Kenny Ausubel

Hostile Takeover

In his eagerly anticipated yearly take on the zeitgeist, Bioneers founder Kenny Ausubel dissects the madness or our current politics and the incredibly high stakes at play, while passionately reminding us that we have no choice but to fight for the survival of the biosphere, and that if we work with “Nature’s Operating Instructions” in mind, we will ultimately prevail.

Janine Benyus

Becoming a Welcome Species: Biomimicry and the Art of Generous Design

Janine Benyus helps us imagine a city that functions like a forest—storing the same amount of water, cleaning and cooling the same amount of air, cycling as many nutrients, and nurturing as much biodiversity. This regenerative vision is within our reach if we are able to quiet our human cleverness sufficiently to ask: What would Nature do here?

Amy Bowers Cordalis

The Water Remembers: Year Zero

In 2024, the removal of four dams on the Klamath River marked a historic victory for an Indigenous-led movement, achieving the largest river restoration project in history. Amy Bowers Cordalis highlights the Indigenous values and lessons from the Klamath, showcasing nature-based solutions that heal the land, waters, and people while benefiting the economy. The Klamath’s renewal is not just history—it’s a path forward for all.

Shreya Chaudhuri

Youth Keynote

Reclaiming Roots: The Global Fight for Indigenous Science

For generations, Indigenous science has safeguarded ecosystems worldwide—yet mainstream environmental solutions continue to sideline it. As climate crises escalate, young activists are reclaiming these knowledge systems, challenging colonial frameworks, and forging global solidarity. The future of sustainability isn’t about reinventing solutions—it’s about reclaiming the roots that have long sustained our planet.

Katsi Cook

Matrilineal World-Making: Embracing for Impact

Katsi Cook shares the stories of remarkable Indigenous elder women and what they can teach us about the Sacred Cycle of Life, covering such topics as the regeneration of Indigenous lifeways, ancestral healing, the world-building biocultural characteristics of matrilineal descent and rematriation, and addressing the maternity care crisis in Indian Country through kinship connection.

Wade Crowfoot

California’s Leadership in Nature-Based Solutions: Building Climate Resilience Through Ecosystem Restoration

California is harnessing the power of nature to tackle climate change and build resilience against wildfires, droughts, floods, and extreme heat. By restoring ecosystems and integrating natural infrastructure into climate policy, we are enhancing biodiversity, improving public health, and supporting sustainable communities.

Corrina Gould

Resilience and Rematriation

Corrina Gould reminds us of the brutal history of genocide and cultural erasure faced by Indigenous Californians, but also shares their powerful resilience and the ongoing rematriation, cultural revitalization and land restoration efforts underway to heal and transform the legacies of colonization and to do the work our ancestors and future generations are calling us to do.

Joy Harjo

The world-renowned, multiple prestigious award-winning Muscogee poet, writer, and musician Joy Harjo, the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States, author of ten books of poetry as well as plays, memoirs, children’s books, non-fiction, and seven albums, shares stories, perspectives and select readings from powerfully relevant poems.

Thom Hartmann

Supreme Oligarchy at the Gates

As Thom Hartmann sees it, the lines between corporate power, billionaire interests, government authority, public “knowledge,” and foreign influence have not just blurred — they’re vanishing. This is not just politics as usual; this is an emergency. Do we, the American people, still possess the power and will to challenge this oligarchic takeover?

Ben Jealous

A Green Economy Lifts All Boats

The renowned civil rights and environmental leader Ben Jealous examines how the green economy is driving job creation and transforming industries, including renewable energy and electric vehicles. He debunks myths that the transition will lead to job losses or take too long, and underscores how the green economy is improving workforce opportunities and enhancing public health outcomes.

Mahjabin Khanzada

Youth Keynote

Courage: From Kabul to California

As a translator for the U.S. embassy, Mahjabin Khanzada narrowly escaped when the Taliban seized power, but her parents were left behind. She has endured profound hardship, yet has emerged as a fierce advocate for Afghan women’s rights. Now, as crucial funding for refugee programs faces devastating cuts, her work is more urgent than ever.

Bill McKibben

Back to the Wall, Face to the Sun

We’re at a dire point in the human story, with temperatures higher than they’ve been in 125,000 years, but we have one secret weapon: the sudden and rapid drop in the price of energy from the sun. Bill McKibben explains that we have a fleeting chance for a truly transformative reorientation of the way our world works…but we will need everyone to make it happen.

Haley Mellin

Creativity, Courage and Conservation

Is biodiversity conservation a science, a form of stewardship, or perhaps an art? Artist and activist Haley Mellin shows how it can be all three. As the founder of Art into Acres, she uses her creative talents to support Indigenous and community-led efforts to protect wild places, weaving care into the tapestry of sustaining biodiversity.

Asa Miller

Youth Keynote

Viva el Vivero: Finding the Best Nursery for Cuba’s Coral

When Asa Miller returned to his native Cuba in an effort to help restore the country’s coral reefs, he found there communities not paralyzed by the injustices of climate change but catalyzed by their love of their land and its living things. Asa shares his challenges and rewards working with our under-resourced neighbor, and the lessons he brings back to our own over-resourced world.

Colette Pichon Battle

The 20th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

Colette Pichon Battle, the passionate, long-time, award-winning Environmental Justice litigator and activist from Bayou Liberty, Louisiana, reminds us of the powerful lessons Hurricane Katrina delivered by laying bare the nation’s racism, neglect of disenfranchised communities and environmental mismanagement.

Doria Robinson

Empowering Community from the Grassroots: The Richmond, CA Model

The city of Richmond has provided an impressive example of highly effective progressive grassroots organizing that has included the building of groundbreaking citizens’ organizations, local institutions and co-operatives and successful electoral campaigns, as well as a major Environmental Justice victory in a decades-long struggle with Chevron.

César Rodríguez-Garavito

More-Than-Human Rights: Pushing the Boundaries of Legal Imagination to Re-Animate the World

Drawing on his work advancing the rights of nature around the world, César Rodríguez-Garavito tells a renewed story about the living world: one in which all of nature is alive; where human and nonhuman animals, plants, fungi, rivers, forests, oceans, and other ecosystems are all animate, subjects of moral and legal consideration, and entangled in the planetary web of life.

Nina Simons

Remembering our Inter-relatedness to Navigate Dangerous Times

Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons shares her rage and sadness at the current national and international situation and expresses her admiration for all those resisting in whatever ways they can. She also stresses the importance of taking care of our inner health and drawing from a range of wisdom traditions in order to maintain our psycho-spiritual equilibrium.

Baratunde Thurston

From Me to We, A Story of Interdependence

While we work fervently in response to the many crises we face, we also need to pay attention to the story, because what we tell ourselves about ourselves shapes how we show up in these times. Baratunde Thurston shares the stories he has been unearthing about our relationships with the natural world, our fellow humans, and even with machines, that provide strong hints of where we need to go and how to get there.

Women’s Earth Alliance

Rising Together: Women’s Leadership for a Resilient Future

As co-leaders of a global alliance working at the intersection of gender justice and environmental resilience, award-winning, groundbreaking activists and visionaries Amira Diamond, Melinda Kramer, and Kahea Pacheco explore the transformative power of grassroots women’s leadership in confronting our most pressing ecological challenges.