Bioneers: Revolution From The Heart Of Nature | Bioneers Radio Series

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?

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.

Some of the best minds on the planet are busy cataloguing possible solutions to the crisis of climate chaos. Scientists, entrepreneurs and educators on technology’s cutting edge offer a broad array of bio-based solutions that are already working to transition us to a truly sustainable civilization. Biomimics Janine Benyus, Stephan Dewar, David Orr and Jay Harman offer a smorgasbord of startling solutions based on nature’s genius.

There are two great Will Allens in organic agriculture. One is a 6’7” former professional basketball player and founder of Growing Power in Milwaukee, the renowned urban agriculture training center. The other Will Allen is an organic farming pioneer and activist who started out as a professor at UC Santa Barbara, but was fired and jailed for his anti-Vietnam war activism. No longer able to work in academia, he took up farming following in his father’s footsteps. Will’s zeal for justice and reform was transferred to agriculture. He founded the Sustainable Cotton Project (SCP) in 1990, which helped farmers transition to organic while reducing farmworker exposure to pesticides. SCP created markets for organic cotton selling to major manufacturers like Patagonia, Esprit, Levis, Marks and Spencer, and Nike. Understanding that war creates more victims than heroes, Will became a founding member of Farms Not Arms (now the Farmer Veteran Coalition), which helps veterans heal from the trauma of war by training them for

In this podcast excerpt from a Bioneers workshop, Rebecca Burgess, Ariel Greenwood, and Guido Frosini explain how drawing carbon from the atmosphere and capturing it in the soil can reverse climate change. “Our soils have a carbon debt. Our atmosphere is gushing with carbon. The carbon over our heads is literally in the wrong place.” Rebecca Burgess Rather than being the problem, carbon can be the solution to climate change by managing our landscapes to capture atmospheric carbon through photosynthesis and sequester it in the soil where it increases fertility and makes the land more drought resilient. Marin and Sonoma County ranchers and entrepreneurs are building local agricultural economies while regenerating ecosystems and sequestering carbon. The Fibershed Project, founded by Rebecca Burgess, is developing regional clothing production with a community of ecological farmers and artisans. Solar power, grey-water and recycling are all embedded aspects of the Fibershed’s. They have also implemented a Climate

At the Bioneers Conference in 2016, we spoke with visionary law professor and changemaker Kimberlé Crenshaw. A respected attorney, Crenshaw popularized the concept of intersectionality and was instrumental in the creation of the #SayHerName campaign to raise awareness about the many women and girls who are killed by the police.

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.

In 2018, Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter shared a moving speech at a Bioneers Conference. Cullors is a performance artist and award-winning organizer from Los Angeles, and is one of the most effective and influential movement builders of our era. She was a key figure in the fight to force the creation of the first civilian oversight commission of the LA Sheriff’s Department, but is most widely known as one of the three original co-founders of Black Lives Matter and for her recent, best-selling book, “When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Our misbegotten industrial food system is one of our greatest vulnerabilities. Its dangerously fossil-fueled, toxic, monocultural and centralized. The real cost of cheap food is very high to both people and planet. Urban food innovators are designing vibrant new local food economies built on environmental and ecological integrity, sustainability, diversity and equity. Join author Michael Pollan, Fair Food Foundation CEO Oran Hesterman, faith-based change-maker James Ella James and student leader Victoria Carter for a smorgasbord of nourishing morsels from the emerging locavore movement. Find out more about Michael Pollan at his website, and the work Oran Hesterman is doing at the Fair Food Network website.

The seminal co-founder of Green Chemistry, John Warner, and his esteemed partner, green chemistry educator Amy Cannon, are co-founders of the groundbreaking green chemistry education non-profit Beyond Benign. They’ll show how the combination of green chemistry and biomimicry in the STEM curriculum provides a unique opportunity to inspire students to make connections with the natural world and to use that inspi- ration to become creators of truly sustainable products and processes. They’ll focus on techniques and resources for adopting green chemistry and biomimicry throughout educational systems, highlighting K-12 and higher education programs aimed at transforming STEM education. Recorded Saturday, October 17, 2015 at the National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.  

What lies behind the fascination to tinker with the building blocks of life? Kenny Ausubel and Andrew Kimbrell shed light on the disturbing genetic engineering debate and activist Luke Anderson reports from the successful campaign that has derailed the spread of "biological pollution" in Great Britain and Europe.