Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature

Labor organizer and Founder of One Fair Wage, Saru Jayaraman, takes us inside one of the fiercest labor struggles to challenge a mighty oligarchy: The food, beverage and restaurant industry. Workers are walking off the job and refusing historically low wages. She says if “we the people” stand with workers as they face this powerful lobby, they can win.FeaturingSaru Jayaraman, President of One Fair Wage and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at UC Berkeley, co-founded (after 9/11) the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), which grew into a national movement of restaurant workers, employers and consumers. Saru has won many prestigious awards for her advocacy and is the author of four books including: One Fair Wage: Ending All Subminimum Pay in America and Bite Back: People Taking on Corporate Food and Winning.ResourcesSaru Jayaraman – The Great Revolution: What A Worker Power Moment Can Mean for Climate Justice | Bioneers 2023 KeynoteSaru Jayaraman – We the People: Workers Rising for Fair Wages | Bioneers 2017 KeynoteInside the Campaign to Abolish the Subminimum Wage in 25 States by 2026 | Inequality.orgThis is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

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.FeaturingValarie Kaur, born into a family of Sikh farmers who settled in California in 1913, is a seasoned civil rights activist, award-winning filmmaker, lawyer, faith leader, and founder of the Revolutionary Love Project, which seeks to champion love as a public ethic and wellspring for social action.MusicThe theme music is co-written by the Baka Forest People of Cameroon and Baka Beyond, from the album East to West. Find out more at globalmusicexchange.org.Additional music was made available by: Edamame, EdamameBeats.com Raydia, APMmusic.com Jami Sieber, JamiSeiber.com This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

Aligning business with biology, disruptive design uses systems thinking to create models that show what “good” really looks like. Two winners of the 2012 Buckminster Fuller Challenge Award-visionary architect Jason McLennan of the acclaimed Living Building Challenge and entrepreneur Cheryl Dahle of The Future of Fish-demonstrate breakthrough systems designs that can transform major industries, create a healthy sustainable environment and make life beautiful and fun.ResourcesJason McLennan – From Reconciliation to RegenerationDeep Community Resilience: Preparing for the Coming Age, Place-By-Place | Jason F. McLennanChild-Centered Planning: A New Specialized Pattern Language Tool | Jason F. McLennanThis is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

By around 2044, the U.S. will become a majority-minority nation. This seismic demographic shift has triggered a cultural earthquake, provoking a radical spike in hate crimes. In times of massive disruption and economic stress, what Carl Jung called the “shadow side of the psyche” comes into play: the pronounced psychological tendency in the collective psyche is to project these shadow qualities with unusual potency onto whomever people see as “the other.” But is there also a deeper story? Perhaps the question to ask is: Who benefits? In this half hour, we hear from Heather McGhee of Demos. She sees a direct connection between today’s extreme inequality and this peak moment of racial panic and white anxiety.FEATURINGHeather McGhee, distinguished senior fellow and former president of Demos, is an award-winning thought leader on the national stage whose writing and research appear in numerous outlets, including The New York Times and The Nation. Her latest book is The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.RESOURCESHeather McGhee's Keynote at Bioneers 2017 | A New “We The People” For a Sustainable FutureThis is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

Today, three to five giant corporations control up to 80% of almost every industry and marketplace. These monopolies depress wages, exploit workers, and decimate small businesses. Stacy Mitchell from the Institute for Local Self Reliance has been a leader in a growing anti-monopoly movement with a broad political base. Can this emerging movement – along with bold federal antitrust action –  create a force that can challenge corporate power for the first time in decades? FeaturingStacy Mitchell, a Maine-based writer, strategist, and policy advocate whose work focuses on dismantling concentrated corporate power and building thriving communities and a healthy democracy, has played a leading role in today’s growing anti-monopoly movement. She is Co-Executive Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) and the author of Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses, and co-author of the influential report: Amazon’s Stranglehold.ResourcesStacy Mitchell – Democracy vs. Big Tech: How We Can Win the Fight Against Monopoly Power | Bioneers 2024 KeynoteDemocracy v. Plutocracy: Behind Every Great Fortune Lies a Great CrimeOur Economic Future: Achieving a More Equitable Society by Radically Rethinking Our Guiding Economic Ideas | Bioneers ReadeCredits Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel Written by: Kenny Ausubel Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris Producer: Teo Grossman Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

To transform our culture from its focus on dominance and hierarchy to one of connection, empathy and collaboration, it’s vital that we re-envision the essential (or archetypal) masculine, which changes everything. This rarely tackled topic is the subject of a deeply authentic dialogue among Playwright and activist Eve Ensler and three men working to change men and change the story: Tony Porter, co-founder, A Call To Men; Dallas Goldtooth, Indigenous activist, member of the 1491’s Native American comedy troupe; George Lipsitz, board president, African American Policy Forum.This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

As a backlash against LGBTQ rights escalates into an authoritarian crusade, acclaimed author and queer activist Taylor Brorby asks how we can still be fighting this battle? As a writer addressing the fossil fuel industry’s acceleration in the midst of climate chaos, Taylor is forced to choose between the existential crises of the assaults on nature and on LGBTQ people. It’s all connected, he says, as he seeks to reconcile nature, culture, diversity and belonging.FeaturingTaylor Brorby, a Fellow in Environmental Humanities and Environmental Justice at the Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah, is an award-winning, widely published writer and poet as well as a contributing editor at North American Review who also serves on the editorial boards of Terrain.org and Hub City Press. Taylor regularly speaks around the country on issues related to extractive economies, queerness, disability, and climate change, and is the author of Boys and Oil: Growing up gay in a fractured land; Crude: Poems; Coming Alive: Action and Civil Disobedience; and co-editor of Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America.ResourcesTaylor Brorby's keynote Bioneers 2024 – Raising Hell: Censorship, Carbon Capture, and Being Gay on the Great PlainsLearn more about Taylor Brorby at taylorbrorby.comThis is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

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. Valarie Kaur, born into a family of Sikh farmers who settled in California in 1913, is a seasoned civil rights activist, award-winning filmmaker, lawyer, faith leader, and founder of the Revolutionary Love Project, which seeks to champion love as a public ethic and wellspring for social action. This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to find out how to hear the program on your local station and how to subscribe to the podcast.For transcript and more about this program, visit: https://bioneers.org/laboring-for-justice-see-no-stranger/CreditsExecutive Producer: Kenny AusubelWritten by: Monica Lopez and Kenny AusubelSenior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie WelchHost and Consulting Producer: Neil HarveyProducer: Teo GrossmanProgram Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris

How are donors leveraging effective change beyond traditional pathways and norms? From shareholder activism to investment strategies and disinvestment campaigns, explore how foundations can be reshaped to be far more effective. Hosted by Jen Sokolove, Program Director, Compton Foundation. With: Lauren Embrey, President/CEO, Embrey Family Foundation; Tom Van Dyck, Senior Vice President and Financial Consultant, SRI Wealth Management Group at RBC Wealth Management; Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, Senior Director of Membership & Communications, Women Donors Network; Kristin Hull, CEO, Nia Global Solutions.Recorded Friday, October 17, 2014 at the national Bioneers Summit Conference in San Rafael, California.

At the core of our civilizational breakdown is an extractive economy that wastes both nature and people, at the same time it is Hoovering extreme wealth up to the billionaire class. But with breakdown comes breakthrough. Professor Manuel Pastor believes we’re living through a moment of profound transformation. It will come down to what we do – or don’t do – at this moment of radical change.In this episode, we hear from Pastor on how shocks to the system are precipitating a great awakening and growing movements to transform the economy to our economy.FeaturingManuel Pastor, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at USC and Director of its Equity Research Institute, has long been one of the most important scholars and activists working on the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities and the social movements seeking to change those realities. He has held many prominent academic posts, won countless prestigious awards and fellowships for his activism and scholarship, and is the author and co-author of many important, highly influential tomes.ResourcesSolidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter | 2021 Book by Manuel Pastor and Chris BennerSolidarityEconomics.org | Joint Project of the Equity Research Center (ERI) at the University of Southern California and the Institute for Social Transformation at UC Santa CruzManuel Pastor – Solidarity Economics: Mutuality, Movements and Momentum | 2021 Bioneers Keynote AddressSolidarity Economics: Our Economy, Our Planet, Our Movements | 2021 Bioneers PanelBioneers Reader: Our Economic Future | Free eBookThis is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.