2019 Bioneers Conference Videos, Articles and More

Worldviews create worlds. Our civilizational crossroads reflects a crisis of consciousness. Everything’s going to change, and the only question is how.

For our 30th conference, “Seeding the Field: Growing Transformative Solutions,” Bioneers assembled a visionary program reflecting decades of transformative solutions and trail-blazing pathways that this growing community has so brilliantly developed.

Please enjoy and share this collection of media from the 2019 Bioneers Conference: videos of our amazing keynotes, transcripts of our talks, and more.

Day 1

Featuring Terry Tempest Williams, Jerry Tello, Eve Ensler, and more.

Day 2

Featuring Bill McKibben, Valarie Kaur, Paul Hawken and more.

Day 3

Featuring Demond Drummer, Leila Salazar-López, Casey Camp-Horinek, and more.

Day 1

L. Frank Manriquez (Tongva/Ajachmem)—award-winning, internationally renowned Native California Indian artist, tribal scholar, community activist, and founding board member of the Advocates for Indigenous California Languages.

Opening Ceremony by L. Frank Manriquez

Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons is renowned for her open hearted explorations of the difficult psycho spiritual, emotional and relational challenges facing those seeking to birth a more compassionate, just and nature-honoring world. Still reeling from the recent loss of her mother, Nina offers this tribute to her with extraordinary tenderness, honesty, vulnerability and courage.

Nina Simons: Bridging the Worlds

We are living through the most dangerous challenge to free government in the U.S. anyone of us alive has encountered. David Orr draws from his forthcoming book, Democracy Unchained: Politics as if All People Matter, to consider what we must do to return to the better angels of our collective nature and turn the ship around. What happens next is up to us.

David Orr: Is There a Future for Our Democracy? Why Everything Depends on the Answer

America is facing erosion of democracy; science, decency, compassion, and trust. Terry Tempest Williams, one of this country’s most beloved authors and defenders of public lands, and social and environmental justice, says, ”Beauty is its own resistance. Water can crack stone.”

Terry Tempest Williams: Erosion

These two Brooklyn-based poets-artists-activists-educators-musicians-performers may be the most brilliant socially engaged spoken word duo in the known universe. They perform material from their recent kickass album, “Intrinsic.”

Intrinsic – A Performance by Climbing PoeTree (Day 1)

Mary O’Mara of Marin Link and Marin Arts introduces Marin County Leaders, including Congressman Jared Huffman, who sends a video greeting to Bioneers.

Marin County Honors 30 Years of Bioneers

Jerry Tello shares his approach to generating the “medicine” necessary to shield ourselves from our society’s toxic energy, and offers us pathways to discover, uncover and recover our sacredness and return to health and wellbeing.

Jerry Tello:
Recovering Your Sacredness

Bioneers Indigeneity Program Director Cara Romero recognizes Indigenous Delegations. Paloma Flores, Program Coordinator for the SFUSD Indian Education Program, Title VII, recognizes the Indigenous Youth Delegation.

Cara Romero & Paloma Flores: Recognizing Indigenous Delegations & Native Youth Attendees

Eve Ensler, the brilliant playwright (author of the world-changing “The Vagina Monologues”) and tireless activist for women’s rights globally, shares her story and explores how other survivors of abuse might be able to mobilize their imagination and inner strength to move from humiliation to revelation to find healing and inner freedom.

Eve Ensler: The Alchemy of the Apology

The brilliant young writer, journalist and activist Julian Noisecat offers his insights into how, around the world, Indigenous peoples are rising in a global renaissance that holds untapped promise for a world in peril.

The Indigenous Renaissance | Julian Brave Noisecat

Democracy is in crisis, and one central reason is the transformation of the media landscape resulting from the collapse of the economic model for news. From where will truth-seeking, fact-based, trustworthy journalism come as we rebuild our democracy? How do we overcome the hyper-capitalist algorithm devouring the free press?

Monika Bauerlein: The Future of Journalism

Slam poet Tim Merry weaves highlights of Bioneers Day 1 into bardic verse.

Tim Merry: Holding Up a Mirror to the Moment (Day 1)

Day 2

With a wide scope and penetrating lens, Bioneers co-founder Kenny Ausubel grapples with the existential crisis now facing human civilization. He shares both his deep faith in the power of human creativity and grassroots movements and honest appraisals of the enormous challenges we face and the short time we have to address them.

Kenny Ausubel: The End of Prehistory

Not only are poor and vulnerable populations, especially communities of color, environmentally aware, they are the most at risk from the impacts of climate change. Heather McTeer Toney addresses how we must embrace climate action as the social justice issue of our time, and tear down old stereotypes so that we can build sustainable and resilient alliances.

Moving Past Stereotypes: Climate Action IS the Social Justice Issue of Our Time | Heather McTeer Toney

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) addresses the Bioneers audience.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) on 30 Years of Bioneers

Bill McKibben explores: What lessons can we draw from three decades of struggles to address the existential threat of climate disruption? What do our failures reveal about the flaws of our political system and the economic nihilism of the fossil fuel industry? What strategies are most likely to lead to greater success to save our species from itself?

Bill McKibben: What We’ve Learned About Climate Change in the Last 30 Years

“Is this the darkness of the tomb – or the darkness of the womb?” asks Valarie Kaur. Although we’ve mounted a powerful resistance to tyranny, injustice and violence during the Trump era, with 2020 in sight, we need more than resistance. We need to birth a new America. Valarie Kaur shares why she’s convinced that what our times demand is Revolutionary Love.

Valarie Kaur: Breathe! Push! The Labor of Revolutionary Love

A performance by Oakland’s own incomparably dynamic and uplifting Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company.

Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company

Mishka Banuri’s experience watching many of Utah’s sacred lands despoiled by the greed of extractive industries awakened her to the global systems of resource exploitation ravaging ecosystems and poor communities around the world and has made her an extraordinarily passionate and effective youth climate justice activist in Utah.

Mishka Banuri: A First Generation Immigrant’s Perspective on Youth Climate Justice

The visionary goal of Project Drawdown, founded by Paul Hawken, is to actually reverse global warming by drawing carbon out of the atmosphere back down to pre-industrial levels. The true power of Drawdown is its holistic nature. Doing what’s right for the climate will also create abundant, meaningful jobs and a vibrant green economy.

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming | Paul Hawken

Slam poet Tim Merry weaves highlights of Bioneers Day 2 into bardic verse.

Tim Merry: Holding Up a Mirror to the Moment (Day 2)

Day 3

The Amazon is reaching “the tipping point” of ecological collapse, but Indigenous movements across the region are resisting and calling for international solidarity. Leila Salazar Lopez, Executive Director of Amazon Watch, urges us to stand with them to protect and restore the bio-cultural integrity of the Amazon, because our collective future depends on it.

The Amazon at a Tipping Point: Can We Turn It Around? | Leila Salazar-López

brandon king shares his experiences helping conceive and build extraordinarily promising strategies and social structures to address the existential threats of climate change, economic inequality and ever escalating political instability. We can put our shoulders to the wheel and build a truly just and sustainable future.

brandon king: Making the Transition from Extraction to Regeneration

The duet OLOX, which combines Zarina Kopyrina’s ancient, traditional Siberian shamanic music with modern sounds, has performed around the world, from Burning Man to the Kremlin to Iceland to the Arctic. Zarina is passionately engaged with activism and advocacy for the rights and lands of far northern Indigenous peoples.

OLOX: A Neo-shamanic Transformative Journey Through Arctic Sounds

Demond Drummer is one of the true intellectual architects of the Green New Deal. He draws from the history of FDR’s WWII mobilization, the moonshot of the 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement to explain the critical importance of the Green New Deal as the next chapter of the American story.

Demond Drummer: A Green New Deal

To build a successful global climate movement, we must recognize that our current climate crisis is rooted in racism, white supremacy, and greed. We must also resist efforts to tokenize the term “intersectionality.” What would a movement and a society functioning on a genuine understanding of intersectionality look like?

Isha Clarke: A New Era of the Climate Justice Movement

These two Brooklyn-based poets-artists-activists-educators-musicians-performers may be the most brilliant socially engaged spoken word duo in the known universe. They perform material from their recent kickass album, “Intrinsic.”

Intrinsic – A Performance by Climbing PoeTree (Day 3)

A video greeting from Congresswoman Deb Haaland to the Bioneers audience.

Congresswoman Deb Haaland (NM-01) on 30 Years of Bioneers

For all of Earth’s history, there has been a Sacred System honored by all species. Only humans have strayed wildly from these original instructions to live in harmony with all and to recognize our place in the Great Mystery. Now, says Casey Camp-Horinek, we must find our way back to Balance if we are to avoid the unraveling of the web of life.

Casey Camp-Horinek: Aligning Human Law with Natural Law

Slam poet Tim Merry weaves highlights of Bioneers Day 3 into bardic verse.

Tim Merry: Holding Up a Mirror to the Moment (Day 3)

The Thrive Choir, an Oakland-based singing group affiliated with Thrive East Bay, a purpose-driven community focused on personal and social transformation, is composed of a diverse group of vocalists, artists, activists, educators, healers, and community organizers directed by musicians Austin Willacy and Kyle Lemle.

Closing Performance by Oakland’s Thrive Choir