Ericka Huggins – Interconnectedness

Watch the full talk here.

Ericka Huggins, the renowned former Black Panther, political prisoner, human rights activist – and educator, poet, and professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Merritt College in Oakland – has for 35 years advocated for “restorative justice” and the role of spiritual practice in sustaining activism and promoting social change. Grounded in her belief in the greatness of the human heart, Ericka says each one of us has the ability to look there for the answers to questions about the future of our world. Personal transformation is necessary to achieve social transformation.

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

Mark Plotkin – Shamanic Medicine | Bioneers 2016 Short Clips Series

Watch his full talk here.

Mark Plotkin, groundbreaking ethnobotanist and author of seminal books including “Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice”, works closely with Indigenous peoples and uncontacted tribes in the northwest Amazon. As co-founder of the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) in 1995, he depicts ACT’s work partnering with over 30 South American tribes, including the Kogi, to map, manage and protect over 70 million acres of ancestral forests. He describes collaboration with elder healers to develop and implement successful “Shamans and Apprentices” programs to transmit sacred healing information down through generations within the tribes themselves.

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

Bren Smith – Seaweed | Bioneers 2016 Short Clips Series

Watch the full talk here.

Bren Smith, founder of GreenWave and winner of the 2015 Buckminster Fuller Challenge award, tells his personal story of ecological redemption. He dropped out of high school and became a commercial fisherman at age 14, but witnessed the destruction of the ocean firsthand. In a quest for a better way, he pioneered a revolutionary new model of harvesting bounty from the seas. He describes his innovative, practical design and future vision for “restorative 3-D ocean farming”. It restores ecosystems, mitigates climate change, creates jobs in a blue-green economy, and ensures healthy, secure local food for communities.

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

Janine Benyus – It’s Not Time to Adapt to Climate Change Yet | Bioneers 2016 Short Clips Series

Watch the full talk here: http://bit.ly/2gYRU8S

Our species is finally turning toward other species for their embodied wisdom, borrowing these insights to solve challenges such as delivering nutrition in a way that nourishes both planet and people. Biomimicry author and visionary Janine Benyus shows how nature-inspired breakthroughs in agriculture are evolving from plant-focused “silver bullets” to system-savvy healing. She gives us a sneak preview of the amazing entries in the Biomimicry Global Design Challenge in food systems. She explores how the “democratization of invention” is growing more biomimetic – as teams turn to nature together, in massive parallel, to discover a multitude of wild ideas that work together as a system. Cooperation, naturally enough, is the best way to learn from life’s genius!

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

 

Clayton Thomas-Muller – Bioneers: A Key Platform for Native People

Clayton Thomas-Muller (Mathias Colomb Cree Nation), the ‘Stop It At The Source’ Campaigner with 350.org, founder and organizer with Defenders of the Land and Bioneers board member describes the immense value and importance of Bioneers and the Bioneers Indigeniety program. Clayton describes Bioneers as one of the most important platforms for Native people and a key venue for making connections between Native people and non-Indigenous Allies.

 

Katsi Cook: The Most Sacred Moment | Bioneers 2016 Short Clips Series

Watch her full talk here.

Legendary Mohawk midwife and environmental health researcher and advocate Katsi Cook illuminates her dynamic new work strengthening Indigenous communities and addressing the cultural and physical safety and thriving lives of Indigenous girls and women. As Program Director of NoVo Foundation’s Indigenous Communities Leadership Program for Indigenous Girls and Women, she’s building bridges across communities and existing networks to increase synergy in the protection of Indigenous girls and women from multiple forms of violence and oppression. She shares preliminary results from a network-mapping analysis using a net-centered approach based on the understanding that “leadership is an emergent property of a network in balance”.

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

Danny Kennedy: Optimizing the Energy Transition

The great energy transition is underway. Renewable electricity build-out is outpacing dirty projects. Global greenhouse gas emissions have flatlined, but the transition isn’t happening fast enough to significantly arrest climate change. Danny Kennedy, founder of Sungevity and Managing Director of the California Clean Energy Fund, draws from lessons learned over decades as an activist and entrepreneur on the frontlines of the global energy transition. He illustrates his vision of how to achieve clean energy accessible to people of all classes, cultures and countries in a distributed, decentralized and democratized system.

Introduction by David Hochschild, Commissioner, California Energy Commission.

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.