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

It's obvious that we're not here for ourselves. That makes no evolutionary sense. There's something larger than us, and to the extent that we can live that and celebrate that, I think we're healthier, and then that's love.So I think if we think of love in this way, and a beloved community in this way, when we hold all this stuff together, together.

One of the things that the children wanted in their school, which a lot of kids would want if they had the opportunity, is a river flowing through their classroom. Kids like that kind of thing, and engineers immediately have a kind of tick that develops. [laughter] No, you can't have a river. But in this case, what the team decided, well, this is a living building, perhaps we should listen to the students.

I don't want to write words that fill jail cells, and yet it is my abiding responsibility to protect my children from harm and plan for their future. And my neighbors feel the same way. If the air, food and water out of which our children's bodies are constructed are contaminated, we can't do our job as parents. If the day comes when I can be a better mother inside of jail than outside, I will be that mother.

What we're trying to do is not about winning, it's about losing, and it's about losing this burden of having to make it, to be rich, to be comfortable, to be seen, to be famous, to be followed, to be friended, to be known. We don't need all that because it's an upside down world and the winners are the losers. And what we lose is the delusion and suffering that we are here on Earth for ourselves. That is such a delusion, you know. Takers suffer always.

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 Executive Director and home-grown food justice leader Nikki Henderson brings heart, soul and love to community health and wealth for the low-income community of West Oakland, California.

Fireflies, Dumpsters, Soft Power and the Design Science Revolution - The visionary designer and architect R. Buckminster Fullers remarkable legacy inspires new generations to create the Design Science Revolution he first called for in the 1960s. Elizabeth Thompson, executive director of the Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI), brings to life Buckys vision, along with contemporary BFI Challenge Award recipients. Sheila Kennedy, Professor of Architecture at MIT, and John Edel, Director of the Chicago Sustainable Manufacturing Center, whose imaginative design innovations address humanitys most pressing problems.

Farming Fields of Dreams - Our food and farming systems may top the list of the most destructive abuses of land in history. What needs to change? What models are there to guide us? Visionary organic farmer, food system entrepreneur and award-winning writer/photographer Michael Ableman reflects on what it will take to restore healthy thriving lands and a functional and equitable food system with access for all. How will we feed the worlds growing population and provide access to healthy food? As locavores know, the answers hit close to home.

Both or Neither - The emerging green economy promises to provide large-scale job creation while healing the Earth and building the middle class. Roxanne Brown, Assistant Legislative Director for the United Steelworkers and Steering Committee member of the BlueGreen Alliance, describes how this national partnership of major labor unions and environmental organizations is expanding the number and quality of jobs in the green economy. BlueGreen Alliance Director of Chemicals, Public Health and Green Chemistry Charlotte Brody portrays the real-time societal transformation underway when workers and environmentalists find common ground and also honestly acknowledge their differences.

Environmental Security is Homeland Security - The concept of national security is moving beyond bullets, bombs, soldiers and warcraft to encompass the countrys internal resilience, health and environmental sustainability. Whats needed, say two leading environmental visionaries, is the equivalent of a wartime mobilization to create a sustainable planet including a far more decentralized infrastructure. Global energy strategist Amory Lovins and Oberlin College Professor David Orr advocate sustainability as the strategic imperative and foundation for a new national security narrative. The military is starting to agree.

Healing the Inner Environment - Brain research is revealing astounding insights into the mechanisms of post-traumatic stress and neuroplasticity the brains ability to be rewired and re-trained. The world today is ravaged by traumas from war, privation and economic crashes to natural disasters and ongoing environmental degradation. In response, world-renowned psychiatrist Dr. James S. Gordon of the Center for Mind Body Medicine has trained thousands of teachers globally to advance ancient mind-body healing techniques of self-care to reconnect each individual with his or her own nature, with family and community, and with the natural world. The results are impressive. What might happen if we approach healing the environment from the inside out?

Linking Gender, Social Movements and Democracy - 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 applies her razor intellect, compassionate heart and nuanced eye to weave a unifying vision of a richly human and humane world where all people are valued for their uniqueness and full humanity - neither treated as property, nor defined by labels or stereotypes.

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.

Social Capitalism and the United States of Europe - 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 thats 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.

The Indigeneity Essentials - Were all indigenous to planet Earth, but weve not been acting that way. Cultural ecologist, indigenous scholar and activist Dr. Melissa K. Nelson reminds native and non-native peoples alike that we all need to re-indigenize ourselves by learning and practicing natures operating instructions and the Original Instructions for how to be a human being. At this unprecedented moment of globalized environmental breakdown, its going to take the best of Western science and the indigenous science of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) to navigate this evolutionary keyhole.

Reinventing Fire for the Clean Energy Era - The internationally acclaimed energy and design strategist Amory Lovins shows how by 2050 we can run our energy system with no oil, coal or nuclear power. He says we can achieve that vision with clean energy and energy conservation, led by business, without an act of Congress or any new inventions. By making this transition, we can save more than $5 trillion and double the size of the US economy.

Landscapes of Hope - Just like our bodies, nature has a profound capacity for healing and self-repair. Filmmaker-turned-ecological-restorer John Liu shifted from documenting Chinas massive environmental and societal upheavals to filming a groundbreaking, large-scale ecosystem restoration cum local economic renewal. Prioritizing natures 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.

Growing Growers and Seeding Leaders for a Real Food Future What happens when green turns to grey? Fewer than 5 percent of 2 million American farmers are under 45 years old. Bucking that trend is the next generation of unstoppable young farmers Severine von Tscharner Fleming, Tyler Webb, and Sarita Role Schaffer, along with renowned urban food innovator Nikki Henderson and real food advocate Amin Steele. With dirt under their nails and laptops at their fingertips, theyre reinventing a radical patriotism founded in a return to local agriculture and community. It runs on clean energy and knows how to move markets. It seeks greater self-sufficiency, self-determination and food justice, and the checkout line is the pulpit.

History is a tale told by the winners. How then can we reclaim the voices of those who have been historically written out - silenced through the ages? Perhaps as women write herstory into history, well see clearly the eternal power, brilliance and unique value of womens contributions. Join media innovator Jensine Larsen and feminist historian Sally Roesch Wagner as they share the emerging landscape of an inclusive, sustainable and just society at whose heart is the leadership of women.

Somewhere in a typical American city, a woman wakes up to the noxious odors of a nearby sewage treatment plant. Her daughter carries a rescue inhaler to school. Like hundreds of her neighbors, this woman is sick and tired of being sick and tired. Women and men from vulnerable communities everywhere are rising up to gain equal access to clean water and air, equal environmental enforcement and protection, and equitable land use and planning. Impassioned community organizers Mary Gonzales and Peggy Shepard show us all how successful environmental justice campaigns across the U.S. are raising the voices of people of color and low-income communities and creating a better world for everyone.

We live in a society dependent on toxic chemicals. Today about 287 such chemicals trespass inside the blood of newborns and inside all of us - without our consent. Despite the odds, ecologist, author and mother Sandra Steingraber is an optimist. Shes betting that the burgeoning global environmental human rights movement will free us from our deadly dependency. She believes our grandchildren will look back on us and marvel that our economy was once dependent on toxic chemicals - and they will think of it as unthinkable.