Sammy Gensaw III - The Restorative Revolution and a River of Reciprocity Bioneers 2026-09-28 | Sammy Gensaw III - The Restorative Revolution and a River of Reciprocity
Opening by Corrina Gould (Lisjan Ohlone) | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-27 | Corrina Gould (Lisjan Ohlone), born and raised in the village of Huichin (aka Oakland, CA), is the chair and spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan and co-founder and Lead Organizer for Indian People Organizing for Change, a small Native-run organization that sponsored annual Shellmound Peace Walks from 2005 to 2009. As a tribal leader, she has continued to fight for the protection of the Shellmounds, uphold her nation’s right to sovereignty, and stand in solidarity with Indigenous relatives to protect sacred waters, mountains, and lands all over the world. Her life’s work has led to the creation of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, a women-led organization in the Bay Area that seeks to heal and transform legacies of colonization and genocide.This talk was delivered at the 2023 Bioneers Conference.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Performance by Jason Nious of Molodi | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-27 | Bioneers was thrilled to have Jason Nious back for a second performance. Jason Nious, a performing artist and creative director whose background with high school step teams and NCAA gymnastics launched his career, has traveled extensively with Cirque du Soleil, Usher, Stomp, Step Afrika, and numerous theatre and film productions. As founder and Director of the Las Vegas, NV-based, award-winning body percussion ensemble, Molodi, Jason designs new touring productions and facilitates Molodi’s arts education program, reaching over 20,000 students per year. He also serves as an arts integration consultant with Focus 5, Cirque du Soleil, Cleveland Playhouse, and The Smith Center; and is an Artist-In-Residence with the Museum of Dance, Education Chair of the LAB LV Theatre Company, and regularly conducts in-school residencies through the Nevada Arts Council.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal – The Theory of Change | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-26 | Before Rep. Pramila Jayapal was elected to Congress and later became the Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, she was an organizer and activist, and an enthusiastic Bioneers participant. In this personal video message to the Bioneers community, Rep. Jayapal discusses her theory of change that she developed as an organizer and has employed as a legislator. She highlights an “inside-outside” approach to building power and enacting meaningful change and policy shifts at national, state, and local levels.Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, now serving her third term in Congress representing Washington’s 7th District, the first South Asian American woman elected to the House, is the Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and serves on many key committees. A highly influential leader on progressive policies on: immigration, LGBTQ rights, labor issues, economic inequality, climate, clean energy, etc., Congresswoman Jayapal, prior to her election to political office, spent decades working internationally and domestically in global public health and development and as an advocate for women’s, immigrant, civil, and human rights. She is the author of two books, including, most recently: Use the Power You Have: A Brown Woman’s Guide to Politics and Political Change.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
john a. powell - Belonging without Othering: The Story of our Future | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-25 | Western culture has for the last several centuries built a society founded on three strong separations: our separation from ourselves, our separation from the other (or the person we call the other), and our separation from the Earth. But, according to john a. powell, one of our nation’s longtime leading experts on civil rights, structural racism, poverty, and democracy, Director of the groundbreaking Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, the reality is that we're not separate. We’re deeply connected to each other. Our challenge is that in order to emerge from the existential crises we face and to birth a far more humane civilization, we now need to look deeply at ourselves and our social structures to overcome the separations that have been inculcated into us for so long and rediscover our fundamental connection to each other and the entire web of life.john a. powell was previously Executive Director at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State, and prior to that, the founder and Director of the Institute for Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota. He also formerly served as the National Legal Director of the ACLU, co-founded the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, and serves on the boards of several national and international organizations. Well-known for his work developing the frameworks of “targeted universalism” and “othering and belonging,” john has taught at numerous law schools including Harvard and Columbia University. His latest book is Racing to Justice: Transforming our Concepts of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Kenny Ausubel - May the Farce Be With You | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-25 | Bioneers’ founder takes us on one of his renowned, tour de force surveys of the current zeitgeist, this time masterfully tracking the diabolical machinations of the fossil fuel industry and oligarchs seeking to derail global economic decarbonization, but offering us genuine pathways to building a green and just world together, if we put our shoulders to the wheel. See and hear more from Kenny Ausubel at http://www.bioneers.org
Rebecca Solnit - Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility Bioneers 2023-04-25 | How do we imagine what’s possible, what matters? Who we are shapes what we do, and what we do in the present shapes the future. In addition to the many practical, scientific and material aspects, the climate crisis has cultural aspects with which we need to engage in order to meet this emergency. Drawing from the new anthology she co-edited, "Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility", Rebecca Solnit talks about the stories emerging from what science, Indigenous leadership, good organizing, and visionary thinkers are giving us. These stories offer the grounds for hope and the work hope does. What are the ways that what the climate requires of us could mean ushering in an age of abundance rather than austerity?Rebecca Solnit, one of our nation’s most influential writers, thinkers, historians and activists, is the author of 20+ books, including: Orwell’s Roses; Recollections of My Nonexistence; Hope in the Dark; Men Explain Things to Me; A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; and A Field Guide to Getting Lost. Solnit writes regularly for the Guardian, serves on the board of the climate group Oil Change International, and just launched the climate project Not Too Late.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Performance by Rising Appalachia | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-25 | Rising Appalachia, an internationally touring Appalachian and world folk ensemble founded by Atlanta-raised, New Orleans-based sisters Leah and Chloe Smith whose soulful folk-roots sound traces back to their open-minded musician parents and to grassroots music communities in the hills and valleys of the Deep South as well as urban Atlanta, has consistently used its platform to activate, organize and support frontline justice work and community organizations. Fifteen years into an adventure that has taken this self-made, stubbornly independent band around the globe, they have recently released a new master-work, their seventh album, Leylines, recorded in California in a studio overlooking the Pacific Ocean.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Yuria Celidwen - The Ethics of Belonging of Indigenous Traditions | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-25 | “In community we pause, we open, we nourish, and we become.” Yuria Celidwen is of Nahua and Maya descent from the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, born into a family lineage of mystics, healers, and poets. Her scholarship centers on Indigenous forms of contemplation and has developed into a broader statement she calls the “ethics of belonging.” It has become evident that when we pay attention to the world around us, all we hear is urgency. It is time for community reflection. Yuria shares two core guiding principles from her scholarship, Kin Relationality and Ecological Belonging. She explains how these concepts can help us access an ever-expansive unfolding of a path of meaning and participation rooted in honoring Life. Born into a family of mystics, healers and poets from Chiapas, Mexico, Celidwen conducts research at U.C. Berkeley’s Department of Psychology at the the intersection of Indigenous studies, cultural psychology, and contemplative science; is a Senior Fellow at the Othering & Belonging Institute; co-chairs the Indigenous Religious Traditions Unit of the American Academy of Religion, and is part of the steering committee of its Contemplative Studies Unit. She also works with the United Nations on the advancement of Indigenous peoples’ rights and the rights of the Earth and is a teacher of Indigenous epistemologies, spirituality and contemplative practices.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Amara Ifeji - Storytelling for Social Change | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-25 | Amara Ifeji mobilized a grassroots effort to address racism in her high school in Maine, at age 14. She also developed a love for the mountains and woods around her, but she saw her passions for the environment and racial justice as distinct until she heard youth of color like herself share their experiences working at this intersection and realized these struggles were completely intertwined. She will share how this awakening shaped her subsequent work as a remarkably effective organizer and advocate who centers storytelling to realize environmental justice, climate education, and outdoor learning for ALL youth.Amara Ifeji, 21, is an award-winning (2021 National Geographic Young Explorer and 2022 Brower Youth Award) climate justice activist, and Director of Policy at the Maine Environmental Education Association.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Erin Matariki Carr - The Resurgence of Māori Law | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-25 | Erin Matariki Carr is from the Māori tribal nations of Ngāi Tūhoe and Ngāti Awa, and lives in Tāneatua in the east of the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. Matariki is a member of RIVER and a lawyer working within the intergenerational movement of Māori resistance that is now surging towards constitutional transformation in honor of the treaty Te Tiriti o Waitangi 1840 between the British Crown and sovereign hapū Māori. An important story in this movement has been the granting of legal personality to Te Urewera rainforest, the homelands of Ngāi Tūhoe. Here, Tūhoe aims to “disrupt the false notion of human superiority over the land” by removing human ownership and management, and providing a new kawa (or law) that starts with “human management for the benefit of the land”.Erin Matariki Carr previously worked as Manager of Planning & Design to create and implement policies under the world-first legislation conferring legal personhood to the Te Urewera rainforest. Matariki is currently a project lead at RIVER, where she focuses on the constitutional transformation movement in Aotearoa with a number of other teams, including Tūmanako Consultants and Te Kuaka NZA.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Kim Stanley Robinson - What I’ve Learned since The Ministry for the Future Came Out in 2020 Bioneers 2023-04-25 | In our opinion, Kim Stanley Robinson is our greatest living science fiction writer. His more than 20 award-winning books over four decades, translated into some 26 languages, have included many highly influential, international bestselling tomes that brilliantly explore in a wide range of ways the great eco, economic and socio-political crises facing our species, yet nothing had prepared him for the global explosion of interest in his visionary 2020 novel, Ministry for the Future, which projects how a possible climate-disrupted future might unfold and how the world might respond meaningfully. It’s also chock full of brilliant science and wildy imaginative ways humanity steps up. Among other results, he was invited by the UN to speak at COP-26 in Glasgow. Stan offers us his overview of where we currently stand in relation to the climate crisis.Kim Stanley Robinson is the author of about twenty books, including the internationally bestselling Mars trilogy, and more recently Red Moon, New York 2140, and The Ministry for the Future. He was part of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers’ Program in 1995 and 2016, and a featured speaker at COP-26 in Glasgow as a guest of the UK government and the UN. His work has been translated into 26 languages and won many awards including the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. In 2016 asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson.”Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Danny Kennedy - The Charging 20s | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-25 | The energy transition race is on. Fossils fuels have peaked. What do we need to get renewables to prevail as fast as possible, and can we make that victory good for everyone? The 2020s will be the decisive decade in the climate justice fight. Where and how we create the new energy economy, who gets to lead it, who owns it and who works in it now matter more than ever. We must prepare for a large pulse of eco-industrial activity the likes of which the world has never known. As we race to the finish line of the transition away from fossil fuels, visionary “green” entrepreneur and founder of New Energy Nexus Danny Kennedy presents a plan to build out the full 3D potential of clean energy—not just distributed energy, but decentralized in ownership and democratized in control. Highly decentralized global grassroots entrepreneurship is central, as the pathfinding work of New Energy Nexus is demonstrating.Danny Kennedy, with a long background in eco activism, has become one of the nation’s leading figures in clean-technology entrepreneurship and the capitalization of the transition to a “green” economy. Co-founder of the solar energy company, Sungevity, and the clean energy incubator Powerhouse, Kennedy supports the clean technology and energy fields in myriad ways. In addition to leading roles with Third Derivative (a joint venture with the Rocky Mountain Institute) and the California Clean Energy Fund, Kennedy is currently CEO of New Energy Nexus, a global nonprofit providing funds, accelerators, and networks to drive clean energy innovation and adoption.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Ilana Cohen - The Time for Fossil-Free Research is Now | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-25 | Climate activists have made landmark progress on fossil fuel divestment. Now we need to evolve the divestment movement to the next level by holding universities and academia broadly accountable to fully separate from Big Oil's influence. This means getting such institutions to reject industry funding for climate research, which has distorted public knowledge and policy, while contributing to greenwashing. Ilana Cohen explains how a burgeoning international grassroots movement of students and academics, known as Fossil Free Research, is seeking to combat the industry’s pernicious influence, and how you can get involved in the fight!Ilana Cohen is a lead organizer of the Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard campaign and the international Fossil Free Research movement, which combats the fossil fuel industry’s dangerous influence on academia. She is also a 2022 Brower Youth Award winner and a climate journalist with bylines in outlets including The Nation, The New Republic, Teen Vogue, and Inside Climate News. Ilana is currently a senior and Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics Undergraduate Fellow at Harvard University, where she studies the ethics of climate change.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Leah Stokes - The Future is Electric | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-25 | A massive influx of clean energy investments is poised to transform the American economy during this decade. Opportunities abound to take advantage of new climate incentives. If we get this right, the U.S. could be on track to reach 80% clean power by 2030, leading to deep decarbonization across other sectors including transportation, buildings and manufacturing. Nevertheless, success is far from guaranteed without widespread action from the grassroots to the canopy. What did it take to pass a historic $370 billion climate deal in Congress? How can American households and businesses take full advantage of it? What does effective, equitable implementation look like? Join award-winning author, political scientist, and climate expert Dr. Leah Stokes for a deep dive on clean energy policy and the tools we have to realize our electric future in this decade and beyond.Leah Stokes, Ph.D., one of the nation’s most influential leading experts and “engaged scholars" in climate and energy policy, is the author of the award-winning book Short Circuiting Policy, which examines the role of utilities in undermining regulation and promoting climate denial. Trained at MIT, Columbia, and the University of Toronto, Stokes’ widely read and cited work has been published in top scholarly journals, as well as the New York Times, Washington Post, and other popular media outlets. She is the Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a senior policy consultant at Rewiring America, and co-host of the popular climate podcast “A Matter of Degrees.”Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Laura Flanders - Community Wealth Building: The Most Important Global Economic Movement of our Time Bioneers 2023-04-25 | In the early 1980s Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and conservative economists such as Milton Friedman ushered in a global era of “neo-liberal” economics, which saw markets and large corporations given nearly unrestrained power, leading to ever escalating wealth inequality and the capture of government by monied interests. But in recent years a new global movement, Community Wealth Building, has been pushing back on neoliberalism, fighting to democratize the economy and build wealth for the many, not just the few. It is taking hold in places as varied as Cleveland, Jackson Mississippi and the Pine Ridge Reservation here in the U.S., and in England, Scotland, Amsterdam and Australia. Renowned journalist Laura Flanders, host of The Laura Flanders Show on public television, will explain why this growing movement for a democratic economy may be the most important economic movement of our time.Laura Flanders, one of the pre-eminent progressive journalists and media figures in the country, is the host and Executive Producer of the nationally syndicated The Laura Flanders Show, which airs on nearly 300 PBS stations nationwide (and online, on radio, and as a podcast). She is an Izzy-Award winning independent journalist, a bestselling author (including of: Blue Grit: Making Impossible, Improbable, Inspirational Political Change in America and Bushwomen) and a recipient of the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Media Center.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Nina Simons - Weaving the World Anew | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-25 | Bioneers' co-founder and Chief Relationship Strategist Nina Simons traditionally sets the stage for each year’s conference, and does it again with sublime clarity and heart-warming passion, as she frames Bioneers’ history and its core values rooted in reverence for the natural world and biological and human diversity and stresses the need to balance the inner and outer in our quest to give birth to a new civilization based on relationships rather than the possession of things.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Akaya Windwood - Getting Our (Third) Act Together | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-25 | People over 60 were instrumental in creating social change in their youth, and their wisdom and energy are greatly needed today. Third Act is a place where those who’ve been around awhile can bring their life experience to the work of social change, while supporting the next generations in creating a world that is healthy, equitable, and whole. Longtime activist and renowned leadership educator Akaya Windwood explains the work of Third Act, co-founded by Bill McKibben, and how we can participate in this exciting new movement.Akaya Windwood, founder of the New Universal Wisdom and Leadership Institute, on the faculty of the Just Economy Institute, “Lead Advisor” at the activist group Third Act, and former President of Rockwood Leadership Institute (for ten years), also directs the Thriving Roots Fund. A longtime “transformation facilitator,” Akaya has won slews of awards for her activism and visionary leadership and is the author of: Leading with Joy: Practices for Uncertain Times.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
John Warner - The Materials Metabolism: Rethinking our Molecular Relationship with Nature Bioneers 2023-04-25 | For materials from nature to become human-designed products, they have to undergo multiple transformations in processes of assembly and disassembly. Atoms combine to make molecules; molecules combine to make materials; and we humans assemble and disassemble nature’s products to form molecules and materials that we then recombine to create our artifacts and products, but, unfortunately, most of what we produce is fundamentally unsustainable and dangerously incompatible with living systems. However, one of the founding progenitors of the entire field of “green chemistry,” John Warner, will explain that by using the principles and practices of the discipline he helped birth, we can embrace and emulate nature’s “materials metabolism” to create the products we need without endangering the web of life. By reimagining how we design and build, we can create a new materials economy that is truly in harmony with nature.John Warner, Ph.D. is a co-founder of the field of green chemistry. With 300+ patents and 100+ publications, he has designed and created technologies inspired by nature with the principles of green chemistry. After working at the Polaroid Corporation, John served as a tenured full professor at UMASS Boston and Lowell (in Chemistry and Plastics Engineering). In 2007 he co-founded (with Jim Babcock) the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry and (with Amy Cannon) Beyond Benign, a non-profit dedicated to sustainability and green chemistry education. John has won many prestigious awards for his research, inventions and policy advocacy and has served as a sustainability advisor for several major firms.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Wildchoir Closing Performance | Bioneers 2023 Bioneers 2023-04-25 | Wildchoir, formerly known as “Thrive Choir,” is an Oakland, CA-based, politically and socially engaged diverse group of vocalists, artists, activists, educators, healers and community organizers who join together in harmony. They have performed with nationally-acclaimed artists for social change including Rising Appalachia, Climbing PoeTree and MaMuse. They also frequently share the stage with progressive leaders, including Bernie Sanders, Ericka Huggins, Joanna Macy, and Fania Davis. Their music has inspired thousands at marches, conferences and festivals across California. Wildchoir spent its first years as the musical voice of Thrive East Bay and the global Thrive Network, and it is forever grateful to the Thrive Network for all its support and collaboration, but it is thrilled to be beginning a new phase of its musical journey as an independent ensemble.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Shane Gero – Preserving Animal Cultures: Lessons from Whale Wisdom Bioneers 2023-04-25 | We have been killing whales for centuries, but we do so now out of ignorance rather than intent. As cetacean pods lose mothers and grandmothers, they lose wisdom inherited across generations on how to survive. Whale researcher Shane Gero will share some of what he has learned from the thousands of hours he has spent in the company of sperm whales, including how fundamentally similar their lives are to our own, and how their cultures define their identity, just as ours do. Shane explaind why we need new approaches to whale conservation that recognize the biologically important divisions between different communities of whales, so we can respect their identity and cultural diversity; and how this can be extrapolated to the larger struggle to conserve biodiversity.
Saru Jayaraman – The Great Revolution: What A Worker Power Moment Can Mean for Climate Justice Bioneers 2023-04-25 | Saru Jayaraman, President of One Fair Wage, Director of the Food Labor Research Center at UC Berkeley, founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Center and author of four books including: One Fair Wage: Ending All Sub-minimum Pay in America, is one of the most creative and effective labor organizers of our era. Here she speaks to us about her work organizing restaurant and other low-wage workers over the last 20 years and the incredible moment of historic worker revolt currently underway in the United States, one that could have enormous implications for both climate justice and for our democracy.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Jade Begay: Strengthening Indigenous Leadership During Collapse Bioneers 2023-04-25 | By now, we have all heard the statistic that Indigenous Peoples protect 80% of the world's biodiversity, despite being 5% of the world's population. This simple fact alone should position Indigenous, Native, and Tribal Peoples as not only leaders but experts on resource management and climate mitigation and adaptation. Yet, in many spaces, political and institutional, Indigenous knowledge and expertise are seen as supplemental, and at worse, romantic.So how can we move beyond just acknowledging Indigenous Peoples to working to ensure that their rights are centered and strengthened in climate action at the local, national and global levels? Jade Begay, one of North America’s most effective Indigenous Rights activists will share her insights on how far Indigenous leadership has come and what we can do to strengthen and embolden this leadership that is so needed if we are all to survive on planet EarthThis keynote talk was part of the Bioneers 2023 Conference.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Bioneers Conference April 6-8 in Berkeley! Bioneers 2023-03-21 | Register now for the 2023 Conference! conference.bioneers.orgJoin us for three days of riveting talks and movement building with hundreds of visionary leaders, artists and solutionaries! Tickets are going fast, get yours now!___________________________________________________________________As Bioneers rolls into our 34th annual gathering, the big wheels of massive change are turning.Climate disruption bears down daily, and there’s a widely felt morning-after awakening that it’s going to crash the economy and bring civilization to its knees. Although the regime shift to renewables is now an accelerating inevitability, it’s going to take relentless political action. To beat the clock, we also need to override the doom loop of delay and propaganda the desperate fossil fuel industry will keep pushing. Meanwhile, the unprecedented movements of the past decade for liberation, justice and multicultural democracy are swelling to challenge the right-wing populist and neo-fascist forces underwritten by cynical plutocratic elites. “Make feudalism great again” is proving to be a marketing challenge. Something’s gotta give.At the core is a crisis of democracy: a radical disconnect between the world people want and the world corporations and their client governments have hijacked. The climate crisis and the inequality crisis are the same crisis. Our separation from nature and our separation from each other are the same dis-integration. The choice is clear: nihilism or regeneration. Shattering or wholeness.For over three decades, the Bioneers Conference has served as a trellis on which this visionary movement of movements has grown and grown together around authentic “solve-the-whole problem” solutions.Especially in these darkest of times, we come together to regenerate and celebrate. We invite you to join forces with the Bioneers community of leadership in this time when we’re all called upon to be leaders.Learn more at conference.bioneers.org
Bioneers April 6-8 in Berkeley, CA! Bioneers 2023-02-21 | Register now for the 2023 Conference! conference.bioneers.orgAs Bioneers rolls into our 34th annual gathering, the big wheels of massive change are turning.Climate disruption bears down daily, and there’s a widely felt morning-after awakening that it’s going to crash the economy and bring civilization to its knees. Although the regime shift to renewables is now an accelerating inevitability, it’s going to take relentless political action. To beat the clock, we also need to override the doom loop of delay and propaganda the desperate fossil fuel industry will keep pushing. Meanwhile, the unprecedented movements of the past decade for liberation, justice and multicultural democracy are swelling to challenge the right-wing populist and neo-fascist forces underwritten by cynical plutocratic elites. “Make feudalism great again” is proving to be a marketing challenge. Something’s gotta give.At the core is a crisis of democracy: a radical disconnect between the world people want and the world corporations and their client governments have hijacked. The climate crisis and the inequality crisis are the same crisis. Our separation from nature and our separation from each other are the same dis-integration. The choice is clear: nihilism or regeneration. Shattering or wholeness.For over three decades, the Bioneers Conference has served as a trellis on which this visionary movement of movements has grown and grown together around authentic “solve-the-whole problem” solutions.Especially in these darkest of times, we come together to regenerate and celebrate. We invite you to join forces with the Bioneers community of leadership in this time when we’re all called upon to be leaders.Learn more at conference.bioneers.org
Samuel Myers - Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves | Bioneers Bioneers 2022-12-05 | Samuel Myers, a leading figure in the study of the impacts on human health of the accelerating disruptions to Earth’s natural systems, shares the guiding principles and implications of this newly emergent, rapidly growing field, recently dubbed “Planetary Health.” Every dimension of human health and wellbeing is under threat from our ongoing degradation of Earth’s life-support systems. Planetary Health research is providing rigorous evidence that urgently stabilizing our planet’s natural systems is essential if we are going to have any chance of safeguarding a livable future for humanity. Dr. Myers explains the goals and work of the broad global coalitions around The Planetary Health Alliance (of which he is the founding director) coming together to drive home the inextricable links between human and environmental health and to develop policies and actions to protect our biosphere.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Episode 5 - Returning to What Was Lost and Stolen w/ Corrina Gould Bioneers 2022-10-13 | Defending land rights and preserving tribal culture is difficult for North American tribes, especially for those that do not have sovereign nation-to-nation status with the federal government. The lack of recognition of a tribe’s nationhood as a self-governing entity (as defined by the U.S. Constitution) has been explicitly used as a tool to continue to prevent Native peoples from living on the most desirable lands or protecting sacred lands that have been stolen.We talk about these issues with Corrina Gould, a celebrated leader and activist of the First Peoples of the Bay Area from the Lisjan/Ohlone tribe of Northern California. She also co-founded the grassroots organization “Indian People Organizing for Change”, which works to defend and preserve sacred Ohlone shell mounds formed over generations.Artwork for this episode was created in collaboration with Toby McLeod (photography) and Mer Young (collage art).Learn more at bioneers.org/indigeneity-program
Episode 4 - California Genocide and Resilience w/ Corrina Gould Bioneers 2022-10-13 | California Indians have survived some of the most extreme acts of genocide committed against Native Americans. Prior to the ongoing genocide under Spanish and American colonizations, California Indians were the most linguistically diverse and population dense First Peoples in the United States. We discuss this brutal history and survivance with Corrina Gould, Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust. She is from the Lisjan/Ohlone tribe of Northern California. We talk about the importance of addressing that historical trauma, which caused deep wounds that still affect Indigenous Peoples today. Content warning: Some of the material in this podcast may be triggering, especially for those that have experienced trauma and/or intergenerational trauma due to colonialism.Artwork for this episode was created in collaboration with Cara Romero (photography) and Mer Young (collage art).Learn more at bioneers.org/indigeneity-program
Episode 3 - Indigenize the Law: Tribal Rights of Nature Movements Pt. 2 w/ Casey Camp Horinek Bioneers 2022-10-13 | This is Part Two of our conversation with tribal elder and matriarch Casey Camp Horinek. We discuss why a tribally led movement is the best hope for the planet, and how the unique legal and political relationship between tribes and the U.S. federal government is advantageous in efforts to truly protect ecosystems. Casey also discusses the journey her tribe is taking as they explore the best ways to incorporate rights of nature into their legal framework.Artwork for this episode was created in collaboration with Cara Romero (photography) and Mer Young (collage art).Learn more at bioneers.org/indigeneity-program
Episode 2 - Indigenize the Law: Tribal Rights of Nature Movements Pt. 1 w/ Casey Camp Horinek Bioneers 2022-10-13 | The idea that a river or other natural feature is a living being, imbued with the right to live and thrive is nothing new to Indigenous Peoples around the world. In this episode with Matriarch Casey Camp-Horinek from the Ponca Nation, we talk about how a burgeoning indigenous-led Rights of Nature movement has the potential to protect ecosystems from destruction by granting legal rights to nature itself, and how many tribes are uniquely positioned for leadership to institute and uphold the Rights of Nature because of their sovereign legal status.Artwork for this episode was created by Mer Young (collage art).Learn more at bioneers.org/indigeneity-program
Episode 1 - Transforming Indigenous Stereotypes: Stories By Us, For Us w/ Crystal Echo Hawk Bioneers 2022-10-13 | From racist mascots, to stereotypes in national creation myths like Thanksgiving, we have always faced misrepresentation and disrespect of our cultures and identities. Cultural appropriation and commodification of our cultures is commonplace, but Native activists, artists, youth, educators, legislators and our allies are changing that reality. We are winning battles to ban racist mascots and call out negative stereotypes in the media.This episode features Crystal Echo Hawk, an enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and President and CEO of IllumiNative and of Echo Hawk Consulting.Learn more at bioneers.org/indigeneity-program
Episode 6 - Remembering Who We Are and Our Relations w/ Julian Brave Noisecat Bioneers 2022-10-13 | In this episode, we speak with Julian Brave Noisecat, an enrolled citizen of the Secwepemc, also known as Shuswap First Nation, in British Columbia.Julian Brave Noisecat explores the importance of connection and relationship, to family, to history, to place and to culture, threading his own story throughout a larger narrative about the deep trauma Indigenous people have experienced through colonization and the resilience and power that is emerging as individuals, tribes and nations work to reclaim their own stories and landscapes.Raised in Oakland, California, Julian is a brilliant writer and journalist, an indigenous rights activist and policy expert. He has emerged as one of the most penetrating and influential analysts of environmental justice and indigenous issues, as well as of national and global political and economic trends.Julian is a fellow of New America and the Type Media Center, as well as one of the first visiting fellows of the Center for Racial Justice at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy.We begin with Julian’s keynote address at the Bioneers 2020 conference and follow with a heartfelt conversation hosted by Cara Romero.Artwork for this episode was created in collaboration with Dauwila Harrison (photography) and Mer Young (collage art).Learn more at bioneers.org/indigeneity-program
Welcome to Indigeneity Conversations with Cara and Alexis Bioneers 2022-10-13 | Indigeneity Conversations is a podcast series that features deep and engaging conversations with Native culture bearers, scholars, movement leaders, and non-Native allies on the most important issues and solutions in Indian Country. The series also features excerpts from our Indigenous Forum, a sovereign space and touchstone for Native leaders and non-Native allies to come together at our annual Bioneers Conference, and to create and grow strategic alliances.Indigeneity Conversations explores compelling issues such as Indigenous Land Return, Cultural Appropriation, Rights of Nature and other essential conversations that exemplify the essential leadership role that Indigenous cultures are playing in the effort to reshape and transform society’s relationship with the natural world while highlighting the contemporary lives, work and experiences of Native Americans.The series is hosted by Bioneers Indigeneity Program Directors Cara Romero (Chemehuevi) and Alexis Bunten (Unangan/Yup’ik), professionally recorded via home studio set-ups, and produced by Bioneers’ award-winning media team.We invite you to join the conversation where we’re encouraging everyone to decolonize and re-indigenize their hearts, minds and actions. Learn more at bioneers.org/indigeneity-program
The Rights of Nature Movement in Indian Country and Beyond: From Grassroots to Mainstream | Bioneers Bioneers 2022-10-10 | The “Rights of Nature” movement seeks to protect rivers, mountains, and entire ecosystems and the life forms supported within them by recognizing and enshrining their rights in formal legal codes and constitutions. This legal framework offers a radically different worldview from current legal premises. Instead of being seen as property, nature as a whole and its various components would be formally recognized to have inherent rights to exist, persist, flourish and evolve, and these would be protected under the law. For over 15 years, the Rights of Nature movement has caught fire across the U.S. and the rest of the world in some of the most and least expected places, from tribal lands to “progressive” cities, to coal country, to Latin American nations.In this session, activist attorneys leading the movement in Indian Country and beyond update us on their successes and the challenges ahead. With: Frank Bibeau; Thomas Linzey; Samantha Skenandore. Moderated by Alexis Bunten.Watch more videos from the 2022 conference at bioneers.org/conference-media
Indigenous Pathways to a Regenerative Future | Bioneers Bioneers 2022-10-10 | Indigenous Peoples already do “green jobs,” integrate cultural values into business activities, and protect 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. In order to transform our economies through Indigenous-led solutions, we need to uplift movements and stories inspired by Indigenous resistance. To do this, we must change the culture of philanthropy and “impact investing,” which still largely circulates in privileged circles. In this panel, Sikowis (Plains Cree/Saulteaux), Nick Estes (Lower Brule Sioux Tribe), and Alexis Bunten (Unangan/Yupik) discuss colonial-capitalism and how Indigenous-led strategies can offer us a pathway towards an equitable and regenerative future. Watch more videos from the 2022 conference at bioneers.org/conference-media
How to Teach Thanksgiving: Resources for Young Children | Bioneers Bioneers 2022-10-06 | Alexis Bunten, Co-Director of the Bioneers Indigeneity Program and curriculum developer, guides attendees the learning activities, arts and crafts designed to teach young children about the importance of sharing, valuing nature, animal behavior, the three sisters, and more. Guest speakers include Danielle Greendeer, and Tony Perry, co-authors of the new picture book, Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun’s Thanksgiving Story, for a reading and Q&A.Alexis Bunten, PhD, Co-Directs the Bioneers Indigeneity Program. She is an Alaska Native writer, media maker, consultant and educator. Her first book, “So, how long have you been Native?” Life as an Alaska Native Tour Guide (2015) won the Alaska Library Association Award for its originality, and depth. Her writing has appeared in First American Art Magazine, Cultural Survival Quarterly, American Indian magazine, and in many academic journals. Her first childrens’ book, Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun’s Thanksgiving Story, co-authored with Danielle Hill and Tony Perry, was released in August 2022, and her second picture book, What Your Ribbon Skirt Means to Me: Deb Haaland’s Historic Inauguration, will be published in 2023. Alexis lives in Monterey, California with her partner, daughter, 3 dogs, cat and lizard. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, studying DNA and creating cultural tours. Danielle Hill, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Citizen, Hawk Clan. Mother of five children, Julian, 17, Anysa 14, Maple 5, Quill 4, Tulsi 2, and wife of David Greendeer, Ho-Chunk/Narragansett. We are an art family and enjoy spending our days, crafting, painting, building, making wampum jewelry and spending days and nights at the beach. As a writer, farmer, crafter, dancer and artist I always find inspiration from museum archives and collections. When the children go to bed, I spend time looking at old photographs and imagining what life our ancestors lived. Through the silence, I find motivation to create new imagery and stories. I am also a seed steward of the King Philip Corn, a historically Wampanoag heirloom corn variety stolen during the King Philip War but now rematriated back into Wampanoag soil. When I am not out in the corn field or in the gallery, you can find me teaching a Native Food Systems Course for UMass Amherst Stockbridge school of Agriculture. The future for me is to continue to merge my love of art and corn. Anthony Perry (Chickasaw) grew up in Oklahoma and now lives in England with his wife and young children. This is his second children’s book. His first book, Chula the Fox, brings 18th century Chickasaw history to life and is being adapted into a film. He works as a quality improvement manager in the National Health Service in England and volunteers with hospitals in Pakistan to improve health services. He loves history and enjoys spending time with his family and traveling. Perry has an undergraduate degree in comparative religion from Dartmouth College, a master’s degree in public health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a master’s degree in public policy from Birkbeck College, University of London. He is currently working on a sequel to Chula the Fox.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Designing and Building a Regenerative, Restorative, and Just World, One Building at a Time Bioneers 2022-07-14 | Our laughably inefficient buildings account for some 40% of all U. S. primary energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, our built environment also very often sickens, oppresses and alienates the humans who inhabit it. Bioneers is thrilled to bring together for the first time two of the most visionary architects of our time, who, coming on very different career paths, are both at the forefront of radically expanding our sense of what a truly healthy, nature-honoring and socially equitable built environment could look like. Deanna Van Buren, the co-founder and Executive Director of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces, is a leading figure in the movement to build “restorative” infrastructure that addresses in its very design the root causes of mass incarceration—poverty, racism, unequal access to resources, and the criminal justice system itself. Jason McLennan, arguably the most influential “green” architect of our era, has set a high bar, showing us what truly “living,” genuinely regenerative buildings can be. Can these two very different but equally imperative re-visionings of how we rethink the built environment be reconciled/synthesized? This conversation was moderated/hosted by Dawn Danby, co-founder of Spherical.To see more talks and discussions from the 2022 Bioneers conference, visit http://www.bioneers.org
Performance by Jason Nious | Bioneers Bioneers 2022-06-29 | Jason Nious, a performing artist and creative director whose background with high school step teams and NCAA gymnastics launched his career, has traveled extensively with Cirque du Soleil, Usher, Stomp, Step Afrika, and numerous theatre and film productions. As founder and Director of the Las Vegas, NV-based, award-winning body percussion ensemble, Molodi, Jason designs new touring productions and facilitates Molodi's arts education program, reaching over 20,000 students per year. He also serves as an arts integration consultant with Focus 5, Cirque du Soleil, Cleveland Playhouse, and The Smith Center; and is an Artist-In-Residence with the Museum of Dance, Education Chair of the LAB LV Theatre Company, and regularly conducts in-school residencies through the Nevada Arts Council.Visit http://www.bioneers.org to watch more talks and discussions from the 2022 conference.
Performance by Jason Nious and Antwan Davis of Molodi | Bioneers Bioneers 2022-06-29 | Jason Nious, a performing artist and creative director whose background with high school step teams and NCAA gymnastics launched his career, has traveled extensively with Cirque du Soleil, Usher, Stomp, Step Afrika, and numerous theatre and film productions. As founder and Director of the Las Vegas, NV-based, award-winning body percussion ensemble, Molodi, Jason designs new touring productions and facilitates Molodi's arts education program, reaching over 20,000 students per year. He also serves as an arts integration consultant with Focus 5, Cirque du Soleil, Cleveland Playhouse, and The Smith Center; and is an Artist-In-Residence with the Museum of Dance, Education Chair of the LAB LV Theatre Company, and regularly conducts in-school residencies through the Nevada Arts Council.Antwan Davis, a multi-percussionist specializing in body-percussion, improv actor and stand-up comedian, co-founded the Las Vegas based performance arts company, Molodi, and has performed with the Las Vegas and North American productions of Stomp and toured nationally with Step Afrika. Antwan has been performing and teaching workshops in the U.S. and internationally for 14 years.Visit http://www.bioneers.org to watch more talks and discussions from the 2022 conference.
Closing Performance by Oakland’s own Thrive Choir | Bioneers Bioneers 2022-06-29 | The Thrive Choir, the musical voice of Thrive East Bay and the global Thrive Network (a community and movement devoted to love in action by building equitable social systems), is an Oakland, California-based highly diverse group of vocalists, artists, activists, educators, healers, and community organizers who seek to celebrate the confluence of their many cultures and identities through their music. They have shared the stage with many nationally-acclaimed “engaged” artists and leading progressive figures and inspired thousands at marches, conferences and festivals. The Choir lifts up the house at Thrive Sundays in downtown Oakland.Visit http://www.bioneers.org to watch more talks and discussions from the 2022 conference.
Kongjian Yu - “Sponge Cities”: Visionary, Nature-Based Urban Design from China | Bioneers Bioneers 2022-06-28 | What if cities were designed so that they could absorb excess rainfall, neutralize floods, and turn their streets green and beautiful in the process? Kongjian Yu is doing just that, as he reports from China. This award-winning leader in ecological urbanism and landscape architecture, and founder of the planning and design firm, Turenscape in Beijing, has become world-renowned for his “sponge cities” and other revolutionary nature-based solutions. These approaches are being implemented in well over 200 cities in China and beyond. Yu’s extraordinary city-wide systems of stormwater-retaining ponds, wetlands, and parks draw from both ancient Chinese hydrological wisdom and cutting-edge design to offer the whole world a model of inspired climate adaptation in an era of rising seas and extreme rainfall events.Visit http://www.bioneers.org to watch more talks and discussions from the 2022 conference.
Karen Washington – 911 Our Food System Is Not Working | Bioneers Bioneers 2022-06-28 | Many of us have reached a point in our work at which we realize the food system is not working. Leaders keep on relying on band-aid solutions, autocratic jargon and political hypocrisy to tackle the problems of hunger and poverty. Yet our society’s way of feeding and treating people just isn’t sustainable, especially when the United Nations predicts that by 2050 we will have an additional 2 billion people on this planet, most ending up in urban areas.The simple truth is that we can’t talk about a fair, just, and equitable food system without radical new thinking and putting in a lot work. What sort of work needs to be done and who will be the people to do it? Karen Washington, one of the most renowned and influential food activists of our era shares her wisdom and her analysis of why the food system doesn’t need to be fixed but has to be dramatically transformed.Visit http://www.bioneers.org to watch more talks and discussions from the 2022 conference.
Alexandria Villaseñor – Working Together: Building Coalitions of Power Bioneers 2022-06-28 | Building power and achieving success in the global youth climate movement require international solidarity, communication, and organizing. Relationships with allied groups and organizations are key to making change. An international youth organizer since the age of 13, Alexandria Villaseñor shares the unique ways in which a multicultural, geographically distributed youth movement is building trust, negotiating compromises, distributing decision-making and centering the stories, experiences and leadership of those most impacted in each action and campaign. From grassroots movements to national organizations, Alexandria shows us how youth intend to win the climate fight by working together.To watch more talks and discussions from the 2022 Conference, visit http://www.bioneers.org
Nina Simons - Navigating the Nexus: Nature, Culture and the Sacred Bioneers 2022-06-28 | Nina Simons delivers her opening remarks from the 2022 Bioneers Conference. “If you’re at all like me, you may be having trouble finding your way through the challenging confluence of crises we are facing these days.” Bioneers Co-founder Nina Simons explores how we can support each other to make our way through the maze we’re currently facing.To see more talks and discussions, visit http://www.bioneers.org
Kevin J. Patel – Our Collective Ecosystems | Bioneers Bioneers 2022-06-28 | Kevin Patel, a 21-year old LA-based Climate Justice activist extraordinaire who passionately demands that youth be listened to right now, not marginalized as “leaders of tomorrow," recounts his own health challenges growing up in heavily polluted South Central Los Angeles and insists that climate action and ending racial and class disparities have to be inseparably linked in our movements.Visit http://www.bioneers.org to watch more talks and discussions from the 2022 conference.
Samuel Myers - Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves Bioneers 2022-06-28 | Samuel Myers, a leading figure in the study of the impacts on human health of the accelerating disruptions to Earth’s natural systems, shares the guiding principles and implications of this newly emergent, rapidly growing field, recently dubbed “Planetary Health.” Every dimension of human health and wellbeing is under threat from our ongoing degradation of Earth’s life-support systems. Planetary Health research is providing rigorous evidence that urgently stabilizing our planet’s natural systems is essential if we are going to have any chance of safeguarding a livable future for humanity. Dr. Myers explains the goals and work of the broad global coalitions around The Planetary Health Alliance (of which he is the founding director) coming together to drive home the inextricable links between human and environmental health and to develop policies and actions to protect our biosphere.Learn more at http://www.bioneers.org
Helena Gualinga and Nina Gualinga - #EndAmazonCrude: A Call to Action Bioneers 2022-06-28 | California is the world’s largest consumer of oil from the Amazon rainforest. This extraction contributes to climate change, causes deforestation, pollutes the oceans, displaces Indigenous peoples stewarding the Amazon Forest’s last remaining biodiversity, and harms people at every end of the supply chain, including the marginalized communities living in the shadow of toxic refineries right here. We are honored to be able to offer our main stage to two leading Indigenous Amazonian forest-protectors, sisters Nina and Helena Gualinga, who work closely with our friends at Amazon Watch as they appeal to Californians (and all of us) to #EndAmazonCrude and demand corporate responsibility for people and planet.To see more talks and discussions from the 2022 Bioneers Conference, visit http://www.bioneers.org
Nick Estes - The Age of the Water Protector and Climate Chaos Bioneers 2022-06-28 | Nick Estes, Ph.D. (Kul Wicasa/Lower Brule Sioux), is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico and a member of the Oak Lake Writers Society, a group of Dakota, Nakota and Lakota writers. In 2014, he was a co-founder of The Red Nation in Albuquerque, NM, an organization dedicated to the liberation of Native people from capitalism and colonialism. He serves on its editorial collective and writes its bi-weekly newsletter. Nick Estes is also the author of "Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline" and "The Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance".To watch more talks and discussions from the 2022 Conference, visit http://www.bioneers.org
Kenny Ausubel - Dancing on Thin Ice Bioneers 2022-06-28 | Kenny Ausubel delivers his opening remarks from the 2022 Bioneers Conference. To see more talks and discussions, visit http://www.bioneers.org
Kate Aronoff - Is “Responsible” Fossil Fuel Production Possible? Bioneers 2022-06-28 | Between the Ukrainian crisis and the resulting fossil fuel shortages and price surges in Europe, compounded by the intensification of climate change terrifyingly visible all around us, the U.S. seems stuck in an impossible conundrum: More domestically produced oil and gas is needed in the short term, but the science couldn’t be clearer that production needs to rapidly wind down in order to avoid catastrophe. Drillers claim that over time new technology will allow them to decarbonize hydrocarbons, but there’s absolutely no reason or evidence to believe them. Fossil fuel companies have long sought to confuse and mislead the public and have intensely lobbied against any meaningful climate action. They need to be stopped, but business-as-usual climate policy offers few good options. As one of the nation’s greatest investigative journalists and experts on climate politics, Kate Aronoff explores how policymakers’ toolbox will have to be expanded so that we can carry out a managed, orderly decline and ultimate end of the fossil fuel era, while giving us all a stake in our energy future.Visit http://www.bioneers.org to watch more talks and discussions from the 2022 conference.
Jason F. McLennan - From Reconciliation to Regeneration Bioneers 2022-06-28 | Sixteen years ago Jason F. McLennan launched the Living Building Challenge, the world’s most progressive and advanced green building program, to show that our buildings could serve as one of the key paths toward a regenerative future. Since then, numerous Living Buildings that demonstrate a better, more inspiring way of living and working have been built around the world. Although these projects create ripples of change and are living proof of regeneration in action, and in spite of these and other great models, we continue to build and live in ways that degrade the planet. Why? Jason explores why physical demonstrations of better solutions are not enough to create change when society has not grappled with its deeper systemic trauma. If we are to participate fully in regenerating the conditions for life on the planet, a deeper process of reconciliation is necessary. To heal the planet, he argues, we must fundamentally heal our culture.Visit http://www.bioneers.org to watch more talks and discussions from the 2022 conference.
