, PolicyLink. (A7)

Re-Naturing Education
Can ecological literacy and a deep sense of our place in the natural world become cornerstones of all education? Find out how far along we are with: David Orr, the nation’s leading figure in environmental studies and eco-literacy in higher education; Cheryl Charles, renowned educator, president/CEO of the Children and Nature Network; and Fritjof Capra, among the world’s most important systems thinkers and authors, co-founder and board chair of the Center for Ecoliteracy. Moderated by Lisa Bennett, communications director for the Center for Ecoliteracy. (A8)

Re-cycling Energies: Food as a Tool for Youth Engagement and Empowerment
None of us, especially the young, can avoid the heavy marketing by “junk food” companies. How we engage young people in food-related activities can either diminish or build their desire to join the growing movement for food justice. An interactive and intergenerational dialogue with Neelam Sharma, Heather Fenney, Lawrence DeFreitas, Dyane Pascall, and 12-year-old Sarika Duren of Community Services Unlimited. (Y1)

How Mushrooms Can Save the World
Paul Stamets, the planet’s leading mycoentrepreneur, researcher, inventor, author and visionary guides us through the evolutionary genius of mushrooms and fungi and their largely untapped practical potential for detoxifying the environment, healing our ailments, and elevating our awareness. (B1)

National Green Plans: Are California and the US Ready?
Presented by Resource Renewal Institute. Explore the cutting edge of Green Plans around the world with top global leaders. Hosted by RRI founder Huey D. Johnson, author of Green Plans. With: Hans van Zijst, founder and director of Policy in Context, instrumental in the formation of the Netherlands Environmental Policy Plan for total environmental recovery by 2015; Dr. Tom Fookes, associate professor, University of Auckland, an architect of New Zealand‘s revolutionary Resource Management Act that restructured the nation’s resource agencies and laws around sustainable management; and others TBA. (B2)

Digital Oasis: Online Networks, Blogging & Fast-Forward Change
How do you engage people in progressive change online? How do you create a socially constructive discussion online and translate discussion into action? Which activist tools are available online? With: Peggy Duvette, director of the Natural Capital Institute and WiserEarth, an online platform that allows communities to connect and collaborate around social and environmental issues; Russ Walker, executive editor of Grist; and Ken Rother, president of TreeHugger.com and vice president of operations of Planet Green Interactive. (B3)

Greening Urban Organizing: The Convergence of Justice and Environment
Presented by Movement Generation. Can social justice advocates find common ground with environmental organizers to leverage these two powerful streams into a mighty river? Hosted by Jason Negrón-Gonzales, co-coordinator of the Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project. With: Andrea Cristina Mercado, lead organizer at Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA), a grassroots Latina immigrant women’s organization in the Bay Area; Claudia Gomez-Arteaga, program coordinator at Partnership for Immigrant Leadership and Action (PILA); Dave Henson , executive director of Occidental Arts & Ecology Center; and Dawn Phillips, co-director of Just Cause Oakland, a grassroots community housing organization. (B4)

Edgewalking: Risk-taking, Pushing the Envelope and Cultivating Fertile Ground
In this time of transformation, risk-takers are working on the edges of movement-building and bridging networks to explore the far reaches of positive possibility. Hosted by Akaya Windwood, CEO and president of Rockwood Leadership Program. With: Adrienne Maree Brown, executive director of Ruckus Society; Diane Wilson, author of An Unreasonable Woman and Holy Roller; activist, farmer, artist and flow-funder Marion Weber; and Leslie Gray, founder and executive director of the Woodfish Institute. (B5)

Children and Nature
In a technologically mediated world plagued by “nature deficit disorder,” how do we nurture the connection kids have with the natural world? With: Cheryl Charles, president of the Children and Nature Network and co-founder of its
Leave No Child Inside campaign; Gary Paul Nabhan, author of The Geography of Childhood; and Kimberly Danek Pinkson, president of the EcoMom Alliance, linking mothers from Mumbai to Montana, Nigeria to New York. Moderated by Ecopsychology pioneer Mary Gomes. (B6)

Food and the Triple Global Crisis: Climate Change, Peak Oil, Resource Depletion
Presented by the International Forum on Globalization (IFG). Global trade policies are driving the industrial food model that emits up to 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and causes social dislocation, unrest, hunger and malnutrition around the world. How can policies be changed to favor more localized, ecological food models as real solutions to climate change? With Debi Barker, co-director of IFG; Andrew Kimbrell, executive director, Center for Food Safety; Richard Heinberg, author of The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies; and Claire Greensfelder, deputy director of IFG. (B7)

Mirror of Heaven, Embodiment of Earth
An Initiation into Pachakuti Mesa Shamanism: A Living Metaphor for the Emergence of a Sacred, Earth-Honoring
Global Culture with Oscar Miro-Quesada, Peruvian curandero and master ceremonialist. Derived from the ancestral kamasqa and paqo lineages of indigenous Peruvian curanderismo, this ceremonial practice is a vehicle for accessing visionary dimensions of archetypal reality and connecting with the power of nature’s cycles and inner sources of healing and spiritual guidance. (B8)

Native Oceans: Coastal Indigenous Communities in Response to the Ocean Crisis
Ever wonder what you can do to protect the ocean and sea life? Join this intergenerational, international dialogue about the intersection of indigenous communities and ocean conservation. With: Wallace J. Nichols, senior scientist at the Ocean Conservancy and co-director of Ocean Revolution; Roxanne “Roxie” Leigh Dickinson, age 20, Ocean Revolution Youth Leadership Council; Mati Waiya, executive director, Wishtoyo Foundation; and Alberto Mellado Moreno, age 23, Center for Sustainable Environments, Northern Arizona University and advisor to the Comcaac Nation. Moderated by Sharon “Shay” Sloan, co-founder of Bioneers Youth Advisory Council, Native Oceans project manager, Ocean Revolution. (Y2)

Bioneers Moving Image Festival
See the most recent environmental and social justice films that engage and inform with exciting post-screening panels.

Youth and Social Justice Film Event
See the work of youth filmmakers dealing with the most important issues of our time.

Bioneers Moving Image Festival
See the most recent environmental and social justice films that engage and inform with exciting post-screening panels.

PARTIES AND SOCIAL NETWORKING

Opening remarks from Chief Oren Lyons, Onondaga Nation, global indigenous leader.

JANINE BENYUS
Nature’s 100 Best: Top Biomimicry Solutions to Environmental Crises
The brilliant naturalist, author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, and founder of the Biomimicry Institute reminds us that our prime directive as living beings is always to seek to create conditions conducive to life. What are
Nature’s 100 Best (her book-in-progress), revolutionary solutions to the world’s most vexing challenges?

DUNE LANKARD
Sustainable Solutions Over Centuries: A New Business Model
This Eyak Athabaskan native from the Copper River Delta region of Alaska and lifelong commercial fisherman became a community activist and preservationist when the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill desecrated his homelands and waters. He describes the preservation of ecosystems and people as the way to maintain healthy thriving economies for businesses and communities into the future.

DAVID ORR
Some Like It Hot, But Lots Don’t: The Changing Climate of US Politics
One of the nation’s most important architects of environmental literacy in higher education and a leading light of
the sustainability movement, this visionary educator will outline a national climate-change policy for the incoming
administration developed by the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP).

BILL MCKIBBEN
A Special Public Service Announcement on the “350.org” climate initiative. Mother Nature approved this message.

GREG WATSON
Twelve Degrees of Freedom: Lessons Learned from Thirty-five Years of Environmental Activism
His exemplary contributions have ranged from launching community gardens and farmers’ markets to serving as Massachusetts’ Commissioner of Agriculture, teaching environmental science, working with low-income communities, developing sustainable technologies and helping create the nation’s first offshore wind farm. Now senior advisor for Clean Energy Technology within the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, he describes how to foster unprecedented collaborations in support of comprehensive design solutions.

SANDRA STEINGRABER
The Environmental Life of Children—from Placenta to Puberty
Dubbed “the new Rachel Carson,” this ecologist, biologist, cancer survivor, mom, internationally recognized expert on
environmental links to cancer and reproductive health and author of the award-winning books: Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment and Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood, explains why pediatric environmental health activism is the civil rights movement of our era.

Changing the Political Climate: Large-Scale Climate Initiatives
The epochal challenge of global climate change demands bold responses on a large scale, initiatives that are rapidly taking shape at the municipal, state and now national levels. Hosted by Bill McKibben. With: David Orr, on the 100-day and 1,000-day Presidential Climate Action Project for the 2009 administration; Gillian Caldwell, campaign director for 1Sky, a 50-state campaign to build a nationwide movement to harness the economic opportunity of the renewable energy economy; Dr. John Fogarty, founding board member of 1Sky and executive director of Clean Energy Economy; and Billy Parish, youth climate activist and co-founder and coordinator of the Energy Action Coalition. (A9)

How Many? How Much? (People and Stuff)
The relationship of two critical factors may well determine the fate of our species and the health of the biosphere: our numbers and levels of consumption. With: Andrew Revkin, science and environmental journalist for The New York Times and author of three lauded books on the environment including The Burning Season; and Annie Leonard, writer and host of the smash Internet film The Story of Stuff, viewed by over 1.5 million people around the world within two months after its launch. (A10)

Encyclopedia of Life: The Web of Life Meets the Worldwide Web
The Encyclopedia of Life is an acclaimed global project to document all species of life on Earth in a constantly evolving encyclopedia on the Web with contributions from scientists and amateurs alike to: transform the science of biology; increase our collective understanding of life on Earth; and inspire us to safeguard the richest possible spectrum of biodiversity. Hosted by Marie Studer, education and outreach director for the Encyclopedia of Life, Harvard. With: Isabella Kirkland, renowned artist blending science, politics and art with her extraordinary “taxonomic” paintings; and Nathan Wilson, citizen scientist and manager of R&D, DreamWorks Animation. (A11)

iTube, YouTube, WeAllTube: Digital Media and Distribution Innovations
How are media-makers and activists using new media and innovative distribution pathways to reach many more people more quickly to turn the tide? Moderated by Jeremy Kagan, filmmaker and teacher at USC. With: Leila Conners, Tree Media Group founder, journalist and filmmaker (co-director of DiCaprio’s The 11th Hour); Richard Wolfe, technophile, former technology chief for 20th Century Fox; Richard Graves, program director of Youth Voice/Youth Vote and Global Environment at Americans for Informed Democracy; and Mark Sommer. (A12)

National Truth & Reconciliation with First Peoples
The history of colonization is especially painful for indigenous communities because much of the historical truth has been erased from dominant historical narratives. For genuine decolonization to take place, the real story has to be told. Indigenous peoples have pressed for that truth telling. As a result, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have made official apologies and set up truth commissions. Indigenous leaders involved with this movement describe its successes and the work left to do. Moderated by Melissa Nelson (Chippewa), professor of American Indian Studies at SF State, president of the Cultural Conservancy. With: Chief Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, Onondaga Nation, global indigenous leader; Tobasonakwut Kinew, Anishinaabe First Nations leader, teacher and Midewiwin healer from Canada; Tom Goldtooth, executive director, Indigenous Environmental Network; and Henrietta Marrie, program officer for Northern Australia, The Christensen Fund. (A13)

The Leading Edges of Green Building
To build a sustainable civilization, rethinking how we build is a top priority. What are the full range of health, environmental and social issues implicated in the full life cycle of building materials? Join Tom Lent, policy director at the Healthy Building Network, to look at current efforts to assess and label products and materials and discuss what’s missing. (A14)

Women, Science and Nature
The natural sciences, medicine, and other sciences that serve the social good now attract women in large numbers. How is this phenomenon transforming science? Hosted by Charlotte Brody, Green for All director of programs. With: Julie Zimmerman, assistant director for research, Green Chemistry and Green Engineering Center, assistant professor, Environmental Engineering Program, Yale; Sandra Steingraber; Arlene Blum, Ph.D., biochemist and anti-toxics advocate whose research was instrumental in banning several cancer-causing chemicals (and also leader of the first all-female team to reach the 26,500-foot summit of Annapurna); and Riki Ott. (A15)

Knowing Our Foodsheds, Localizing Our Food Systems
Local food and slow food have emerged as dynamic mass movements, but how do we define “local” food? What are the ethics and economics of a local food system? How do we deepen the conversation to incorporate energy use, biodiversity, fair trade and a true accounting of food miles? With: author and ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan; Jo Ann Baumgartner, director of Wild Farm Alliance, promoting agriculture that protects and restores wild Nature; and Michael Dimock, executive director of the Roots of Change Fund, developing strategies for a sustainable food system in California by the year 2030. (A16)

Eco-Artists. Free-Radicals. Agents of Change
Legions of artists are currently directing their creative ingenuity toward solving urgent environmental challenges, infusing society with promise. Hosted by Linda Weintraub, author of Avant-Guardians: Textlets in Art and Ecology. With: Betsy Damon, whose installations restore waterways while creating community art spaces; John Francis, aka “Planetwalker,” whose art practice models a conscientious ecolifestyle; Greywater Guerrillas (Laura Allen and Christina Bertea), a collaborative group of educators, designers, builders and artists who empower people to build sustainable water culture and infrastructure; and Sharon Siskin, community-based public artist addressing such crucial environmental issues as AIDS, the homeless, and waste management. (A17)

Herb Walk
With Sage LaPena, clinical medical herbalist and ethno-botanist specializing in both Native American and Western herbalism. She started her training at age seven with medicine people from her tribe, the Northern Wintu, and has been teaching about California Native plants for over twenty years. (A18)

Education IS Empowerment! Youth Empowering Youth to Stop Climate Change
In OUR lifetime, we’re going to be the ones to deal with catastrophic climate change. Let’s come together and empower each other to be the change! Hosted by 13 year old Alec Loorz, founder of Kids vs. Global Warming, and joined by friends at Roots N Shoots, RYSE (Rainforest Action Network’s Youth Sustaining the Earth), ClimateChangeEducation.org, and Los Angeles’ Green Ambassadors. (Y3)

Nature’s Operating Instructions Meet the Original Instructions: Biomimicry and Traditional Indigenous Knowledge
The leading-edge science of Biomimicry imitates “how nature does it.” Traditional indigenous science often got there first andalso gleaned ethical instructions inherent in Life’s Principles. Today these two powerful knowledge systems are converging. Moderated by Kenny Ausubel. With: Janine Benyus; Julie Zimmerman; Dennis Martinez, restoration ecologist and founder of the Indigenous Peoples’ Restoration Network (IPRN); Oren Lyons; and Jeannette Armstrong, founder of the En’owkin Centre in B.C., Canada. (B9)

Protecting Our Most Vulnerable: Toxics and Kids’ Health
Our infancy is critical in determining our lifelong health outcomes, and no group is more vulnerable than children to toxic chemicals. With: Sandra Steingraber; Elise Miller, founder and executive director of the national Institute for Children’s Environmental Health (ICEH); Joseph H. Guth, biochemist, attorney and legal director of the Science & Environmental Health Network; and Michael Lipsett, MD, chief of California’s Exposure Assessment Section / Environmental Health Investigations Branch, one of the world’s leading experts on air quality. Moderated by Heather Sarantis, women’s health program manager at Commonweal. (B10)

Fossil Fools: Resisting the World’s Worst Petro-Fiasco
The extraction of tar sands in Alberta, Canada is the single largest and most destructive fossil-fuel project in the world, threatening pristine boreal forest, and other species, while poisoning river systems and plunging the region’s indigenous Dene, Cree and Metis communities into dire social and health crises. Moderated by Tom Van Dyck, senior vice president for wealth management at Royal Bank of Canada. With: Michael Brune, executive director of Rainforest Action Network; Tzeporah Berman, executive director of ForestEthics; and Tom Goldtooth, executive director, Indigenous Environmental Network. (B11)

Green for All: The Vision and Practical Progress of Green-Collar Jobs
Presented by Green for All. A new organization founded by Van Jones, Green for All is helping build a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Leaders of this vitally important initiative share their visions, progress and strategies. Hosted by Nikki Henderson, research fellow at Green for All, co-founder of the LA chapter of the California Student Sustainability Coalition. With: Bracken Hendricks, a former assistant in Vice President Al Gore’s office, senior fellow with the Center for American Progress and Steering Committee member of the Apollo Alliance; Michele McGeoy, founder of the Solar Richmond project; and Ian Kim, director, Green-Collar Jobs Campaign at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. (B12)

It’s All Connected: Nurturing Networks and Redistributing Power
Collaborations are key to success in environmental and social change strategies. The initiating and connecting is often led by women. How are women informing the quest to be more effective collaborators? Hosted by Akaya Windwood. With: Kavita Ramdas; Charlotte Brody; Nina Simons; Vivian Chang, executive director, Asian Pacific Environment Network; and Brianna Cayo Cotter, communications director, Energy Action Coalition. (B13)

Ashoka Social Entrepreneurs: Advancing Sustainable Resilience
Presented by Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. Ashoka finds and nurtures creative and talented social entrepreneurs around the world and provides them with tools, resources and connections to advance their causes and duplicate their successes. Four Ashoka Fellows discuss taking environmentalism to the next level of of ‘sustainable resiliency®’ (Urban Logic’s methodology for benchmarking regionalsustainability and resiliency) With: Dune Lankard, founder and director of the Cultural Conservation Initiative in Cordova, Alaska; Bruce Cahan, founder of Urban Logic, Inc.; Ritu Primlani, founder and executive director of Thimmakka’s Resources for Environmental Education; and Harry Wiland, co-founder, Media and Policy Center Foundation. (B14)

Watershed Guardians: Take Charge
Want to take responsibility for water—to make your home and yard sustainable and/or participate in your community’s water policies? Ace water stewards guide this participatory workshop, from greywater systems to implementing policy solutions. Hosted by Betsy Damon. With: Brock Dolman, water wizard and director of Occidental Arts and Ecology Center’s Watershed Advocacy Training Education & Research Institute; Lisa Micheli, with 20 years’ experience designing river and California watershed restoration projects; Patricia Dair, board member of Urban Water Works in Portland, Oregon, developer of participatory rainwater learning gardens; and Peter Warshall, polymath, former Whole Earth editor, and co-director of Dreaming New Mexico. (B15)

Latin American Agroecology
The majority of farmers in Latin America still use traditional farming practices that contribute greatly to local food security despite the pressures of global industrial agriculture. Leading experts in and creative practitioners of sustainable Latin American agriculture illuminate innovations based on traditional practices that improve productivity while preserving ecological vitality. With: Panfilo Tabora of Earth University in Costa Rica, a living laboratory of sustainable practices; Ali Sharif, founder, PAL (Permacultura America Latina), spreading ecological practices in Latin America and Africa; and Eric Holt-Gimenez, executive director of Food First, dedicated to policy change and justice for the South. (B16)

The Wolf Chiefs: Visionary Council Ways to Heal Society
Ohki Siminé Forest, initiated into the Iroquois Wolf Clan and trained by Maya and Mongolian shamans, is a wisdom keeper who teaches spiritual warriorship through ancient Medicine Wheel ways. She shares some of the re-emerging Ancient Council ways that offer us powerful models of natural Earth laws with which we can create healthy, free societies gleaned from the resistance of Native peoples and from the Wolf Chiefs, sacred keepers of these enduring ways. (B17)

“I am Planet Earth”: Using the Arts for Social, Spiritual and Environmental Empowerment
Using music, story and performance, this workshop will inspire us to move from the abstract idea of a planet separate from ourselves to the physical, emotional and spiritual reality of our body as Earth. Hosted by Aaron Ableman of Planet Express Company & Action Hero Network. With: Terri Munro and Leif Wold. (Y4)

Bioneers Moving Image Festival
See the most recent environmental and social justice films that engage and inform with exciting post-screening panels.

Seed Exchange
Exchange genetic materials! Bring heirloom and unusual seeds to trade or pick some up to plant. Play a vital role in the conservation of biodiversity. Hosted by seed diversity masters Doug Gosling and Gabriel Howearth. With special guest Louis Hena of the Traditional Native American Farmers Association and the New Mexico Seed Sovereignty Initiative. (C1)

Farmers and Food Guardians Reception & Dinner
Enjoy mouth-watering local cuisine while meeting our regional farmers and artisanal food guardians at a reception hosted by the Marin Farmers Market Association. Following is a dinner honoring the Wild Farm Alliance, which promotes ecologically managed farms that protect ecosystems and restore the habitat of native species. Enjoy local wines and a menu of local foods designed by Bryant Terry.
Note: Special tickets must be purchased for the dinner. It always sells out – book early. (C2 - reception)

Bioneers Moving Image Festival
See the most recent environmental and social justice films that engage and inform with exciting post-screening panels.

Restoring the Waters of Life to Democracy
mythological*political*story-telling*theatre with Coyote Network News Campaign Bureau Chief, Caroline W. Casey. Big Mythic Forces Are in Play — Sounds like a case for the Compassionate Trickster within us all, that we may be ever more effective players on the Team of Creation. "If we're not having fun — we're just not serious enough." Where There is Mars, Let There Be Venus, that we may be replenished and replenishing for the imminent adventures ahead, to toss the Ring of Power into the Crack of Doom, to re-animate the soul of this country, that the world may bloom again. Calling All Compassionate Tricksters! (C3)

Live Music & Dance Party
Hosted by the Bioneers Youth Program and Musicians for Change

Opening remarks from Nina Simons, Bioneers co-founder

LUCAS BENITEZ
Fighting for Justice for Farmworkers
This champion of labor rights who left Mexico at age 14 to work in the fields in the US has led campaigns for living wages and ending farm worker slave camps. By organizing boycotts and hunger strikes, he and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers have forced the world’s largest and richest fast-food chains to the negotiating table.

CHRISTINE LOH
The “Development” Imperative for Asians
How Asians look at development will have a great impact on Earth’s environmental and ecological future. With the threat of climate change, the world must collaborate much more meaningfully, but will that happen fast enough? This internationally acclaimed environmental activist has worked extensively in Chinese business and government and now heads Civic Exchange, a Hong Kong think tank. She shares her astute perspectives on key levers for restorative development in Asia.

NAOMI KLEIN
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
One of the most important political and economic thinkers of our time, this Canadian journalist and author (The Shock Doctrine and No Logo) penetrates the veils of corporate globalization to expose transnational capital’s most ruthless strategies yet to exploit catastrophe from Baghdad to New Orleans. She portrays her vision of how people’s movements can counter the disaster of disaster capitalism.

REBECCA MOORE
Google Earth: Visualizing Change, Mapping the Future
Google Earth’s mapping and visualization technologies are powerful tools for public-interest purposes, from environmental justice to climate change, biocultural preservation, land conservation and creating a sustainable society. This software engineer turned public-interest advocate founded Google Earth Outreach, and her efforts are dramatically leveraging the crucial work of NGOs, communities and indigenous peoples worldwide.

RICK REED
Collaborating on a Grand Scale: Think Systemically and Act Collaboratively
As visionary co-founder of RE-AMP, he and the Garfield Foundation orchestrated a groundbreaking collaboration among 70 NGOs and 10 foundations to transform the Midwest from a leader in emissions to a leader in clean energy. In 2007, all seven of the region’s Governors signed an accord committing their states to slashing their global warming pollution by 80% over the next 40 years.

Nature’s Best: Biomimicry’s Climate-Change Solutions
Hosted by the Biomimicry Institute. How would nature address climate change and excess CO2 in the atmosphere? By tapping the genius of nature, these wizards are designing breakthrough technologies that may hold our greatest hope of reversing climate change. With: Janine Benyus; Stephen Dewar of WhalePower, a company developing wind and hydro turbines, pumps, and fans based on the design of whale flippers; Dan Williams of Konarka, which develops
photovoltaics inspired by plant photosynthesis; and Charles Hamilton, president of Novomer, Inc. on producing biodegradable plastics from C02. (A19)

Food Justice, Labor Equity: Farmworkers, Immigration and NAFTA
The most unsung, and exploited, heroes of the food system are farm workers. They often face working and living conditions so horrific as to qualify as modern-day slavery. They are also used as scapegoats to distract the public from flawed economic and immigration policies. With: Lucas Benitez; and Ann Lopez, research associate at UCSC and author of Farmworkers Journey, a 10-year study on NAFTA and its impact on farmworkers. (A20)

Women and Money: How Women are Transforming Economics, Values and Power
As women’s autonomy and leadership increasingly shape the societal landscape, how are they transforming our relationship to money, philanthropy and power dynamics? Hosted by Sara Gould, president and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women. With: Ohki Siminé Forest; Rha Goddess hip-hop performance artist and co-founder of Wise Currency and We Got Issues!; Polly Howells, a psychotherapist and donor/activist involved with peace, social justice and environment; and Vibhuti Mehra, communication and development director of the Labor Project for Working Families. (A21)

Google Earth Outreach: High Tech Hits the Ground Mapping
Presented by Google Earth Outreach. Google Earth Outreach is leveraging positive environmental and social change by merging high tech with activism. With: Rebecca Moore; Mary Anne Hitt, executive director of Appalachian Voices, whose online campaign is using Google Earth to stop “mountaintop removal” coal mining; Sylvia Earle, world-renowned oceanographer, on mapping to conserve the life of oceans; and Peter Warshall, polymath, former Whole Earth editor, and co-director of Dreaming New Mexico, a Bioneers project using Google Earth to create a “future map” of the Age of Renewable Energy at the state level. (A22)

Why the World Doesn’t End: Tales of Myth, Nature and Culture
The world cannot end unless it runs out of stories. When “the End” seems near, it’s the mythic sense and creative imagination that are missing. In “dark times” the issue becomes living an authentic life. With: Michael Meade, founder of Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, renowned storyteller, author and scholar of mythology, anthropology and psychology. (A23)

Biocultural Diversity: Adaptability Lessons from Biology and Indigenous Cultures
Presented with support from The Christensen Fund. How do we adapt to drastic shocks, both ecological and social? We face a drastic decline in biological and cultural diversity. What can we learn from well-balanced biological systems and indigenous cultures that have successfully maintained a symbiotic relationship with their environments? Moderated by Mark Sommer. With: Gary Nabhan; Kelsang Aukatsang, project director at the Tibetan Community Center of Northern California; and Melissa Nelson. (A24)

Studying the Healing Potential of Psychedelics
Hosted by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). New research is providing a provocative look at the healing potential of certain psychedelic substances, possibly yielding a scientific foundation for reevaluating public policies of prohibition and repression. With: Ralph Metzner, consciousness explorer whose groundbreaking books include The Psychedelic Experience and Green Psychology; Rick Doblin, MAPS founder/president; and Valerie Mojeiko, a MAPS analyst of the healing potentials of MDMA (Ecstasy), LSD, Ibogaine and other psychedelics. (A25)

Sustainable MBA Programs: Changing Business for Good
One way to green business is to re-design MBA programs. Join the founders and students of three leading-edge green business MBA programs to explore the role green entrepreneurship will play in building new types of enterprises with triple bottom lines—economically successful, socially responsible and environmentally sustainable. Hosted by author/educator Richard Heinberg. With: Gifford Pinchot III, president and co-founder of Bainbridge Graduate Institute; Steven Swig, JD, president of Presidio World College; John Stayton, Green MBA program director, Dominican University of California; and students from the programs. (A26)

Youth Rising, Youth Leading: Stories From the Brower Youth Awards Recipients
Join youth grassroots organizers and advocates who won the 2008 Brower Youth Award: Jessie-Ruth Corkins, Marisol Becerra, Ivan Stiefel, Timothy Den Herder-Thomas, Kari Fulton and Phebe Meyers. These youth have made an end-run around social, economic and legal systems of privilege that ignore the voice of the young people most likely to live with the disastrous consequences of poor environmental decision-making. Moderated by 2007 Brower Youth Award Winner Erica Fernandez. (Y5)

North, South, East to the West: Global Eco-Power Politics
How does the rapid emergence of major new economic powers such as China, India and Brazil impact their own and the global environment? What do these nations need from the US to build mutually beneficial international policies? What can people at all levels do to make effective links internationally? Hosted by Chet Tchozewski, founder of the Global Greengrants Fund. With: Christine Loh; Mathis Wackernagel, world renowned co-creator of the “Ecological Footprint” concept; Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute; and Beto Borges, director of the Communities and Markets Program at Forest Trends. (B18)

Changing the Climate: Large-Scale Collaborative Strategies for Clean Energy
Collaboration on an unprecedented scale is imperative to address climate change and ecological and social collapse. Hosted by Greg Watson. With: Rick Reed; Gillian Caldwell; and Barbara J. Hill, executive director of Clean Power Now. (B19)

Google Earth Outreach Meets Grassroots Community Organizing
GEO’s high-tech visualization capabilities add a critical organizing tool that works best when combined with classic grassroots community organizing. Here’s how two innovative groups are approaching this mix. NAIL—Neighbors Against Irresponsible Logging—in the Santa Cruz Mountains, CA, integrated classical organizing with Google Earth to mobilize the community to stop a water company from cutting 1,000 acres of redwood forest, including old-growth trees. Dreaming New Mexico is using a Future Map of the Age of Renewable Energy to help coalesce networks and action steps at the state level. With: Rebecca Moore; NAIL Steering Committee members Terry Clark, Kevin Flynn, Rea Freedom, Eric Horton, Rick Parfitt, Linda Wallace, and logging consultant Jodi Frediani; Kenny Ausubel and Peter Warshall, co-directors, Dreaming New Mexico. (B20)

Follow the Slow Money: Patient Capital & Local Living Economies
How do we birth creative new forms of finance, business and social enterprise that engender prosperity while nourishing communities’ social fabric, individual and family lives, and the Earth? It has to start at the local level. With: Michael Shuman, attorney, economist and local enterprise expert, author of Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in the Global Age; Woody Tasch, renowned “angel investor,” social entrepreneur, founder of “Slow Money,” chair of Investors’ Circle; and Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). Moderated by Don Shaffer, president/ CEO of RSF Social Finance. (B21)

Cooking Up a Revolution: Chefs to Go
Chefs are cooking up a cultural revolution of sustainable cuisine, local food, enhanced nutrition and fair commerce. Three exemplary chefs share their menus for change. With: Larry Bain, chef/entrepreneur bringing local and organic food to the National Parks system and cooking classes to women in San Quentin Prison; Jesse Cool, cook, author, restauranteur, owner of three restaurants dedicated to sustainable cuisine, has developed a pilot garden project for the Stanford Teachers Education Program; and Ann Cooper, author of Lunch Lessons, doing transformational work in Berkeley’s school cafeterias. (B22)

The End of Environmental Journalism: Embedding Environmental Reporting
As green goes mainstream, environmental perspectives are becoming embedded in countless other issues, because the environment is connected to almost everything else. Is environmental reporting finally moving from issue segregation to integration? Hosted by Mother Jones publisher Jay Harris. With: Andrew Revkin, award-winning author and science writer for The New York Times; and Bill McKibben, best-selling author and organizer of 350.org. (B23)

Renewing Native American Food and Seed Sovereignty
Native American cultures have a longstanding relationship of reciprocity with food, seeds and landscapes, but industrial food systems have damaged their health, self-reliance and cultural survival. How are these cultures responding with solutions? Hosted by Melissa Nelson. With: award-winning chef and author Lois Ellen Frank (Kiowa); and traditional California Indian educator and food specialist Jacquelyn Ross (Coast Miwok/Jenner Pomo). (B24)

The Greening of Medicine: Leading-Edge Models of Health Care
Despite the power of giant pharmaceutical firms and the dysfunctional US medical system, practitioners are building a greener, more holistic, patient-centered medicine. With: Dr. Robyn Benson, founder of New Mexico’s Santa Fe Soul Health and Healing Center; and Joel Kreisberg, DC, founder and executive director of the Teleosis Institute, dedicated to reducing healthcare’s footprint while broadening its ecological vision. Moderated by Bioneers’ communications director Kim Schiffbauer. (B25)

Democratic Education and the Ecological Citizen
Explore practical ways to create and reclaim educational experiences that promote community consciousness, social justice, and ecological citizenship. Join Lesley University’s Audubon Expedition Institute, as faculty and students come together to introduce and explore ecologically designed curricula. (Y6)

Bioneers Moving Image Festival
See the most recent environmental and social justice films that engage and inform with exciting post-screening panels.