Just as Gill Scott Heron said: The Revolution Will not be Televised.
In these seemingly hopeless times of increasingly divisive politics; people losing their jobs, homes, and businesses; two political parties that can game the political system for the benefit of the corporatocracy; a country moving away from Democracy and towards Plutocracy, it is easy to think that the global economic and political trains are running out of control with too much inertia to avoid a wreck. However I am here to say that the revolution has begun and you won't see it on TV, at least not yet.
Let me tell you about the revolution, a revolution from the heart of nature.
I recently attended the Bioneers conference in Marin. It is the most inspiring event on the planet Earth, in my humble opinion.
Imagine spending a weekend listening to presentations by and engaging in conversations with CEOs of large corporations, women's rights activists from India, Shaman from the South American rain forest, the nation’s leading chemists, and the Chief of the Iroquois Nation. The topic of conversation: how to save the world by igniting a paradigm shift in human consciousness.
In this blog I will start with a general description of Bioneers and then I will give specific inspiring examples of the people who presented at this year’s event. I will wrap up with a few comments on what all this means to me as an educator. Depending on your interests you may chose to skim parts but I hope you do not skip the blog all together for there is some good stuff here!
General Description:
Bioneers has been around for 20 years and it’s tag line is “revolution from the heart of nature”. Bioneers is a conference celebrating environmental and social justice and the people involved recognize that the Earth is a living system and that all the problems we face today are interlinked. The fact that you cannot have environmental justice without social justice and vice-versa is a fundamental principle of the organization.
There are two major factors, which for me make it so inspirational. First is the fact that the conference brings together people from all different backgrounds – economists, business people, environmental activists, scientists, entrepreneurs, social justice activists, educators, farmers, students, indigenous leaders, artists, movie makers, and the list could go on. The second factor is that despite the fact that all these people are very well aware of the scale of the problems we face on the planet today, they have all come together to share the solutions that they have already proven effective at solving these problems and to outline the path we need to follow to develop further solutions.
The people and the ideas that are represented at the Bioneers conference truly represent a revolution in the way we do everything. Not only a new industrial revolution but a shift in human consciousness. Of course I must say that it is not necessarily new, for much of it is informed by our collaboration and learning from indigenous peoples throughout the globe as well as learning from the millions of species who have lived on this planet without causing the problems our species have created.
One of the ideas embraced by the Bioneers community is that of biomimicry. Copying the way life on this planet already does the things we wish to do. At a basic level is the principle that: “life produces conditions conducive for life.” That is the secret to how life has thrived on this planet for 3.5 billion years. It is also an idea that we have completely left out of our design process for the past 200 years. Nearly everything around us, form the computer I am typing on to the food I ate for lunch has been produced without any consideration of how these products effect the conditions for life to exist on this planet. Michael Ableman in a great slide show of agriculture around the world showed pictures of families in China who have been farming the same land for 4,000 years without any loss of fertility while noting that much of the farm land in North America has been rendered sterile in just a few decades. The co-founder of the field of green chemistry John Warner noted that the tens of thousands of chemicals and materials that fill our world were created by chemists in a lab who had not one class on toxicology. Chemists are trained how to make a chemical red or water soluble or resistant to UV radiation but were never taught how to tell if a chemical they invent might cause cancer. His business partner, Amy Cannon, noted that when she was asked to design products as a working chemist, she was given a long list of design criteria and that list never included things like what will happen to the product when people are done using it or whether or not it was toxic. Mary Gonzales an inspiring community organizer who mentored Barack Obama when he claimed that noble title, made the point that the most alienated people in our society are on the front lines of these issues – working with the pesticides which are causing birth defects in their children, suffering the health effects of inexpensive processed foods, having polluting power plants located in their neighborhoods. She laid out her strategy for solving community issues which revolves around identifying the various stake holders and finding out what is in it for each of them. She said that activists should identify the group of people who are most alienated in their community and find out what it is they want or need. By making this the starting point, she argued, we will all end up solving the problems that are important to us.
One of the youngest of this year's speakers, Jess Rimington, made the point that this generation and the ones following are going to get to redesign the way we do nearly everything. We need to redesign everything so whatever we do increases the ability of life to exist. We need to be efficient, non toxic, and the model of production needs to be circular, not linear. In nature there is no waste. One organism's waste is food for another. We need this to be true for factories. Land fills, toxic chemicals, and pollution need to be designed out of the system. As does poverty and exploitation of natural and human resources.
As an educator it is exciting to think that the students I teach today will be entering a radically changing world and that I may be able to have an influence on what kind of effect they will have on this change. Much of the conference addressed more specifically how, we as educators, can prepare our students for the tasks ahead of them and to spread the information that is shared at Bioneers.
Reinventing the world seems to be a daunting task, but if it is shown, as the Bioneers have been able to do, that the solutions create win-win-win solutions for everyone involved then perhaps it will not be as difficult as many of us imagine. This is also where talk of a paradigm shift in human consciousness comes in to play. Only with a readjustment of our priorities as a species on this planet, will people find the motivation to change the way they make decisions.
Our matter is not what matters. Meaning the matter that makes up our body is not what defines us. We are all made of the same stuff, as are all the other living things on this planet. We are defined by our relationship to others. If we are a care giver or a criminal, a clown or a warrior, an herbivore or a carnivore, these distinctions exist in the invisible world outside of who we are, they are based on how we interact with the world. Do we suck life out of those around us or do we breath life into them? Do we create conditions conducive to life? Having empathy for others and being generous with our giving is not a purely altruistic way of being if one accepts the fact that we are all connected. Being good to the Earth is being good to ourselves. Being good to the people who make our shoes and grow our food can be thought of as a selfish endeavour. The better off the people who share this planet with us are, the better our lives will be. Restoring and preserving the environment is going to create the conditions in which our genes, many generations from now, will be able to survive.
One of the founders of Bioneers, Kenny Ausubel, gave the opening remarks for this years conference, which can be found on Huffington Post. His address is titled: “The Revolution Has Begun - "The Shift Hits the Fan".
He suggests that: “We're experiencing the dawn of a revolutionary transformation.” He makes reference to the problems we face; the concentration of wealth and the distribution of poverty, and the fact we are reaching “peak everything”, but he notes that: “From breakdown to breakthrough, it's a revolution from the heart of nature and the human heart. It leads with a basic shift in our relationship with nature from resource and object to mentor, model and partner. He highlights the fact that countries around the world are making huge advances in their investment in renewable energy, without lowering their standards of living. Germany for example has reduced its emissions by nearly 30% since 1990. Sweden, addressing the fact that 25% of industrial societies’ carbon production comes from the production of the food they eat, has passed a law requiring carbon labeling on food and restaurant menus and they are planning to phase out fossil fuels for energy production by 2020 and gasoline powered cars by 2030. China has become the largest manufacturer of wind turbines and solar panels and is even building green cities. He points out that industries from engineering to banking are redesigning the way they see the world to embrace this new revolution.
He reminds us that nature can be our guide during this transformation. Nature uses energy from the sun, its strengths are diversity and cooperation, it recycles everything, and again, life creates conditions conducive to life!”
And in jest he gave us the classic quote from Groucho Marx: “Why should we bother with the next generation, they never did anything for us!”
Inspiring examples of how change is possible from this year’s conference:
Gary Hirshberg: CEO of Stonyfield Farm
It is true that in this day and age money makes the world go round. So if it can be shown that being environmentally and socially responsible is profitable then convincing companies to change the way they do business should not be too difficult. Gary Hirshberg the founder and CEO of Stonyfield organics is an inspiring example of this fact. He has taken his business from a demonstration farm with 7 cows to a $35 million dollar a year business, all the while making social and environmental responsibility his fundamental business strategy. And each step he has taken to improve the environment and the lives of the people involved with his company, the more profitable his company became. In fact during the recession with the $7.8 million dollars his company saved through energy efficiency measures, he was able to hire 46 new employees. The company buys 100 different products from around the world and he pays top dollar for everything he buys making sure the farmers are getting a living wage. He pays for farms to convert to organic, his employees get incredible benefits including 2 month sabbaticals, he looks at the company’s carbon footprint from every angle including how his employees get to work and what kind of diet reduces the amount of methane his dairy cows produce by burping and farting (actually one of the big problems with the industry). When he was faced with having to build a sewage treatment plant for his facility he learned that by building a traditional plant he would produce two truckloads of sludge per week that would need to be taken ‘away’. As “there is no such thing as ‘away’, is one of his guiding principles he decided to invest an extra $600,000 and build an anaerobic facility that would completely process the waste. The extra money was paid off in only 9 months and in four years he has not had one truckload of waste come out of the facility.
Every farm he buys from must go through a greenhouse gas and fair labor toolkit. When farms are run organically the farmers make twice as much money and the animals live twice as long. He supports 1,760 family organic farms. In buying bananas he was able to lift 100 families out of poverty. In buying sugar from Brasil he was able to convert 35,000 acres of sugar cane to green harvest which has increased soil health, and in 15 years there has been a 90% reduction in pest damage, 189 species have returned to the fields, the water is healthier, and there has been a 10% increase in yield. By changing the cows' diet off of corn and soy onto omega 3 grasses he had a 30% reduction in green house gas emissions and an increase in the animals longevity. Gary switched all his little lunch sized yogurt containers to plant based plastic. When he did this he paid his farmers to take our GMO corn from their fields and his development of the container is open source so other companies can use it. He said if all yogurt companies switched to plant based plastic it would reduce CO2 production equal to burning 1.5 million barrels of oil a year. When cynics like me might say: growing food to make packaging is not sustainable, Gary would say "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." He makes the good point that we need to make improvements where we can and as we continually improve we will get closer to perfect but we will not get there unless we start with some imperfect, but good, improvements.
His company has seen an annual growth of 20% for 20 years and he gives 10% of his profits to environmental organizations. He points out that we have the proof that organic farming is better business all around and that we need to get the government on board to help farmers transition and to get organic up to scale so EVERYONE can afford to eat it. Right now our government heavily subsidizes large scale conventional farming thanks to the fact that the five biggest ag. corporations have spent $28 billion dollars lobbying the government just since Barack Obama has been in office.
And of course Gary Hirshberg is not the only one to prove that sustainability is profitable. Ray Anderson the CEO of a billion dollar carpet manufacturing company, is halfway to making it a zero waste company. And like Gary Hirshberg has shown, each step he took to be more socially and environmentally responsible made his company more profitable.
Fun quotes Gary used:
"Success is the ability to move from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm." -Churchill
"Anyone who thinks they are to small to make a difference has never been in bed with a mosquito!" - Gandhi.
My own tangent:
Of course the idea that everything is connected needs to be embraced by governments and society to take the economic argument for sustainabilty to the next level. Modern economic theory needs to be completely revised. As it is, the cost of coal generated power, for example, does not factor in the medical costs of the people effected by the mining of the coal or the air pollution, or the cost to the fishermen who’s fisheries are ruined because they are downstream from the places where the mountain top removal takes place. These ‘externalities’ need to be factored in. They are true costs to society and in the ‘real world’ using natural resources sustainably and keeping people out of poverty are less expensive to society than the current system.
How is it that it is less expensive to farm using toxic chemicals that cause cancer and destroys the fertility of the soil for future generations than using farming methods that restore soil fertility and produce healthier food? Of course besides the fact that the externalities are not factored in to the true cost, much of the reason is that large scale agriculture is often subsidized by governments and the oil industry from which we derive our fertilizers and pesticides is subsidized as well.
Another perfect example of how a holistic approach to the world makes more economic sense is our current problem with immigration and drugs. Our economic policies of free trade have caused millions of farmers to be driven out of business. This has happened in Columbia, Mexico, Haiti, even the US. These farmers, no longer able to support their families often turn to growing drug crops to make enough money, or they become economic refugees and travel to cities and foreign countries to find what work they can. If our economic policies helped farmers make a good living while farming their land sustainably, we would not have the problems with immigration and drugs that we do today.
But I stray off topic a bit.
John Warner: Green Chemist
John was one of the nation’s leading chemists. He invented thousands of new molecules and worked in industry as well as in academia. When his two year old son died of a birth defect he had an epiphany. What if a chemical he invented or worked with caused the birth defect that killed his son?
He noted that no matter where chemists were educated throughout the world, they were not required to take one class on toxicology. They are trained to know how to make chemicals and materials that are resistant to UV rays, clear, flexible, etc, but were not being taught how to recognize if a chemical might be toxic. And these were the people who are making everything around us. And during the design process toxicity was not even thought about. If something turned out to be toxic it was usually only discovered after decades of use and then the industry would hide the fact or try to cover it up.
Well John and another like minded member of the faculty where he was a professor, Amy Cannon, to give up their secure careers to prove that Green Chemistry is a viable endeavour. Not only has their company, Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry, developed hundreds of new molecules, they have started a global movement to change science and chemistry education from the Kindergarten through University level with their non profit: Beyond Benign. They have developed a k-12 curriculum to teach green chemistry to students of all ages. They recognize that fewer and fewer US students are going into chemistry and that companies have overwhelming desire to hire green chemists but there just aren’t very many who are trained in this area.
So what is ‘Green Chemistry’? Green chemistry takes into account our basic premise from before that ‘life produces conditions conducive for life’. So green chemistry is trying to re-imagine how things are made so they are non-toxic, use little energy to produce or recycle, they do not end up in a landfill when they are finished being used. (see John's 12 principles of Green Chemistry for more info). Biomimicry is essential for green chemistry. Nature has invented ways of making things strong, colorful, water soluble, water resistant, etc. And everything nature makes is food for something! Using structure to create color rather than chemicals is just one example. How is it that we use food coloring that is poisonous! Wow, they figured out how to make food red. But if it kills you, who cares? (on a side note: Today I heard on the radio that in Europe natural colors are used to color M & M's while here in the US, food color made from petroleum (which is poisonous to us) are used. McDonald's shakes in England are pink from strawberries while McDonald's "strawberry" shakes in America are pink from petroleum based food coloring. That's an example of what we get when governments fail to protect its citizens by regulating business and when lobbyists spend billions of dollars keeping the public uninformed by preventing proper labeling of such products.)
So green chemistry is truly one of the revolutions that the next generation is going to get to embrace and run with. One thing that modern chemistry does is use lots of energy to produce high temperatures and pressure under which chemicals can be made. It also takes lots of energy to recycle these chemicals at the end of their useful life. Well nature does just about everything at room temperature! So figuring out how this happens is another example of green chemistry. John had radiation therapy to treat his eczema. He wondered what it was that the light did to the molecules to produce the changes that cured his disease. He figured out how the molecules are changed by the light and then programmed chemicals to do what he wanted when a light is shined on them. So for instance he created a soft substance that could be formed into the shape of a bag and then when light was shined on it, it would become hard and resistant to water, acids, etc. He also learned that e-coli were not susceptible to being changed by radiation. He discovered that they produce an enzyme which reverses the molecular change caused by the light. So he produced an enzyme which would reverse the hardening of the bag mentioned earlier. When you are done with the bag, you only need to put it into a solution with the enzyme and it dissolves and is ready to be made into something else by forming it and shining a light on it. And all this happens at room temperature.
Now we cannot even imagine where this is going to go! Nature makes things that self replicate. The shell on a mollusk was given as an example. John challenged us to imagine something you spray onto a building and it builds itself into a solar panel. Nature uses CO2 as a building block while we consider it a form of air pollution. Imagine bricks that build themselves out of the CO2 that comes from a power plant. Vaccines that do not need refrigeration are something else they are working on – once again using biomimicry. This invention will save millions of lives. And the list goes on…
John Francis: founder of Planetwalk an environmental organization
One of my favorite talks of the year. John as a 'hippy youth' decided first to stop riding in cars and then to stop talking. When he stopped talking he realized he had not been listening. He ended up remaining silent for 17 years and walking around the world. On his 7 year walk across the US he stopped at various universities where he studied and taught (all while not talking) and he ended up with a PH.D. in environmental studies. He became a United Nations Ambassador, he wrote Oil Pollution legislation for the US government, and started environmental education programs in countries throughout the world.
After 17 years he started talking again because he had something to say. He came to the conclusion that we are the environment and how we treat each other is how we treat the environment. This message that equal rights for people is part of the environmental movement is the message he shares today.
He gave a very funny and engaging talk and his kind, insightful, humorous manner must be seen so although this is a different talk than he gave at Bioneers, it is a must watch: John Francis' TED talk:
Jess Rimington: founder at age 18 of the One World Youth Project
Jess Rimington on her website calls herself a "social entrepreneur, artist, and global advocate for the power of international grassroots communication to ignite crowd accelerated innovation and affect local social change". Wow, that is worth reading again!
She is yet another incredibly inspiring person who spoke at Bioneers. She began changing the world in profound ways when she was a teenager. In 2004 when she was just 18 years old, she started an international organization called the One World Youth Project, described on her website as "an innovative education start-up connecting schools to transform students into empowered, discerning, and empathetic global citizens." Also worth digesting for a moment.
The organization is quite incredible. It's not too small of a goal is to transform education on a global scale!
Einstein said that "we can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
Jess is an example of young mind who has a new kind of thinking and is solving the problems the generations before her have created. She says with excitement that young people today get to "almost completely reinvent how almost everything is done on Earth." We live in a world of globalization and her strategy is to "work with it's potential". She sees a world that is interconnected but still disconnected. She wants to change that by transforming education to teach empathy and cultural competency. This is what led her to start the One World Youth Project. She sees a world where having lone leaders is not enough in an increasingly collaborative world.
Her project is designed to engage students to solve real existing problems in their community and is designed to be self sustaining. What they do is to partner Universities with middle or high schools. University students go to the schools and implement the program, this helps create a relationship that encourages students to move on to higher education when they graduate. This partnership is then matched with similar partners in another country. The students begin by connecting on a level of friendship. Once this is established they look at the UN Millenium Development Goals and chose a problem to tackle. They then map out and explore their own communities to see how this problem shows itself locally. Next they come up with a plan and implement their solution to address the problem. Check out the website for more details.
A quote Jess has on her website which I love is: "Don't ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." --Howard Thurman.
Mallika Dutt: Human Rights Leader, founder of Breakthrough
Mallika has taken human rights activism into the 21st century. She has demonstrated that by using a variety of modern media forms she can make wide spread change. She started an organization called Breakthrough who's tag line is "bring human rights home". On their website they describe themselves as "an innovative, international human rights organization using the power of popular culture, media, and community mobilization to transform public attitudes and advance equality, justice, and dignity in India and the United States".
Breakthrough has trained 75,000 activists in India to educate and take action on issues like violence against women and HIV awareness. "Human rights starts at home" is one of breakthrough's fundamental principals. Mallika made the point that once youth are empowered through Breakthrough's training to address and issue like violence against women they become empowered activists and they often take on other issues in their communities. For this reason the 75,000 activists that have been trained by Breakthrough are now becoming a huge positive force for change in India and beyond.
One of Breakthrough's multimedia campaigns is called "Bell Bajao" which means "Ring the Bell". This is a simple public awareness campaign to end violence against women. Using creative television ads as well as other media they are encouraging men and boys to take action when they hear women being abused, by ringing the door bell. Then they ask for milk or ask for the time or whatever, the point is to just interrupt the activity and let the perpetrator know people are listening. This campaign is expanding past India to places such as Africa where they may not even have door bells but the form of interruption is adapted to the local community.
Recently Bell Bajao went global at the 2010 Clinton Global Initiative and the Secretary General of the UN, Mr. Ban Ki Moon, became the inaugural champion of the Bell Bajao Global campaign and recorded a public service TV spot for the organization.
Check out examples of the Bel Bajao TV ads:
Dr. James Hansen: head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Dr. Hansen testified before congress in 1988 warning about human caused climate change. He spoke to the Bioneers community in detail about the science behind climate change. He noted that it is true that the climate has changed in the past but that now, due to our actions, it is changing again and much faster than it probably ever did before. CO2 in the atmosphere is now 389 parts per million (ppm) and it was 280 ppm during pre-industrial times. If we want to have a climate similar to what we have enjoyed during the past 7,000 years, which has allowed the rise of human civilization, scientists believe we need to reduce that amount to 350ppm. 50 million years ago it was 1000 ppm and there were no ice sheets and the sea level was 75 meters higher than it is today. He pointed out that the natural rate of change in CO2 in the atmosphere is .0001ppm/year while humans are changing it at a rate of 2ppm/year.
Dr. Hansen is now sponsoring a "million letter march" to advocate to our elected officials the instigation of a carbon fee on the production of CO2 by any industry. This fee would be paid back to every citizen in this country equally. Many believe this is the best way to provide incentive for companies to pollute less and for people to use less energy. Energy will be more expensive, especially that which created more CO2, which is why we would each get a check, every month, from the tax, to offset the any rise in prices. This system will make polluting energies more expensive while making renewables more competitive as they go through their transition into large scale production. You can learn about the movement and how to write a letter at: www.millionlettermarch.org.
Dr. Hansen was followed by an incredible 16year old youth environmental activist named Alec Loorz. He was introduced with the following quote from David Brower: "I am always impressed with what young people can do before adults tell them its impossible."
Alec Loorz: Youth Climate Change acitvist, founder of Kids vs. Global Warming
Alec gave a short, firey, and inspiring speech. He quoted Thomas Jefferson "Every Generation needs a new revolution". He said he defines sustainability as: "Living as if the future matters". A powerful definition in my opinion. His organization is organizing a million kids march on Mother's Day, May 8, 2011 called the "iMatter March". He is calling on youth to organize marches in their communities to call on the "ruling generation" to change the way they do business and to remember that the youth matter.
On his website he has a very clever video called: iMatter: Story of Global Warming, here it is:
Elizabeth Kapu'uwailani Lindsey, PH.D. filmmaker, anthropologist, first female National Geographic Fellow
Elizabeth was another inspiring female voice at the conference. a descendant of Hawaiian Chiefs, English seafarers, and Chinese merchants she was raised by Hawaiian elders who profesised her role as a steward of ancestral wisdom when she was a young girl. She spoke about the interrelatedness of poverty, education, cultural survival, biodiversity, and health.
She spent years learning from the world's leading "way finder" who was a Micronesian Elder who was skilled in the art of navigation and knowing about the world and the future based on signs from nature such as waves, wind, birds, clouds, and the stars.
She talked about how in this technological age we are "more connected but more lonely". That we are "bloated with information but starved for wisdom". She said we need to shake ourselves out of society's stupor and to remember that "everything is sacred".
Other memorable quotes from what she said: "Our obstacles are a prelude to our greatness" and "Until the lioness is given a voice, the story of the hunt glorifies the hunter". This last quote strikes me as very poignant with regards to the wars we find ourselves fighting as a nation. How often do we get to hear the voice of the people in who's counties we are fighting?
She related stories of what she learned from her Micronesian mentor and she ended with a statement that referred to a valuable lesson she learned him: "may we always close our eyes to see more clearly".
Peter Warshall: Dreaming New Mexico
Here is a story of real change being made. Bioneers has a project called Dreaming New Mexico which is changing how the state does everything to incorporate the Bioneers philosophy into the planning and decision making. They created a dream of what a sustainable and just state would be like and then are taking the steps needed to create that. They have two main focuses: creating an age of renewable energy and creating an age of local foodsheds and making New Mexico a Fair Trade State.
Peter Warshall the co-director of Dreaming New Mexico spoke about the process of developing and implementing the program. He began with a quote: "When you walk into the future, you must walk in beauty". The program is creating an alternative economic model to the WTO by turning New Mexico into a Fair Trade State. Throughout the process the point of the project is to protect biodiversity; end hunger, poverty, and food insecurity; protect cultural diversity (New Mexico has 22 sovereign Native American nations); help farmers; improve the economy; among others. They are taking a truly holistic approach. For example they consider farmers to be ecosystem managers and they are developing a system to pay farmers to take care of the land. Using food sheds and value chains as tools they are providing a "globalocalized" model for envisioning and implementing a radical shift in the way we produce, market, and eat food.
They are turning the dream into reality one step at a time. One small example is that they discovered farmers did not have a good local market for their apples while schools were importing apples to feed to their students. Why weren't the farmers selling their apples to the schools? It turned out that the apples had to be packaged and polished in just the right way and the farmers did not have the means to do that. So by providing the farmers with a polisher and packaging tips and equipment, they not only created a local market for the farmers, they got local organic apples into the schools. They also recognize that not everything can be produced locally all year round which is why they look at their 'value chain' on a global scale and are making New Mexico a Fair Trade state.
This work is providing the world with perhaps the largest model of its kind. The governor of New Mexico recently announced that June 25th, 2010 is officially "Bioneers - Dreaming New Mexico day." How about "Dreaming California"? "Dreaming America"? Bring it on!
Peter ended with a quote: "Walk gently on the Earth, for it is the face of our children."
Just to illustrate the diverse cultural threads which make up the Bioneers fabric, Peter's address was followed by an incredible hip hop dance performance by Destiny Arts. This is a dance company for public school youth in the East Bay that teaches movement and violence prevention. Their performance was one of the best choreographed dances I have seen, plus it had an entertaining and poignant social justice message.
Mary Gonzoles: legendary community organizer and California director of the Gamaliel Foundation
Mary Gonzales was another incredible inspiring speaker. She used her life story to illustrate much of what she was trying to explain. She is a Mexican-American Chicago native and growing up her parents told her she had no use for school for the only thing she would do in her life was raise a family. So as a girl she learned to clean and cook, got married young, and began to have kids. She believed that as a poor woman of color she had nothing to contribute to society. She felt alienated from the world and even her own community. One day her minister invited her to take part in some community meetings. She explained that she would be happy to put out the chairs or cook some food but that she would have nothing important to contribute to the meeting. Well the minister did not let her take the easy way out and insisted she come to the meetings. She became forced to engage in the community and as she did her alienation began to disappear. Now she is on a quest to end others' alienation. She has become an incredible force in community organizing, mentoring Barack Obama when he was a community organizer in Chicago. She has successfully waged campaigns against multibillion dollar corporations and she had incredible insight to share about how to be successful in organizing the community.
One of her fundamental beliefs is that social justice and environmental issues are intimately linked. She also said that everything is driven by power and self interest. She said that to have a successful movement you must first listen to all the parties involved and find out what is in their self interest. Then you find where these converge and you get power in movements.
She told us as an audience of "tree huggers" that to start a movement we need to identify the poor, disenfranchised, often people of color, in our community - the people who feel alienated. Find out what their issues are. We will discover that their issues are the same as ours and that by working together we can be a force for change.
Lynne Twist: founder of Pachamama Alliance and the Soul of Money Institute.
Lynne Twist is a world-renowned fund raiser who has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to address some of humanity's most pressing problems. She founded an organization called the Pachamama Alliance. This organization has a two fold mission according to its website: "to preserve the Earth's tropical rain forests by empowering the indigenous people who are its natural custodians and to contribute to the creation of a new global vision of equity and sustainability for all."
Part of the origins of this organization are from the indigenous Achuar people of Ecuador. As their rain forest home was threatened by development from the outside world, leaders from their community decided to go out into the previously unknown world to teach the rest of humanity about their culture to try and save it. Along with this mission they brought a story, an ancient prophesy that told of a condor and an eagle. It said that one day there would be great problems facing people and only when the condor and eagle fly as one will humanity be able to solve the problems. The shaman of the Achuar recognized that the condor represents the indigenous people and the wisdom of sustainability that they keep and the eagle represents the industrialized nations that have incredible technology and control over the planet. Only when the modern knowledge and ancient wisdom comes together will we solve the problems we face and this is the message that they bring with them.
I had the honor a number of years ago to guide an Achuar Shaman, while he was visiting the Bay Area, into our sacred redwood forests of Marin. While you might imagine an exotic tail of hallucinogenic herbs and profound spiritual revelations, I actually had Noah with me as a baby so our journey into Muir Woods was more like two tourists with a stroller gawking at the big trees. But I could certainly play the story up if I ever want to.
A quote Lynne used in her talk: "If you are coming to help us, don't bother. But if you know that your fate is reliant on ours, then lets work together."
Lynne did not really talk about her past work but instead introduced her new initiative, Four Years. Go.. She said she had taken a man into the rain forest to meet the Achuar. He was so moved he told her he would do anything to help her. It turned out he was the owner of the world's largest independently owned advertising agency. So she enlisted his services to launch a campaign that in her words "is going to change the trajectory of mankind. To change the human dream."
Lynne acknowledged that many scientists believe if we do not change our trajectory now that we will experience catastrophic collapse in 30 years. So she concluded that the next four years will determine the future of life on Earth for thousands of years.
They chose the number four because it is long enough that people know change can happen - it is the time it takes to go through high school or university. It is also short enough that there is urgency, we need to start today if we are to be successful in creating change in four years.
The website says "Four Years. Go. is a campaign to catalyze and empower fundamental shift in the direction of humanity, inspiring collaborative action, connecting individuals and organizations, and amplifying best practices and successes." As I write this they have 1022 allied organizations.
This is an example of how people in the Bioneers community feel they need to take their solutions to the next level. To effect change on a global scale. This is the revolution and perhaps with Lynne's help it will get some television time. But whether or not it does, as you can see from the small sample of things I told you about that are going on, the revolution is in full effect. What are you going to do to be a part of it? You have Four Years. Go!
Watch the Four Years. Go. video:
Conclusion and how this all relates to my role as an educator.
Well I only told you about some of the many incredible speakers I heard and did not really even discuss the workshops I attended in my three days at Bioneers. There are so many more people and actions to tell you about. Like john a. powell a civil rights attourney who is creating new models of housing around centers of opportunity and stresses the fact that everything is linked, the importance of systems thinking, and that everything we see through our cultural perspective. Or Gloria Felt, the past president of Planned Parenthood and author of the book: No excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change The Way We Think About Power who points out that women do 70% of the world's farming, receive 10% of the world's pay, and own 1% of the world's assets. Read her 9ways blog.
I did not even tell you about Jane Goodall who spoke. Everyone knows who she is and if you ever get a chance to hear her speak, do. She has a global educational organization called Roots and Shoots and she told of how she was able to create protected habitat for the chimps she studied by teaching the local people how to sustainably farm coffee. This became such a profitable business that the local community created a habitat zone around the park where the chimps lived. Another example of a win-win-win situation.
So I hope all these stories inspired you. They certainly did me. As an educator I cannot tell you what a gift it is to be given such positive inspiration and hope for the future. For, as a science teacher it is my job to explain the problems we face on this planet. It is my passion to teach kids to think about how their actions effect the world around them. But to have these success stories, to be able to explain that solutions to the problems have been found and that many other solutions, of the kind we have not even dreamed of, will be thought of by people like them, the future generations. I now tell my students, thanks to Jess's insight, that THEY will get to reinvent how we do almost everything. They are going to live in a world where they can tell their grandchildren "when I was a kid we had things like landfills. That's right, we actually just threw things into a big pile and left them there." or "when I was a kid we actually used oil from the ground to make poisons which we poured on the food that we grew." or "when I was a kid we drank water out of plastic water bottles that caused cancer and we even made baby chew toys out of this same toxic material!"
So besides telling my students this, how, in light of the kind of future we want them to create, can we best educate our students? How can we prepare them for the 21st century when we do not even know what it is going to look like? This is a question schools ask - last year I was on a committee at my school called "education for the 21st century". There are books written about it. At Bioneers is has become an increasing focus of the conversation for it is recognized that we need to not only develop in the students the skills they will need, like problem solving and creativity, but we need to give them the ethical/spiritual knowledge that will allow them to create the world that Bioneers envisions. We need students who have empathy, who understand the interconnectedness of everything, can think systemically, are culturally literate and globally connected.
One of the places to start this is by teaching children a sense of place. Make sure they are connected to their homeland - they know where their water comes from, their food, they know who lives around them. Who lived on the land before them? Engage students in map making to get to know their local area.
We need to incorporate art and observation. To foster emotional intelligence. We discussed the need to mix the disciplines, to use inquiry based teaching methods, to teach bio-regionalism in every discipline, to learn about sustainability in every discipline. The fact that teachers do not need to know all the answers and that students need to learn to think holistically.
I was just looking at my notes from a talk by Anthony Cortese about greening higher education and they are worth summarizing here as many of them also apply to education in general.
Anthony Cortese: Founder of Second Nature and the Presidents Climate Committment
Anthony Cortese is on a mission to change higher education. He believes that colleges should be examples of sustainability to governments.
He points out that change is not enough, we need transformation. We currently have the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced, to literally save our life support system. He points out that not only do we need to change how colleges and universities educate our students but they need to teach by example. All the higher education institutions in this country combined have a higher budget than all but 31 countries. Community colleges hold 46% of all higher ed students and they are leading the way in training green students. This is why he started the Presidents Climate Commitment and has 700 campuses across the nation committed to becoming carbon neutral and 340 of those have already submitted action plans on how they plan to get there. He says we need a healthy, just, and sustainable society and we need to make it inevitable!
As far as education he says we need to teach systems thinking and ecology to EVERY student. That we need to teach that sustainability is not only an environmental issue but a social justice, economic, and equality issue. We need to get rid of the linear thinking of education, break down the silos in which we have divided the various disciplines. We need to use less energy, eliminate waste, live off of nature's income - not its capital, teach biomimicry, and that we not only need to transform science and technology but also the arts, religious, and social aspects of our society.
He says education needs to be active, experiential, engage students in problem solving, service learning, and to make their communities sustainable.
He envoked the old adage that we must "Throw our hats over the fence" and noted that "Tragedy in life is not in not achieving a goal, but in not having a goal."
Now all these thoughts have me thinking about how I can use this to inform my teaching. To transform my teaching. But one problem is that I only teach 75 students a year. So if I want to help make these changes inevitable I need to scale up my influence on the world around me. This leads me to ponder, how can I change the school community where I work - what about the upper school of which I have little relationship. But we are only one school. What about all the other schools out there? This brings me back to the idea of bio-regional education and that perhaps I need to try to instigate change on a regional level. Perhaps I can enlist teachers from different schools in the area to collaborate on a project to either educate our students or to transform the institutions where we teach collectively. But then we are only one region in a big country so what ever kind of collaborative project comes of this I would like to make it a model for other regions to be able to follow to come up with their own regional collaborative educational projects centered around sustainability. Sounds like I may be thinking a bit big? I am busy enough as a teacher right? Well I think I will throw my hat over the fence and then figure out how to get it back. Because we have four years. Go.
Please email me at dboyer@menloschool.org if you are interested in working towards the goal of educating our youth to take humanity in a whole new direction...
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