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

What we do to each other, we do to the Earth. To protect our common home, we’re being called upon to bridge our differences to create beloved community and peaceful coexistence. A new generation of visionary change-makers is reframing the race conversation, and designing new tools to transform our unconscious biases and create justice. With: Racial justice pathfinders Rinku Sen, Saru Jarayaman and Malkia Cyril.

Climate disruption is harmful to your health. Dr. Linda Rudolph and Dr. Barbara Sattler are showing how our success or failure as a civilization may well hinge on how ingenious, nimble and socially just our public health systems can become in restoring the ecosystem health on which all health depends. And doing the right thing is good for our health.

In the face of global climate disruption, two billion people worldwide will be challenged by too much water, and nearly another two billion by not enough. When you fight nature, you lose, says Dutch water wizard and designer Henk Ovink. He’s dramatically demonstrating on large scales how to shift our relationship to nature and to culture - and climate-proof our cities and coasts.

Queen of the forest canopy” Nalini Nadkarni is riding a new current of innovative scientists uncovering previously unexplored wonders in the forest canopy. Her imaginative passion supersedes the boundaries of science to inspire and enlist people from all walks of life, transforming the truth of trees into environmental and social healing.

Wounded warriors have walked through fire. They carry the scars forever, yet many have somehow managed to heal even the most horrific of their emotional wounds. Rather than turning away from those unimaginable traumas of war, abuse and violence, what can we learn from looking respectfully at their wounds? Our veterans and other survivors are on a transformational, ethical, and spiritual journey. Aqeela Sherrills, Ed Tick, and Eve Ensler share their inspiring stories to help us discover how we might keep the peace.

Climate is the trip wire for every other foundational ecological and biological system – as well as the basis for human civilization. As we face the long climate emergency, fortunately, skillful pathfinders are banding together to transform our ways of living and bring resilience from the ground up into widespread practice. With Berkeley’s Chief Resilience Officer, Timothy Burroughs, Professor David W. Orr, and financial adviser Tom Van Dyck.

Nontoxic hair color from the recipes of beetles, and a potential Alzheimer’s cure derived from applying nature’s operating instructions. The world-renowned “co-father of green chemistry,” John Warner, says: “We’re learning to do everything we want to do without poisoning people or planet.” He’s showing how we can follow nature’s lead to create good chemistry with nature and our own health. The results are jaw-dropping.

Blue Mind, Ocean Heart - Illuminating the magical underwater world, Jacques Cousteaus 1960s films and TV show caused a sea change by moving the hearts and minds of tens of millions. Marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols, ocean advocates Philippe and Alexandra Cousteau, and the Truckee High School Envirolution Club are among the rising tides of passionate innovators making remarkable advances to understand and restore the waters of the world. Their inspiring stories give good reason for hope, including the scientific fact that we have a blue mind born in and of the ocean to guide us.

For millennia, prophets, mystics and poets have illuminated the oneness of all life. Today biology is confirming that we are genetic kin with the entire diversity of life. Episcopal Reverends Fletcher Harper and Sally Bingham and Baptist Church Administrator G.L. Hodge preach the gospel of Creation Care that more and more faith communities are embracing in a historic shift.

Today gender reconciliation is a burgeoning new movement for transformational healing. Gender reconciliation visionaries Pat McCabe, Cynthia Brix, Will Keepin and Pele Rouge share powerful stories of transformation from the personal to the societal, including the nation of South Africa.

Women-led movements arising around the world herald a profound shift that changes everything. Visionary women leaders Osprey Orielle-Lake, Leila Salazar and Lynne Twist report on the women leading the clean energy revolution in Africa, defending the Amazonian rainforest, and making peace in Liberia.

Governments and businesses are recognizing climate chaos as the threat multiplier from hell. The answer is not business as usual. How about crowdfunding and democratizing investment in clean energy? Young change-maker turned clean energy entrepreneur Billy Parish, founder of Mosaic, and banker Marco Krapels, co-founder of The Solutions Project, say 100% renewable energy is both possible and imperative.

“For the first time in history, a civilization - its people, companies and governments - is trying to arrest the downspin and understand how to live on Earth, a watershed in human existence.” Globally renowned social entrepreneur and author Paul Hawken eloquently portrays how we will win a sustainable future by losing the delusion we’re here on Earth for only ourselves.

How do we transform a vicious circle into a virtuous circle? How do we move from environmental degradation and the deterioration of human relations to restoration? From war to peace - from hatred to compassion - from isolation to community? How can one person make a crucial difference? Painter and professor Lily Yehs approach to community healing takes that which is broken and creates something whole and wholly new and beautiful through public art. From Philadelphia to Rwanda, broken places are her canvases. Peoples stories are the pigments. Peoples talents and creativity are the tools. At the heart of her work is the transformation of human heart.

Dynamic young people are surmounting considerable social and economic obstacles by following their dreams to create a better world. Jessica Rimington, Rhummanee Hang, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Manuel Francisco, Caleb Ryen, Amalia Anderson and Lily Dong are enlivening the horizon of positive possibilities with grace, courage and boundless creativity. They’ll settle for nothing less than justice, cultural preservation and the defense of wild lands.

World-renowned feminist, writer and change-maker Gloria Steinem connects the dots among disparate social movements to reveal the common patterns of oppression that underlie them all. From gender and race to democracy and universal spirituality, she weaves a unifying vision of a richly human and humane world where all people are valued for their uniqueness and full humanity.

The way we see the world creates the world. If a new way of seeing is needed, what might that look like? Indigenous leaders Dakota-Dine Tom Goldtooth, Anishnabe Winona LaDuke, Aleut Ilarion Merculief and The White Buffalo Souldiers conjure a new paradigm that begins with a change of heart.

How extreme is wealth disparity in the US? Imagine every person in the economy walks by, in order of income from low to high, with heights proportional to what people make. You’d see mostly a parade of dwarves, with some unbelievable giants at the very end. Political economist and historian Gar Alperovitz and social entrepreneur Ted Howard of the Democracy Collaborative depict breakthrough models for breaking this vicious cycle by democratizing wealth, ownership and access to capital.

Celebrated author Terry Tempest Williams elegantly blends language with landscape and regales the audience with deeply personal stories of transformation, both personal and political. She challenges us to bypass political rhetoric and opt for a deeper conversation about democracy. For her, the test of true patriotism is not what we are willing to die for, but what we are willing to give our lives to.

How can we manifest the world we want, and who we want to be? Actor-activist Danny Glover and Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, former CEO of Green For All, show how one sure path to resilience is to build community and social movements. That requires learning how to reach out across our differences – and it gets really personal.