Dr. Gabor Maté – Toxic Culture

The Canadian physician and best-selling author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is a brilliantly original thinker on addiction, trauma, parenting and the social context of human diseases and imbalances. Contrary to the assumptions of mainstream medicine, he asserts that most human ailments are not individual problems, but reflections of a person’s relationship with the physical, emotional and social environment, from conception to death. Mind and body are not separate in real life, and thus health and illness in a person reflect social and economic realities more than personal predispositions. In other words, personal responsibility cannot be separated from societal responsibility and changing the world.

This speech was presented at the 2012 Bioneers National Conference.

Greg Sarris – Betting Big on a Native Dream

Greg Sarris describes how his people (descendants of Coastal Miwok and Southern Pomo) are using their understanding that they have always been a part of the natural world to embark on a major commitment to position themselves as “keepers of the land” once again. Using ancient ethics and aesthetics of place, bolstered by casino revenues, the 1,300 member tribe has partnered with county and state officials to secure and restore large tracts of open space, as well as to convert local farms to the production of organic produce for the low-income and needy, thus creating a model of local restoration and sustainability. Sarris is the Tribal Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and professor of Native American Studies at Sonoma State University.

This speech was given at the 2012 National Bioneers Conference.

Find out more about Greg Sarris and how you can engage with his campaigns and efforts by visiting his personal website and the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.

 

Michael Brune – emPOWERed

Hungry for good news? Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune tells the story of how an inspiring grassroots coalition has achieved hundreds of victories against Big Coal over the last several years. He depicts a new, localized approach to fighting climate change effectively and outline what each of us can do to help clean energy such as solar and wind become the dominant source of power by the end of this decade. The Beyond Coal campaign, including recent funding of $50 million from Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, has helped block 166 (and counting) new coal plants over the past decade, with major impacts on reducing global greenhouse gas and mercury emissions. The Mother Jones magazine headline says it all: “How a Grassroots Rebellion Won the Nation’s Biggest Climate Victory.” In 2008 he published the book Coming Clean — Breaking America’s Addiction to Oil and Coal.

Find out more about Michael Brune and how you can engage with his campaigns and efforts by visiting the The Sierra Club or follow him @bruneksi.

This speech was given at the 2012 Bioneers National Conference.

Rev. Fletcher Harper – Greening our Faiths

This courageous Episcopal priest — Executive Director of the groundbreaking interfaith environmental coalition GreenFaith and award-winning spiritual writer and renowned preacher on the environment — illustrates ways in which growing numbers of diverse faith-based groups are offering environmental leadership on issues ranging from renewable energy to environmental justice and reconnecting with the Earth. Fletcher describes GreenFaith’s Certification Program for faith-based sites — a transformative 2-year process through which houses of worship become centers of environmental spirituality, stewardship and justice.

This speech was given at the 2012 Bioneers National Conference.

Carol Jenkins – The Public Square Is Empty | Bioneers

As perhaps never before in our history, Americans are at war — with one another. Divided by race, class, gender, faith and rigid politics, our media has failed us. Instead of the Public Square of information, we increasingly retreat to our own de facto segregated sources of opinion. In this crucial election year of 2012, can we revive the Public Square, and, if not, what happens? Carol Jenkins is an Emmy award-winning former journalist and producer, and founding President of the Women’s Media Center, the groundbreaking nonprofit aimed at increasing coverage and participation of women in the media. In that WMC role, she conceived the acclaimed Progressive Women’s Voices media leadership program, and acquired and expanded SheSource as the largest portfolio of women experts in the country. She explores how to regenerate the public information commons in this polarized age.

This speech was given at the 2012 Bioneers National Conference.

Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges.

To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.

For more information on Bioneers Everywoman’s Leadership program, please visit https://bioneers.org/programs/every-womans-leadership/ and stay in touch via Facebook (bit.ly/everywomansFB) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/Bioneerswomen).

Paul Stamets – Solutions from the Underground

In this Sixth Age of Extinctions, the life support systems that have allowed humans to thrive are eroding. Paul Stamets, the world’s leading visionary “myco-technologist,” shows how fungi and mushrooms can help restore ecosystems, degraded landscapes and human health – fast. Like people, habitats have immune systems, and our close evolutionary relationship to fungi provides the basis for novel environmental deployments of key mushroom species that can lead to greater sustainability and better health.

This speech was given at the 2011 Bioneers National Conference.

Melissa Nelson – Revitalizing Indigeneity

Dynamic indigenous eco-cultural revitalization movements provide compelling leadership models by Native peoples working to maintain and restore their Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). TEK, the art and science of resilience for the sustainability of future generations, is critically needed as a partner to Western science to restore the world’s ecosystems and biological and cultural diversity, including native foods and languages. Professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State, Melissa Nelson is President of the Cultural Conservancy, a Native American nonprofit dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of indigenous cultures and their ancestral lands. She illuminates how the “re-indigenization” movement is inspiring a commitment to reciprocal relationships with place as well as collaborative partnerships among peoples and landscapes.

This speech was given at the 2011 Bioneers National Conference.

Paul Stamets – Report from the Underground

Paul Stamets, the visionary biologist, mycologist and author of Mycelium Running, reveals astonishing evidence of how nature’s solutions surpass our conception of what’s possible to radically restore ecosystems and human health.

“I believe in the natural intelligence of this planet. And if I learned anything in the past several years, its that that precept that I have adopted has led me to some astonishing breakthrough discoveries.”

This speech was given at the 2001 Bioneers National Conference.

Explore our Visionary Plant Consciousness & Psychedelics media collection >>

Philippe Cousteau – Continuing a Legacy | Bioneers

In this moving presentation, Philippe Cousteau delivers a rich, visual account of his inheritance of the exploration and conservation of our “water planet,” carried out in the name of his grandfather Jacques Cousteau. He weaves his storytelling with vintage footage shot by his father on the Nile, and before and after filming among the coral reefs in the Florida Keys. As was impressed upon Philippe by his grandfather, the health and diversity of the oceans are precariously entangled with the wellbeing of people on land—including the empowerment of women and girls, access to safe drinking water, and ending our dependence on fossil fuel extraction. Philippe reads a cherished letter from his grandfather to his father, which serves as an inspiration to his family and all of humanity to “seek after the vanishing shapes of a better world.”

This speech was given at the 2011 Bioneers National Conference.

Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges.

To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.

For more information on Bioneers, please visit https://bioneers.org and stay in touch via Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Bioneers.org) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/bioneers).

The Courage to Walk in Beauty | Sarah Crowell

Sarah Crowell, the dynamic executive director of Oakland’s acclaimed Destiny Arts Center, reveals the unstoppable power and beauty of empowering multicultural young people through dance, theater and violence-prevention and youth leadership classes.

This speech was given at the 2006 National Bioneers Conference.

Wanjira Maathai – The Green Belt Movement of Kenya

Wanjira Maathai is a resonate voice of the ‘New Africa.’ As the daughter of Wangari Maathai, the revered founder of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, Wanjira has taken on the work of vast tree plantings against deforestation and other environmental and community restoration projects that demonstrate some of the largest and most successful ecological and progressive social models in Africa. She approached the work as an exemplary woman leader in a movement that has been characterized by women’s leadership.

This speech was given at the 2004 Bioneers National Conference.

Glora Flora – Defending Our Forests

Gloria Flora, an exemplary public servant with a 23-year career in the Forest Service, protected the “Rocky Mountain Front” from drilling and mining. She later resigned in protest when “wise use” fanatics in Nevada endangered Forest Service personnel under her command. She tells the story of what happens to landscapes and their human and wild inhabitants when an agency slips on the marbles of political, scientific and social dynamics. She will also tell a story of hope for the future of our families and landscapes based on understanding, and re-instituting the honor and responsibility of becoming ancestors.

This speech was given at the 2003 Bioneers National Conference.