In San Francisco and Online Worldwide
We’re in the thick of a civilizational stress test. It feels like a permanent five-alarm emergency, signaling that massive change is inevitable. But it’s more than just change – this scenario demands authentic transformation. Although the tide is turning, the existential challenge is that time is not on our side. We need to fast-forward the transformation. At Bioneers 2022, we’ll dive deep into solutions, visions, strategies and paradigm shifts to do just that.
At this moment, our power lies in community. It’s about changing our societal pronoun from “me” to “we.” We know the solutions residing in nature surpass our conception of what’s even possible, and we know that human creativity is rising to solve the fundamental crises we face. There’s a window through, and we'll open it together.
We’re excited to return to an in-person event this year in San Francisco, CA, at the Palace of Fine Arts, with live virtual access worldwide for those who can’t make it in person.
2022 FEATURED SPEAKERS
Many more speakers to come. Stay tuned.
Kate Aronoff
Journalist and Author
Kate Aronoff, a Brooklyn, NY-based staff writer at The New Republic, and a former Fellow at the Type Media Center whose work has appeared in The Intercept, The New York Times, The Nation, Dissent, Rolling Stone, and The Guardian, among other outlets, is the co-editor of We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism, American Style and the author of Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet--And How We Fight Back.
Angela Glover Blackwell
Founder in Residence | PolicyLink
Angela Glover Blackwell, one of the nation’s most prominent, award-winning social justice advocates, is “Founder-in-Residence” at PolicyLink, the organization she started in 1999 to advance racial and economic equity that has long been a leading force in improving access and opportunity in such areas as health, housing, transportation, and infrastructure. The host of the Radical Imagination podcast and a professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, Angela, before PolicyLInk, served as Senior Vice President at The Rockefeller Foundation and founded the Urban Strategies Council. She serves on numerous boards and advisory councils, including the inaugural Community Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve and California’s Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery.
Ohki Forest
Founder | Red Wind Councils
Ohki Forest is a Mohawk spiritual teacher dedicated to the healing of the “First Wound of the Americas” and Indigenous restitution through her non-profit, Red Wind Councils, in Chiapas, Mexico. The author of Dreaming the Council Ways, True Native Teachings from the Red Lodge, Ohki received the Eagle Feather Award from the Society for Shamanic Practice for her lifelong dedication to the renewal of Indigenous spirituality.
Jason McLennan
Partner & CEO | McLennan Design
Jason McLennan, one of the world’s most influential visionaries in contemporary architecture and green building, is a highly sought-out designer, consultant and thought leader. A winner of Engineering News Record’s National Award of Excellence and of the prestigious Buckminster Fuller Prize (which was, during its 10-year trajectory, known as “the planet’s top prize for socially responsible design”), Jason has been showered with such accolades as “the ‘Wayne Gretzky’ of the green building industry and a “World Changer” (by GreenBiz magazine).
Cindy Montañez
CEO | TreePeople
Cindy Montañez, the CEO of TreePeople, has rapidly expanded that Los Angeles-based organization's impact across Southern California, turning it into the largest environmental movement and fastest growing environmental nonprofit in the region. Cindy, the youngest council-member of her hometown of San Fernando at 25, became its mayor at 27, and then at 28 the youngest woman ever elected to the California State Legislature. Later, as Assistant General Manager at Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power, she helped transition the nation's largest publicly-owned utility to cleaner energy and a more sustainable water supply. In addition to her role at TreePeople, Cindy was just re-elected to San Fernando’s City Council and serves on the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability’ board.
Samuel Myers
Principal Research Scientist | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Samuel Myers, MD, MPH, studies the human health impacts of accelerating disruptions to Earth’s natural systems, a field recently dubbed “Planetary Health.” A Principal Research Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, he is the founding Director of the Planetary Health Alliance, the author of roughly 100 peer-reviewed research articles, and the lead editor of Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves (Island Press, 2020).
Enric Sala
Explorer-in-Residence | National Geographic
Enric Sala, Ph.D., a former professor who quit academia to become a full-time conservationist as a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, founded and leads Pristine Seas, a project that combines exploration, research, and media to inspire leaders to protect the last wild places in the ocean. To date, Pristine Seas has helped create 25 of the largest marine reserves on the planet, covering an area of more than 6.5 million square kilometers. Sala, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, has, in the past 15 years, earned numerous prestigious awards and honors for his conservation work.
Zainab Salbi
Co-Founder | DaughtersforEarth.org
Zainab Salbi, a celebrated humanitarian, author, and journalist, co-founder of DaughtersforEarth.org, “Chief Awareness Officer” at FindCenter.com, and host of the Redefined podcast, founded Women for Women International, an organization to help women survivors of conflicts, when she was 23, and built the group from helping 30 women to reaching nearly half a million and raising tens of millions of dollars to help them and their families rebuild their lives. The author of several books, including the bestseller, Between Two Worlds and, most recently, Freedom Is an Inside Job, she is also the creator and host of several TV shows, including #MeToo, Now What? on PBS.
Clayton Thomas-Muller
Stop It At The Source’ Campaigner | 350.org
Clayton Thomas-Muller is a member of the Treaty #6 based Mathias Colomb Cree Nation, also known as Pukatawagan, located in in Northern Manitoba, Canada. Based in the prairie city of Winnipeg, Clayton is the ‘Stop It At The Source’ Campaigner with 350.org as well as a founder and organizer with Defenders of the Land. Clayton is involved in many initiatives to support the building of an inclusive movement globally for energy and climate justice. He serves on the boards of Black Mesa Water Coalition, the Global Justice Ecology Project and the Bioneers. He is also a steering committee member of the Tar Sands Solutions Network.
Frans B. M. de Waal
C. H. Candler Professor Emeritus | Emory University
Frans B. M. de Waal, Ph.D., is a Dutch/American biologist and primatologist widely renowned for his work on the behavior and social intelligence of primates. C. H. Candler Professor Emeritus at Emory University, de Waal has been elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and was declared one of The Worlds’ 100 Most Influential People Today by Time magazine in 2007. The author of numerous highly influential books including Chimpanzee Politics and Our Inner Ape, his most recent, just coming out new book is: Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist.
Karen Washington
Co-Owner and Farmer | Rise & Root Farm
Karen Washington, co-owner/farmer at Rise & Root Farm in Chester New York, is a renowned activist and food advocate, who, among her many achievements, in 2010 co- founded Black Urban Growers (BUGS) an organization supporting growers in both urban and rural settings. In 2012, Ebony magazine voted her one of their 100 most influential African Americans in the country, and in 2014 she was the recipient of the James Beard Leadership Award. Karen also serves on the boards of the New York Botanical Gardens, the Mary Mitchell Center, SoulFire Farm and the Black Farmer Fund.
Kongjian Yu
Founder | Turenscape
Kongjian Yu, a world-renowned, award-winning leader in ecological urbanism and landscape architecture, is the founder of the planning and design firm, Turenscape, in Beijing. Yu, who received a doctorate at The Harvard School of Design, founded the Graduate School of Landscape Architecture and the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Peking University. Especially known for his “sponge cities” and other revolutionary nature-based solutions for climate adaptation, his approach to urban planning and design has been implemented in over 200 cities in China and beyond, and has significantly impacted national policies for improving the environment in China.
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