In neighborhoods across the country, citizens are building community resilience – one shovelful and one backyard at a time. Visionary citizen restorationists Trathen Heckman of Daily Acts and Jessie Lerner of Sustain Dane show how seemingly small acts like catching rain and growing food forests are turning green visions into action, with the help of local governments, students, businesses, artists and churches.
Ecstatic Revolt: The New Mythos of Eve | Eve Ensler
As the creation story of Judeo-Christian beliefs, the biblical recounting of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden has long had profound influence around the world. So what’s it like to be named Eve? World-renowned playwright and activist Eve Ensler explores her own personal journey into her namesake. The provocative author of “The Vagina Monologues” and founder of V-Day to end violence against women suggests there’s another story beneath the traditional story. For her, it’s both very personal – and very political.
Democracy, Corporate Power and Climate Change | Sarah Stranahan, Derek Cressman, and Arielle Klagsbrun
The Supreme Court’s Citizens United and related rulings have not only unleashed a flood of dark money into elections, they are also being used to block initiatives to transition to a just and sustainable economy. Join local, state and national organizers to learn about efforts to push back against these rules and to find out how you can help restore democracy and challenge the misuse of corporate power. With: Sarah Stranahan, Strategic Development Director at Free Speech For People; Derek Cressman, long-time fair election activist/current candidate for California Secretary of State; Arielle Klagsbrun of Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment/2013 Brower Youth Award recipient.
Recorded Saturday, October 18, 2014 at the National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.
Race and Place: A Birthright to Creation | Greg Watson, Martha Arguello & Carl Anthony
It’s a fact of life that communities of color and low-income communities suffer the worst environmental damage. Urban planner Greg Watson, physician Martha Arguello, and activist and scholar Carl Anthony show how these communities have found practical ways to reclaim the health and wellbeing of both their places and their health.
Honoring the Heritage of Black Farmers: On the Land | J.L. Chestnut
Black farmers have been leaving the land at three and a half times the rate of other farmers. It turns out that this loss of black farmers is due less to farming policies and practices than it is to generations of institutional racism. Civil Rights attorney J.L. Chestnut, in a brilliant and emotional speech, tells the story of the successful historic litigation against the USDA on behalf of these farmers.
A Sense of Wonder: Ecological Literacy and the Facts of Life | Fritjof Capra, Zenobia Barlow and Esther Cook
Does our very survival now depend on our ability to understand the facts of life – nature’s operating instructions – and how to live by them? Join the Center for Ecoliteracy’s Fritjof Capra, Zenobia Barlow and Esther Cook to learn how experiential, participatory education in the environment is revolutionizing education from kindergarten through high school through an education of the heart. (pic from rawpixel.com)
Heart To Heart – Womens Leadership In Transforming Culture | Sarah Crowell, Joanna Macy, Susan Griffin, Sofia Quintero, and Akaya Windwood
All too often, there’s a disconnect between how women are portrayed in popular culture and the media, and how women see and portray themselves. Sarah Crowell, Joanna Macy, Susan Griffin, Sofia Quintero and Akaya Windwood take apart gender politics and put them back together with an emotional intelligence that is shifting the definition of power and fostering new models of women’s leadership.
Light at the Crossroads: Environment Meets Social Justice | Van Jones
Environmental destruction leads to scarcity and scarcity leads to conflict, so restoring the environment is key to peace. Yet those working for the environment and those working for social justice have not linked arms until recently. Van Jones invites us to bring down the social walls that we ourselves have built, and work together to counter the timeworn strategy of divide and conquer that benefits ruling elites.
The Wonders of Gaia: Nature is Symbiotic | Lynn Margulis, Wade Davis & Paul Stamets
“Why plant a garden when you can put plants to work for you in your own body?” This is one of the mind bending questions Lynn Margulis, one of the greatest cross-disciplinary scientific thinkers and educators of our epoch, asks. Margulis, ethnobotanist Wade Davis and mycologist Paul Stamets weave tales of amazing plant intelligence like the “Hat Thrower Mushroom” and animals that eat light.
Forest Lifeboat: From Spirit Bears to Victoria’s Dirty Secret | Tzeporah Berman
How do you go from being a passionate tree-hugger to a business-suited change-maker on behalf of the forests? Enter ForestEthics Program Director Tzeporah Berman. With a string of conservation successes, including the “Amazon of the North,” her inspiring story shows how innovative market-based strategies, strange bedfellows, and public embarrassment are powerful tools to preserve the wild places that provide our essential ecosystem services.
You Are Where You Eat: Trans-farming Urban Food and Growing Community | Ladonna Redmond…
LaDonna Redmond and Wil Bullock live in communities where 12-year-olds suffer heart attacks, and where it’s easier to buy a semi-automatic weapon than an organic tomato. But they are changing that reality, providing access to fresh, healthy foods, and re-establishing the connections between food and community.
The Art of Relationships: From Ecology to Healing | Fritjof Capra, Jeannette Armstrong, and Jeanne Achterberg
Ecology is the superb art of interdependent relationships. Author and physicist Fritjof Capra, Native American educator Jeannette Armstrong, and medical researcher Jeanne Achterberg describe the complex and interconnected relationships inherent in living systems that can help heal our environment, our societies, and us.