Gretchen Daily – Harmonizing People and Nature: A New Business Model

Leaders around the world are increasingly recognizing ecosystems as natural capital assets that supply life-support services of priceless value. The challenge is to turn this recognition into incentives and institutions that will guide wise investments in natural capital on a large scale. Gretchen Daily illuminates advances being made on three key fronts: the development of new science and technical tools for valuing Nature, such as InVEST, a software system developed by the Natural Capital Project; new policies and finance mechanisms being implemented worldwide; and engaging leaders in forging a deep and lasting transformation.

This speech was given at the 2012 Bioneers National Conference and is part of the Ecological Design Vol. 2 and Protecting and Restoring Nature Vol. 1 Collections.

Michael Lerner: The Emerging Environmental Health Movement

Health-care visionary and Commonweal founder Michael Lerner connects the dots between the condition of human health and the drivers of extinction: toxic habitat, invasive species, declining biodiversity and climate change. He looks at the inseparability of the planetary ecological and socio-political crisis and our personal health, and what we must do to address both.

This speech was given at the 2004 Bioneers National Conference.

Carolyn Raffensperger – Bold Precaution

Environmental lawyer and executive director of the Science & Environmental Health Network Carolyn Raffensperger lays out the history of the Precautionary Principle and portrays how it can be used as an effective tool in policymaking to protect the public health, environment and future generations. She maintains that it is “the beginning of an essential transformation in the way we relate both to the Earth and to the things we invent.”

This speech was given at the 2001 Bioneers National Conference and is featured on the Ecological Medicine, Vol. 1 and Environmental Justice, Vol. 1 Collections.

 

Martha Arguello – Precaution, Environmental Justice and Reciprocity

This passionate organizer for Physicians for Social Responsibility in Southern California recounts how an environmental justice coalition came together in some of Los Angeles’ poorest neighborhoods to force California’s EPA to use precaution as an organizing principle. She shows how communities resist being forced to make the false choice between health and jobs, and are demanding healthier models of development. She describes the inspiring battle spearheaded by one remarkable activist mom in the L.A. Unified School District to stop using toxic pesticides. It led to one of the best nontoxic integrated pest management school policies in the country.

This speech was given at the 2004 Bioneers National Conference and is featured on the Ecological Medicine Vol. 1 and Environmental Justice Vol. 1 Collections.

 

James Hillman – Accentuate the Positive: Reclaiming the Country from the Nation

The renowned psychologist and author dispels the fog of duality and polarization that enshrouds our society, such as under-thinking while over-working, or preaching democracy while failing to vote. Paradoxically, knowing what’s wrong with our nation is what paralyzes us. We play the mind game of opposites – red or blue states, religion or science, winning or losing – and fail to find a third way. Searching out the meaning of the symptom might release us from this stalemate. On-the-ground community building, voting and governing the government, Hillman believes, could help us reclaim an Earth-based culture and more decentralized society from our stalemated, empire-building nation.

This speech was given at the 2006 Bioneers National Conference.

 

Andrew Kimbrell – Organic & Beyond: Paradigm for a New Food Future

One of the most penetrating critics of technological abuses, this leading lawyer-activist for local and sustainable food takes on the destructive and toxic system of industrial agriculture. Author of the classic book Fatal Harvest, he shows how reconnecting with the land, farmers and our food can heal the distortions born from our separation from the Earth and psychological distance from each other. He warns us to be alert to the manipulations of corporate food giants who seek to take over the organics movement and debase organic standards with genetically modified foods and other poorly conceived technologies.

This speech was given at the 2002 Bioneers National Conference.

Wil Bullock – You Are Where You Eat: Growing Urban Food

Access to healthy food reduces the risk of disease. White neighborhoods have, on average, five times as many supermarkets as Black neighborhoods. The Food Project in Boston engages inner-city youth in personal and social change through meaningful work in sustainable agriculture. Wil Bullock joined the organization as part of a new generation of leaders. He blends his passion for food justice with his talent as a singer/songwriter, leveraging his music to engage listeners – especially youth – to address access to nutritious food.

This speech was given at the 2005 Bioneers National Conference and is part of the Food Justice Vol. 1 Collection.

Diane Wilson – An Unreasonable Woman: Unreasonableness and Where It Gets You

The legendary shrimper and fearless activist Diane Wilson celebrated the release of her action-packed autobiography An Unreasonable Woman, by discussing her civil disobedience against Union Carbide in solidarity with the people of Bhopal seeking redress for the death of thousands in the infamous toxic gas mass poisoning incident. She describes in vivid detail how she chained herself to a high tower in one of their facilities (for which she subsequently served many months in jail), and how hard it was to get her down.

This speech was given at the 2005 Bioneers Annual Conference.

 

Paul Hawken – The End of Sustainability

Social entrepreneur and author Paul Hawken challenges the conflicting duality between the profit-driven world of business and media and a world that ensures the commons to support all life for future generations. “The sustainability movement, without forsaking its understanding of living systems, resources, conservation, and biology, must move from a resource flow model of saving the Earth to a model based on human rights, the rights to food, the rights to livelihood, the rights to culture and community, and the right of self-sufficiency.”

This speech was given at the 2002 Bioneers National Conference.

 

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. – Becoming a Blessing

Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen draws on ancient Jewish traditional wisdom to propose that the future is determined by the potential of the present. A doctor and storyteller from a long line of Jewish physicians, she explores healing as an exercise in resetting how we view our lives. She shares poignant stories of her upbringing in a Jewish household with a grandfather who taught her the values of generosity and caring.

This speech was given at the 2006 Bioneers National Conference.

Paul Hawken – The Other Superpower

In this gripping presentation, author and social entrepreneur Paul Hawken illuminates the premise of his subsequent bestselling book Blessed Unrest that the biggest movement in world history is developing under the radar screen largely through civil society. Reviewing the rich roots of today’s U.S. environmental movement, he observes that this new global movement is far more diverse. It is non-violent, grassroots, and has no central ideology. Its origins are in indigenous culture and the environmental and social justice movements. “Intertwining, morphing, enlarging, this movement does not seek power, but seeks to dismantle power.” Hawken closes to a standing ovation, acknowledging with deep emotion the many people who compose this movement.

This speech was given at the 2004 Bioneers National Conference.

 

Amy Goodman – Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders and the People Who Fight Back

“All governments lie,” I.F. Stone instructed us. To counter the lies that take lives, we need an independent media. Investigative journalist and co-host of radio’s Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman compellingly calls out the liars and their media cheerleaders with inspiring stories of people who have resisted war and social and environmental injustice to create a better world.

This speech was given at the 2006 Bioneers National Conference.