19 Oct 19-21, 2012 National Bioneers Conference
San Rafael, CA Marin Center
2012 Registration Closed - Save the date for 2013! 18-20 Oct.

Banking on the Future: Emergent Species of Equitable Banking Models

August 25, 2012 by
Hosted by Bill Twist, Pachamama Alliance Co-Founder.

With Vince Siciliano, CEO of New Resource Bank, member Global Alliance for Banking on Values; Ellen Brown, Chair and President of the Public Banking Institute, author Web of Debt; Marco Krapels, Executive Vice-President, Rabobank N.A.

How can banks help support and build a sustainable society? What role should money play in society as a store of values and medium of change and exchange? What role can public banking play where deposits are invested in the common good? These banking innovators are inventing and reinventing social and environmental approaches that represent an emergent international movement towards ethical banking, including the recent Global Alliance for Banking on Values, a 15-bank global network that could give banking a good name, while already outperforming the world’s largest banks.

Santa Rosa Room | 4:30pm-6pm, Sat

Built To Last: Housing for the Post-Carbon Age

August 25, 2012 by

With: Matt Taecker, urban planner extraordinaire; Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durrett, legendary co-housing pioneers; Rachel Kaplan, lead author of Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living.

In an era of uncertain energy supplies, economic instability, growing population density, climatic disruptions, and new yearnings for localism and greater social connection, how will our buildings, communities and cities be configured? How do we design how and where we live to optimize sustainability, public health, social cohesion…and happiness?

Autodesk Atrium | 4:30pm-6pm, Sat

Change the World, Not the Channel: Media for Social Change

August 25, 2012 by
Presented by Mother Jones. Hosted by Steve Katz, Mother Jones Publisher.

With: Annie Leonard, creator of The Story of Stuff; Bill Ryerson, Founder and President of the Population Media Center; Monika Bauerlein, Co-Editor of Mother Jones.

Media can play a pivotal role in social change, as these sophisticated practitioners demonstrate with a diversity of strategies, media and innovations.

Annie Leonard will share lessons learned on the journey that took her from being a somewhat isolated, wonky waste activist to a thriving social media hub for people transforming how we make, use and throw away stuff around the world.

Bill Ryerson will discuss his groundbreaking, highly successful work crafting popular radio and television serialized dramas in developing countries to foster family planning and environmentally sustainable lifestyle choices.

Award-winning Mother Jones Co-Editor Monika Bauerlein will examine the crucial role information plays in leveraging social change, and how to operationalize newsmaking.

 Embassy Suites Ballroom | 4:30pm-6pm, Sat

Conservation, Restoration, Biodiversity and Innovative Philanthropy

August 25, 2012 by
Hosted by Atossa Soltani, Founder and Executive Director of Amazon Watch

With Kris Tompkins, conservationist, former CEO of Patagonia; John Liu, international filmmaker, conservationist and ecological restorationist; Marina Silva, Brazilian environmental leader.

Come 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 will describe 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 will show 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.

Epiphany Theater | 2:45pm-4:15pm, Sat

Society and Inner Resilience: Transforming Trauma, Addiction and Adversity

August 22, 2012 by
Hosted by Akaya Windwood, President, Rockwood Leadership Institute

With Gabor Maté, MD; James Gordon, MD, Founder and Director of The Center for Mind–Body Medicine, professor at Georgetown Medical School; Staci Haines, national leader in the field of Somatics, teacher, author and pathfinder in healing sexual traumas.

In our culture, illnesses, traumas and addictions are usually viewed as the problems of individuals, but they are, above all, social phenomena. Physical and emotional disturbances vary a lot culture by culture. Ours seems to be very prone to creating cancer, depression, obesity, stress, sexual dysfunction and violence, and anxiety disorders. Three brilliant healers and thinkers on the social context of illness explore how our society generates illness, and how, by understanding those processes, we can build up our resilience and achieve higher degrees of balance and wellness, skills we can pass on to our children. They will also look at what we can do to begin transforming our society into a source of solidarity, mutual aid and healing, rather than of disease, separation and fear.

Restoration Nation Theater | 2:45pm-4:15pm, Sat

Resilient Communities II: Mobilizing and Equipping Local Citizen Action

August 19, 2012 by
Moderated by Asher Miller, Executive Director of the Post Carbon Institute.

With Bill McKibben, Co-Founder of 350.org; Kirsten Schwind, Program Director of BayLocalize; Carolyne Stayton, Executive Director of Transition U.S.

Mushrooming numbers of communities are recognizing both the need and the desirability of becoming more self-reliant on basic systems and services such as food, energy and water, and building their local economies and jobs. The question is: How? This session will offer highly practical tools, resources and models for communities and citizens seeking to build ecological and economic resilience.

Restoration Nation Theater | 4:30pm-6pm, Sat

Beyond Belief: Faith in Action for the Earth

August 19, 2012 by
Hosted by Rev. Canon Sally Grover Bingham of The Regeneration Project and the Interfaith Power and Light campaign.

With G.L. Hodge, Administrator, Providence Baptist Church of San Francisco; Marilyn Youngbird, Tribal Member, Arikara and Hidatsa Nations; Linda Ruth Cutts, Abiding Abbess Green Gulch Zen Center; Krithika Harish, Young Leaders Program Coordinator, United Religions Initiative.

Religions have increasingly taught that protecting the Earth is a moral responsibility. In this panel, learn how religious leaders from diverse communities are putting these beliefs into action in ways that create environmental benefits. Panelists will share successes in organizing faith-based environmental advocacy and justice efforts, ‘green’ social enterprises, environmental health education, and more.

Autodesk Atrium | 2:45pm-4:15pm, Sat

Toxic Culture: How Materialistic Society Makes Us Ill

August 7, 2012 by

by Gabor Mate, MD 

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.

Restoration Nation Theater | 12:20pm, Sat

The Challenge of Sustainable Development: New Models

August 7, 2012 by

by Marina Silva 

Introduction by Atossa Soltani, Founder and Executive Director of Amazon Watch 

The legendary Amazonian defender of the rainforest and its peoples was the first rubber tapper ever elected to Brazil’s federal Senate, served as Minister of the Environment under Lula, and ran as the 2010 Green Party Presidential candidate, gaining as astonishing 19 percent of the vote. She will depict how we can balance protecting the Amazon and other vital ecosystems with sane development that brings people out of poverty without destroying the environment.

Restoration Nation Theater | 11:05am, Sat

Greening our Faiths: From Belief into Action for the Environment and Environmental Justice

August 7, 2012 by

by Fletcher Harper  

Introduction by Hugo Steensma 

This courageous Episcopal priest — Executive Director of the groundbreaking interfaith environmental coalition GreenFaith and award-winning spiritual writer and renowned preacher on the environment — will illustrate 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. He’ll describe 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. 

Restoration Nation Theater | 9:40am, Sat

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