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

If the rate of destruction doesn’t change, by the year 2020 most of the Amazon ecosystem – the lungs of the planet - will be destroyed or irreparably damaged. But not if these visionary leaders can help it. Amazon Watch founder Atossa Soltani has supported local Indigenous peoples to protect the rainforest and their lifeways. Legendary rainforest champion Marina Silva, Brazil’s past Minister of the Environment and Presidential candidate, offers deep wisdom and vision.

Forests have long occupied a fertile landscape in the human imagination. Places of mystery and magic - of wildness and wisdom - of vision and dreaming. Yet beyond mythic realms of imagination, we’ve largely treated forests as inert physical resources to satisfy human needs and desires. The main operative science behind this commodification has been market science – how to extract maximum resources and profits.  Suzanne Simard is one of the revolutionary researchers transforming the science of forest ecology and coming full circle to the wisdom held by First Peoples and traditional land-based cultures from time immemorial. The story Simard is uncovering can change our story for how we live on Earth and with each other – for the long haul.

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.

In a world that’s unraveling from climate disruption and gaping inequality, another climate crisis confronts us: the climate of hate and othering. Award-winning scholar and educator Valarie Kaur says to overcome racism and nationalism, we must not succumb to rage and grief. As someone who has spent much of her life challenging horrific injustices and intolerance, Kaur learned the lesson that historical nonviolent change-makers understood: social movements must be grounded in an ethic of love. She founded the Revolutionary Love Project, and has emerged as one of the most important voices of the American Sikh community, and a highly influential faith leader on the national stage.

As author Michael Pollan observes: “The two biggest crises humanity faces today are tribalism and the environmental crisis. They both involve the objectifying of the other - whether that other is nature or other people.” How do we re-weave that web of relationships, and focus on our likenesses rather than our differences?  In this program, racial justice advocates john a. powell, Eriel Deranger and Anita Sanchez explore how overcoming the illusion of separateness from nature and each other requires building bridges rather than burning them. They say the fate of the world depends on it.

Jessica Alva Khadija Rose Britton. Hanna Harris. Anthonette Christine Cayedito. If you haven't heard of these women, it’s no surprise. They’re four of the untold number of Indigenous women and girls who have been murdered, kidnapped or gone mysteriously missing.  A significant number of victims are from communities that are subjected to the harmful presence of fossil fuel and mining companies. The extractive industry is ravaging Native nations where oil and blood have long run together. Add to this a dysfunctional police and legal hierarchy that leaves Indigenous women and their families with little support during the first crucial hours when they go missing, and little recourse to prosecute predators for their crimes. In this program, powerful Native women leaders reveal the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women, and describe how they are taking action and building growing movements, including with non-Native allies. Morning Star Gali, Ozawa Bineshi Albert, Simone Senogles, Kandi White, and Casey C

Although colonial systems of oppression have radically damaged relationships between tribal communities and their traditional lands, a new generation of First Nations activists is working to restore those connections and safeguard Indigenous identity for future generations. They’re protecting traditional territories and sacred sites from harm, and renewing Indigenous land stewardship. With: Eriel Deranger of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Valentin Lopez, Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, and Cara Romero, from the Mohave-based Chemehuevi Tribe.

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.

Today in the fossil fuel-induced age of escalating climate disruption, the joker in the deck is the climate imperative to transition rapidly off fossil fuels worldwide. Clean energy has reached the proverbial tipping point - and the smart money is hot on the trail of the clean energy revolution. Entrepreneur and visionary change-maker Danny Kennedy says clean energy not only makes dollars, it makes sense, and this literal power struggle could take us from energy monopoly to energy democracy. 

With climate-driven disasters becoming the new normal, building resilience is the grail. Communities around the world are developing models created out of practical necessity. We hear on-the-ground stories from two different communities building resilience in the wake of serial disasters. Estrella Santiago Perez and her innovative community rights organization ENLACE have helped organize a collection of marginalized neighborhoods in San Juan, Puerto Rico to overcome the twin catastrophes of Hurricane Maria and a failed government. And far away in the fire-ravaged communities near California’s relatively well-off wine country, Trathen Heckman helped lead the nonprofit grassroots group Daily Acts to build a resilience network from the ground up with engaged citizens action, civil society groups and Sonoma County government agencies.

Erosion and evolution. Shadow and light. Death and rebirth. These are some of the strands that the acclaimed author, naturalist and activist Terry Tempest Williams weaves together in the face of today’s broken world. Standing in the lineage of the greatest nature writers, she links her deepest inner experiences with the state of the web of life. In this program, Williams asks: How do we find the strength to not look away at all that is breaking our hearts? Hands on the earth, we remember where the source of our authentic power comes from. We have to go deeper. She also explores histories of privilege, religion, and identity in Utah, and how reconciling her experiences with these cultural strands have helped unleash and shape her voice as a storyteller who translates the voice of nature and speaks for justice. 

An hour long special on how transformational women leaders are restoring societal balance by showing us how to reconnect relationships not only among people, but between people and the natural world. This astounding conversation among diverse women leaders provides a fascinating window into the soulful depths of what it means to restore the balance between our masculine and feminine selves to bring about wholeness, justice and true restoration of people and planet. Alice Walker, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Nina Simons, Sarah Crowell, Joanna Macy and Akaya Winwood

Ever since women won the right to vote in 1920, they have been trying to pass an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ensure equality and justice in the eyes of the law. The Third Wave women’s movement might just make it a reality. MomsRising Director Joan Blades, attorney Kimberle Crenshaw, and ERA Coalition President Jessica Neuwirth tell us why the amendment is so important to address discrimination and harassment in the workplace and beyond.

How do we change the story of corrosive racial inequity? First, we have to understand the stories we tell ourselves. In this program, racial justice innovators john a. powell and Heather McGhee show how empathy, honesty and the recognition of our common humanity can change the story to bridge the racial divides tearing humanity and the Earth apart. 

After World War II, the U.S. government worked with industry to create a single-use, disposable consumer culture as a way to ensure ongoing market prosperity. Who benefited? Consumer product companies like Coca-Cola, and the fossil fuel industry, whose petrochemicals are at the source. The result? Plastic pollution is now found in virtually every living organism – including humans - and is one of the worst threats to ocean ecosystems. Now, a global resistance movement is rising to abolish petrochemical plastics and to shift to a zero-waste, circular economy. With: Anna Cummins, Deputy Director and Co-Founder of the Five Gyres Institute.

New, democratized access to powerful analytical and mapping tools is transforming our understanding of the natural world – and with it, our ability to meaningfully conserve, protect and restore our collective home – the biosphere. In this program, we explore the boundless possibilities of digital maps and platforms with Rebecca Moore, visionary founder of Google Earth Outreach and Google Engine. 

We are told that our personal health is our individual responsibility based on our own choices. Yet, the biological truth is that human health is dependent upon the health of nature’s ecosystems and our social structures. Decisions that negatively affect these larger systems and eventually affect us are made without our consent as citizens and, often, without our knowledge. Dr. Rupa Marya, Associate Professor of Medicine at UC San Francisco, and Faculty Director of the Do No Harm Coalition, says "social medicine" means dismantling harmful social structures that directly lead to poor health outcomes, and building new structures that promote health and healing.

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.

Are plants intelligent? If we knew their language what might they tell us? Potawatomi Indigenous ecologist and author Robin Kimmerer and evolutionary ecologist Monica Gagliano merge Traditional Ecological Knowledge with Western science for a surprising trip into the minds of mosses and chili seeds and the songs of corn. They agree what we really need today is a revolution in values, an “Honorable Harvest” of gratitude and reciprocity with our plant kin.

How can a grocery store lift a community out of poverty? The People’s Grocery provides creative solutions to community health problems that stem from a lack of access to and knowledge about healthy, fresh foods. The personal journey of former Executive Director and home-grown food justice leader Nikki Henderson-Silvestri brings heart, soul and love to community health and wealth for the low-income community of West Oakland, California.