Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature

At the same time the Great Recession has inflicted enormous pain and suffering, it has also caused people to take a deeper look at what's really important in our lives. Many are finding that time is not money: time is far more valuable. The acclaimed filmmakers and social entrepreneurs Annie Leonard (The Story of Stuff) and John de Graaf (Seattle Area Happiness Initiative) pop the Big Question: What's the economy for, anyway? Is it a voracious cycle of perpetual growth and more stuff? Or can we create growth within the natural limits of the planet to produce sufficiency, a high quality of life and real happiness?!

There is a fundamental need to restore a female perspective to the male-dominated world of science. Is it any accident that the first person to sound the alarm about chemical pollution was Rachel Carson, a woman? These dangerous chemicals are “feminizing” all us critters by disrupting our hormone balances. How did we get here? And what can we do about it? Environmental health advocate Charlotte Brody suggests that female scientists, with a different way of seeing problems and solutions, may lead us toward a new and healthy approach to the connections between human health and the health of the planet.

Hosted by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). New research is providing a provocative look at the healing potential of certain psychedelic substances, possibly yielding a scientific foundation for re-evaluating public policies of prohibition and repression. With Ralph Metzner, consciousness explorer whose groundbreaking books include The Psychedelic Experience and Green Psychology; Rick Doblin, MAPS founder/President; and Valerie Mojeiko, a MAPS analyst of the healing potentials of MDMA (Ecstasy), LSD, lbogaine and other psychedelics.

“And so, the idea was how do you harness this capitalist engine to create a more broadly shared prosperity? And once they decided to do that, then they said, well, what do we do with this wealth if we’re going to make it more broadly shared? Do we just have everyone make more income? And they said, no. It makes more sense; let’s think about what are the things that people need in their lives.” Despite suffering severe shocks from the 2008 global economic and banking crisis, nations of the European Union have provided the world with a potent new economic species. “Social Capitalism” shares prosperity more widely, institutionalizes broader national democracy, and creates long-term environmental sustainability. It includes universal healthcare that’s affordable, education for all that is often free, family-friendly work policies, and real worker participation in corporate decision-making. Europe watcher Steven Hill believes it may be the most important innovation in the world economy since the rise of the corporation – and we all have a “ringside seat to history.”

What would life be like if we could hear the land ask us to be a certain way, a way that leads us and the Earth back to wholeness and health? Native American activists, educators, and leaders Jeannette Armstrong,Leslie Gray, and Katsi Cook share an inspiring Earth-honoring vision of what it means to "re-indigenize" ourselves.

The Original Instructions represent the ancient empirical wisdom of Traditional Ecological Knowledge earned over generations and millennia by people living closely with the land and each other. They also comprise disarmingly simple counsel: be thankful, enjoy life and attend to the inner pollution that results in outer pollution. Indigenous leaders Winona LaDuke, John Trudell and Evon Peter voice these ancient instructions, which hold the keys to our survival as a species in the historic transition to a truly sustainable world.

“The future may depend on our remembering that everything has in it a dream of itself. That the seeds of wholeness and the seeds of needed change are already present in all events and all people and every one of us. That the wholeness of the world can only be restored one heart at a time.” So says doctor and healer Rachel Naomi Remen. She has cultivated a new generation of doctors practicing whole-person medicine, with an unlikely message: Bless others out loud. The wholeness of the world is restored one heart at a time. Find out more about Rachel Naomi Remen and how you can engage with her campaigns and efforts by visiting rachelremen.com

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)

To have any chance of success, highly creative, collaborative uses of new forms of digital media must be a cornerstone of any strategy for progressive social and environmental movements. Four leading innovators in this domain share their insights. Hosted by Matthew Monahan, Namaste Foundation. With: Ben Knight, co-founder of Loomio; Edward West, co-founder of Impact Hub Oakland and Hylo social network; Ingrid Sanders, founder of PopExpert, a crowd-sourced, community-driven platform.

Breakthrough food literacy initiatives are transforming communities, bringing people together in meaningful conversations. Learn how to design an effective food literacy program for your community, organization or school. With: Kirk Bergstrom, Executive Director, Nourish Initiative; Alyson Wylie, Health Education Specialist, Center for Nutrition and Activity Promotion, California State University, Chico.

In these ecologically dangerous times, many call for a fundamental change of heart if we are to restore vital ecosystems. Oren Lyons, Leslie Gray and John Mohawk remind us of the values that sustained people for thousands of years in a balance that supported the land. They offer direction toward nothing less than a value change for survival.

The worlds of psychedelic research and culture have historically been heavily male, and the stories of some of the great women pioneers in these domains have not received the attention they deserve. This historic panel discussion brought together some of the most extraordinary women who have contributed to this field in their own very diverse ways. The intrepid ethnobotanist, artist and co-founder of Botanical Dimensions, Kat Harrison was joined by the legendary Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia, a key figure in the Merry Pranksters and former wife of the late Grateful Dead guitarist; Annie Oak, founder of the Women’s Visionary Congress; and family nurse midwife with decades of experience, Mariavittoria Mangini, Ph.D.

Leading women designers gathered by the Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) explore the principles of participatory design—inclusion, cooperation, community, regeneration—and how we can design a human world that meets everyone’s needs without harming the bio- sphere. Hosted by Elizabeth Thompson, BFI Executive Director. With: Erin Meezan, VP of Sustainability, Interface, Inc.; Jane Harrison, co-founder, PITCHAfrica/Waterbank Schools; Dawn Danby, Senior Sustainable Design Program Manager, Autodesk, Inc.

Just like our bodies, nature has a profound capacity for healing and self-repair. Filmmaker-turned-ecological-restorer John Liu shifted from documenting China's massive environmental and societal upheavals to filming a groundbreaking, large-scale ecosystem restoration cum local economic renewal. Prioritizing nature's ecological functions above producing goods and services, the groundbreaking work is spreading to other nations, with Liu as a global ambassador of dramatic ecosystem restoration wonders.

Anthropologist Jeremy Narby’s life’s work has involved reconciling Western scientific views and assumptions with those of Indigenous cultures around the world. In this interview excerpt, Bioneers Senior Producer and author J.P. Harpignies talks to Narby about intelligence in nature, the limitations of language and more.

Writer, naturalist and activist Terry Tempest Williams asks “Can we love ourselves, each other and the Earth enough to change?” She invokes our deepest humanity to honor and protect the wilderness that’s the cauldron of evolution – and of our own imagination. “Our power lies in the love of our homelands,” she tells us in this eloquent, heartfelt tour-de-force, and protecting the wild requires bringing democracy home. Find out more about Terry Tempest Williams and how you can engage with her campaigns and efforts by visiting her website

Hosted by Atossa Soltani, Founder and Executive Director of Amazon Watch, among the most effective groups in the world conserving the Amazon and its peoples. Learn about the struggles to preserve some of the last large-scale vibrant ecosystems on Earth, crucial to the diversity of life on our planet, the climate and to our own species’ survival. Kris Tompkins describes the remarkable work she and her husband Doug Tompkins, Co-Founder of Esprit, are doing as conservation philanthropists and practitioners to create national parks that protect and restore wildlands and biodiversity, inspire care for the natural world, and generate healthy economic opportunities for communities in Patagonia in Chile and Argentina. John Liu shows how understanding the true value of ecological functions including hydrological cycles, climate regulation and soil fertility reveals an astonishing cost-benefit ratio that points to both the ecological and economic imperative of large-scale ecological restoration worldwide, such as he has demonstrated in China and Rwanda. Marina Silva will describe what can and must be done to protect the forests and peoples of the Amazon while alleviating poverty. With: Kris Tompkins, conservationist, former CEO of Patagonia, who since 1993 has worked with her husband Doug Tompkins to create large wilderness conservation areas in Chile and Argentina; John D. Liu, international filmmaker, conservationist and ecological restorationist; Marina Silva, Brazilian environmental leader.

For thousands of years, First Peoples have successfully managed the complex reciprocal relationships between biological and human cultures using Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). Yet no prior human civilization has ever faced the globalized ecological collapse occurring now. In the face of unprecedented pressures on their homelands and ways of life, indigenous leaders Enei Begaye, Dune Lankard, and Hawk Rosales are organizing in new ways to protect the environment--and spread their knowledge for the sake of all life on Earth and future generations.

Shailja Patel's unique artistry is a provocative global mash-up of genres. Shes a slam poetry champion and star of her award-winning, one-woman play Migritude about the intricate webs of global migration and cultural identity. As an acclaimed poet of South Asian and Kenyan ancestry, through her fearless art she embodies the authentic voices of women, South Asians and Africans who are otherwise seldom heard. For her, the ultimate destination of poetry is justice -- too heart-breakingly beautiful to be denied.

Did medicine's separation from nature propel our health care system into its current crisis? Join Dr. Andrew Weil and nurse and health activist Charlotte Brody as they describe how Ecological Medicine reunites the interdependence of medicine and nature, and restores the feminine principle in healing.

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.

How do we align political governance with ecological realities rooted in watersheds, foodsheds, culturesheds and regional economies? Hosted by: Kirsten Schwind, Bay Localize. With: David Orr, Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College; Louise Bedsworth, Deputy Director, California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research.

Climate change. Energy crisis. Economic collapse. We live in a time of unprecedented global crisis and opportunity. There's a monumental amount of work to be done to make the transition to a restored world, yet young people are unemployed at astonishingly high rates. How can we unlock the green economic opportunities that will open the door to doing well by doing good for generation green and generations to come? Join Apollo Alliance president Jerome Ringo and clean energy leader Billy Parish for a hopeful glimpse into the organizations and programs that will give our children the opportunity to make a living and make a better world. To learn more about the work the guests in this podcast are doing, visit Jerome at Zoetic Global, and Billy Parish at Mosaic.

Climate change is showing us over and over again that nature bats last. The carbon sequestration potential of natural systems and managed agricultural landscapes is vast, representing nearly one third of the greenhouse gas emissions reductions we need to see. Transforming our food system represents another huge opportunity to reduce our overall greenhouse gas output. The real question is: how we can act on all this potential? Featuring: Greg Watson, Director of Policy and Systems Design, Schumacher Center for a New Economics Renata Brillinger, Executive Director, California Climate and Agriculture Network Ellie Cohen, Executive Director, Point Blue Conservation Science Moderated by Teo Grossman, Senior Director of Programs & Research for Bioneers

A movement of rural communities in El Salvador called La Coordinadora has led the way in community-based disaster preparedness, building a grassroots democracy movement, and influencing national policy. It’s featured in the new film and book This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis. Hosted by Mariel Nanasi, Executive Director/President, New Energy Economy. With: Estela Hernández, El Salvadoran Congresswoman; Karolo Aparicio, Executive Director, EcoViva, La Coordinadora’s U.S. sister organization; Avi Lewis, filmmaker, director of This Changes Everything. Recorded Saturday, October 18, 2014 at the national Bioneers Summit Conference in San Rafael, California.

First Peoples have long used key sacred plants as powerful healing tools and to communicate with the "mind of nature." In this truly unique session Bioneers associate producer and editor of Visionary Plant Consciousness J.P. Harpignies and ethnobotanist/artist Kat Harrison hosted deeply experienced practitioners of sacred plant traditions from the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, including Mazatec Elder Julieta Casimiro; Maria Alice Campos Freire, a Madrinha in Brazil's Santo Daime Church; traditional Cheyenne dance leader, sculptress and writer Margaret Behan Red Spider Woman; and Bernadette Rebienot, Omyene healer and master of the lboga Bwiti Rite.

The late Terence McKenna was one of the most extraordinary personalities ever associated with visionary plants. One of the most gifted orators of the late 20th Century, he was a fascinatingly paradoxical figure: an absolutely charming but somewhat misanthropic mystic, a blindingly erudite genius who never achieved mainstream recognition, and a down-to-earth guy who advanced a range of astonishing prophetic scenarios. He brought verve and excitement to this field, and, since his tragic death in 2000, things have never been quite the same. Quite simply put, there will never be another like him. In this 1993 talk he initially delved into what was for him not his usual area of primary focus—our planetary environmental crisis, but in the end, Terence linked, in his inimitable voice, the fate of the biosphere to visionary plant use. Because time is so short, he argued, we need radically powerful means to communicate with the intelligence of the natural world because there has never been a time when hearing what that intelligence is trying to communicate has been more crucial, and sacred plants with long histories of shamanic use are, he argued, while not free of risks, the best tools for that job.

Innovations usually arise locally. If conditions are right, they spread globally. That story is playing out around the world today. In India, human rights activist Mallika Dutt designed an elegant media campaign that successfully interrupts domestic violence live in real time. High school science educator Jay Vavra helped his San Diego students save endangered species in Africa by using simple genetic identification technologies in local African bush meat markets. Nonprofit leader Shannon Horst employs holistic rangeland management techniques to stop the spread of deserts in Africa, the U.S. and worldwide. What's spreading fastest is hope.

John Todd, an ecological designer in the field of biomimicry, imitates nature's evolutionary genius to serve human ends harmlessly, using nature's processes as the design for buildings, technologies and practical solutions to environmental devastation. Educator David Orr suggests that true ecological design can take place only in a society willing to ask, "How would nature do it?"

Sequestering soil carbon is a critically important way to mitigate climate change. Hosted by John Roulac, founder and CEO of the groundbreaking organic superfood company, Nutiva. With: rancher John Wick, co-founder of the exemplary Marin Carbon Project, developing ways to increase durable carbon on his grazed grassland while increasing biodiversity and soil fertility and capturing the scientific data. Recorded Saturday, October 17, 2015 at the National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.

After decades of the repression and demonization of these substances, research trials around the country have been achieving remarkable results that validate the profound healing potential of psychedelics such as psilocybin and MDMA. Mounting evidence suggests they positively address such varied conditions as end-of-life anxiety, PTSD, and cluster headaches. Hosted by J.P. Harpignies, Bioneers Conference Associate Producer. With: Robert Barnhart, filmmaker of A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin; Philip Wolfson, M.D., leading MDMA researcher; Mitch Schultz, director of the film DMT: The Spirit Molecule. Recorded Saturday, October 17, 2015 at the National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.

Cuba developed, out of necessity, the most organic, sustainable agricultural system of any country. Is that model replicable in other parts of the world, or is it now likely to be overrun by industrial farming as ironically the easing of tensions with the U.S. opens the island up to the influx of capital and multinational corporate plutocrats? What can we learn from Cuba’s food system, and what are the risks to Cuban food security and sovereignty as its economic isolation ends? With: Kevin Danaher, co-founder of Global Exchange and FairTradeUSA; Greg Watson, former Massachusetts Secretary of Agriculture; Anuradha Mittal, founder and Executive Director of the Oakland Institute.

Connect with kindred educators in an emerging community of practice in this participatory session offering frameworks and tools for designing an effective Education for Sustainability (EfS) initiative in your community and/or school. Hosted by Kirk Bergstrom, filmmaker, educator, social entrepreneur, founder and Executive Director of WorldLink. With: Jaimie Cloud, President, Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education; Linda Booth Sweeney, award-winning author and systems educator.

Although powerful global corporations and their allies are trying to undermine progress toward sustainable and just food systems, unexpected collaborations among labor, women’s rights activists, family farmers and environmentalists are innovating strategies and alliances to assure a new course for our food systems. Hosted by Joann Lo, Executive Director, Food Chain Workers Alliance. With: Saru Jayaraman, Co-Director/founder, ROC United; Sriram Madhusoodanan, Value [the] Meal Director at Corporate Accountability International; Ben Burkett, President of the National Family Farm Coalition.

Activists, scientists and grassroots groups are leveraging new technology and collaborative networks to accurately monitor the quality of the environment, expose governmental and corporate abuses, and enable large-scale ecological research to understand the web of life in the age of climate disruption. Hosted by Teo Grossman, Bioneers Director of Strategic Network Initiatives. With: Severine v T Fleming, Farm Hack; Shannon Dosemagen, founder/President, New Orleans-based Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science; Brian Haggerty, co-designer, USA National Phenology Network, a multisectoral climate change research program using citizen scientists to monitor seasonal behavior of U.S. flora and fauna.

There is indeed a clash of civilizations today, between a sustainable civilization and a disposable one. Author and social entrepreneur Paul Hawken identifies a new superpower: the mighty river of global popular movements with real solutions. He tracks the unprecedented phenomenon of this biggest movement in the history of the world, the diverse face of a rising new culture of restoration, of reconciliation, of healing.

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.

From the microbes to the mammals, all life shares far more in common than what makes us different. In other words, it’s all relatives. If we knew that literally we are water, that we are mushrooms, that we are stardust—instead of shredding the web of life, might we start acting as if we have relatives? Bioneers Brock Dolman, Paul Stamets and Brian Thomas Swimme reveal inspiring reflections in the gene pool that show life as a kin-dom, not a kingdom.

What do octopuses, bees, plants and slime molds have in common with human beings? For one thing, they exhibit the ability to solve problems and make decisions. Author and anthropologist Jeremy Narby reveals his astonishing research on the profound intelligence active throughout nature. After all, how could people be intelligent if the nature that created us were not even more intelligent?

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.

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.

Hosted by marine biologist Wallace “J.” Nichols, research associate, California Academy of Sciences; co-founder, OceanRevolution.org; author of Blue Mind. New ways of understanding our relationship with the world’s oceans and the ability of healthy waters to provide health, happiness and creativity will be considered by a panel of athletes, scientists, artists, and adventurers. With: Kevin Weiner, post-doctoral fellow, Stanford University and Director of Public Communication, Institute for Applied Neuroscience; Nik Sawe, doctoral candidate, Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, Stanford University; and Andi Wong, Teaching Artist, Rooftop Alternative K-8 School. Recorded Sunday, October 19, 2014 at the National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.

Facing climate disruption, it’s imperative to fast-forward the transition to power civilization on clean energy. The growing global movement to transition off fossil fuels is challenging the fossil fuel industry and its political domination. Renowned author and activist Bill McKibben and award-winning biologist and author Sandra Steingraber illuminate the frontlines of these New Abolitionists.

Imagine this: A popular character on a Spanish-language soap opera resonates so deeply with viewers that they become empowered and educated about literacy. Avatars in the virtual world called Second Life enable people of all faiths to better understand and respect Islamic culture. Digital and media entrepreneur William Ryerson effectively uses innovative media for social change. Digital citizen diplomats Joshua S. Fouts and Rita J. King design virtual games that help foster vibrant community and culture in the physical world. They're all demonstrating the game-changing power of technology to change the world for the better.

At the Bioneers Conference in 2017, we spoke with Heather McGhee, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the organization Demos. McGhee describes how the election of Barack Obama resulted in both a racial backlash and the illusion that we were suddenly living in a post-racial society. She also shares a hopeful story that demonstrates a pathway towards healing the divisions that harm us all.

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.

In the burgeoning field of biomimicry, bioneers are designing a technological civilization that harmonizes with nature’s operating instructions. Inventor Jay Harman models the forms and dynamics of water with astounding results. Chemist Paul Anastas is re-inventing a “Green Chemistry” that transforms how we make things. Imitating nature is paying off for the economy, people and the planet.

Local, organic food is growing in popularity by leaps and bounds. Beyond the benefits to the growers, our health and the land, could it become a matter of survival? Author and farmer Michael Ableman shares his cross-country journey celebrating the reverent reconnection with food and the land that is transforming how we will produce our food. Find out more about Michael Ableman and how you can engage with his campaigns and efforts by visiting http://michaelableman.com

On his deathbed Henry David Thoreau said his only regret was being too well behaved. Julia Butterfly Hill, Diane Wilson and Terri Swearingen, three of the most imaginative, inspiring and courageous direct action heroines of our era share their experiences and show us how courage and commitment can stop mountains from being moved.

How can investment choices and strategies truly move the needle on large-scale change? Four leading entrepreneur/investors working to reinvent and re-imagine impact investing share strategies and projects. Hosted by Darian Rodriguez Heyman, former Craigslist Foundation Executive Director and SF Environment Commissioner. With: Silda Wall Spitzer, New World Capital, which invests primarily in green technologies; James Joaquin, co-founder of the venture capital firm Obvious Ventures; Catlin Powers of Sol Source, inventor, Research Fellow at Harvard’s Center for Health and the Global Environment. Recorded Saturday, October 17, 2015 at the National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.