Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature

From local communities and states to federal policy, antitrust movements to dismantle monopolies are challenging the system that can be summed up as: Make Feudalism Great Again. Although breaking up is hard to do, we’ve broken up monopolies before. In this second of our two-part program, we join Thom Hartmann, Stacy Mitchell and Maurice B.P. Weeks to survey the landscape of rising antitrust movements to break the stranglehold of corporate power and level the playing field for a democratized economy.

“Our soils have a carbon debt. Our atmosphere is gushing with carbon. The carbon over our heads is literally in the wrong place.”… Rebecca BurgessThe solution to climate change is under our feet. Rebecca Burgess, of the Fibershed Project, explains how drawing carbon from the atmosphere and capturing it in the soil can reverse climate change. Rebecca, who is developing climate friendly local clothing production and carbon farming certification for her suppliers, is joined, in this excerpt from a Bioneers workshop, by holistic grazers Ariel Greenwood and Guido Frosini who are managing livestock while regenerating natural ecosystems.

Four extraordinary women leaders share their perspectives on how to break through the stalemates that impede progress to build a world in which we can all thrive. They work in different spaces – from challenging governments and corporations to defending Indigenous people’s rights, education reform, movement building and investing in green businesses.With: Eriel Deranger, Communications Manager of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation; Adrianna Quintero, Senior Attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council and founder/Director of Voces Verdes; Annie Leonard, Executive Director of Greenpeace USA; Christiana Wyly, Executive Director of Food Choice Taskforce, Director of My Plate Planet initiative. Hosted by Osprey Orielle Lake, co-founder and Executive Director, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN).

A rare interview with Jeremy Narby and the late Francis Huxley, legendary anthropologists in conversation with Bioneers Radio Host and consulting producer Neil Harvey. The interview took place at a Bioneers conference in 2002.

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.

Psychoactive plants are at the heart of many traditional and Indigenous spiritual and religious traditions, yet many have been outlawed or severely restricted. How does society determine religious freedom? With: Jeremy Narby on Amazonian shamanic knowledge; and Jeffrey Bronfman, the U.S. legal and spiritual representative of Brazil's União do Vegetal (UDV) church, whose legal victories for its U.S. domestic use of ayahuasca have taken it to the Supreme Court; moderated by Bioneers' J.P. Harpignies.

Local, organic food is growing in popularity by leaps and bounds. Beyond the benefits to the growers, our health and the land, could it become a matter of survival? Author and farmer Michael Ableman shares his cross-country journey celebrating the reverent reconnection with food and the land that is transforming how we will produce our food.Find out more about Michael Ableman and how you can engage with his campaigns and efforts by visiting http://michaelableman.com

"A worldview that understands indigeneity is a paradigm of regeneration, a worldview rooted in enduring values in what we call our original instructions, common themes of reciprocity, of gratitude, of responsibility, of generosity, of forgiveness, of humility, of courage, of sacrifice, and of course love. But these values are not just words, we need to live them."We’re all indigenous to planet Earth, but we’ve 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 nature’s operating instructions and the Original Instructions for how to be a human being. At this unprecedented moment of globalized environmental breakdown, it’s going to take the best of Western science and the indigenous science of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) to navigate this evolutionary keyhole.

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.

John Todd, an ecological designer in the field of biomimicry, imitates nature's evolutionary genius to serve human ends harmlessly, using nature's processes as the design for buildings, technologies and practical solutions to environmental devastation. Educator David Orr suggests that true ecological design can take place only in a society willing to ask, "How would nature do it?"