National Plenaries

Plenary speakers present live in San Rafael, CA one month prior to the Northland Bioneers Conference. These 35 minute presentations are replayed at this Twin Cities event, alongside entertainment and participant feedback, to help make the information useable for the longterm.

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ERICA FERNANDEZ Si, Se Puede! (Yes, We Can!)  This remarkable eighteen-year-old environmental justice activist helped mobilize her diverse community in Oxnard, California to defeat the placement of a liquefied natural gas facility just offshore.

Erica Fernandez 18, born and raised in Michoacán, Mexico till age ten, became a remarkable young environmental activist in Oxnard, California. Initially motivated to fight air pollution because of her asthma, she helped mobilize her whole diverse community, from Latino youth to the Sierra Club, to defeat the placement of a liquefied natural gas facility just offshore, successfully resisting a multinational billion-dollar corporation. 

RICK REED Collaborating on a Grand Scale Think Systemically and Act Cooperatively As visionary co-founder of RE-AMP, he and the Garfield Foundation orchestrated a ground breaking collaboration among 70 NGOs and 10 foundations to transform the Midwest from a leader in emissions to a leader in clean energy. In 2007, all seven of the region’s Governors signed an accord committing their states to slashing their global warming pollution by 80% over the next 40 years.

Rick Reed is a senior advisor to the Garfield Foundation, leading its collaborative clean energy project, RE-AMP (a community of 10 foundations and 70 NGOs using system-mapping and shared learning to align their clean energy strategies across seven states in the upper Midwest). Thanks, in large part, to RE-AMP’s activities, governors throughout the U.S. heartland, in late 2007, committed themselves to reducing global warming pollution from their states by 80% over the next 40 years. With a background in organic farming and molecular biology, Rick has been working in the fields of philanthropy and sustainability for nearly 20 years.

LUCAS BENITEZ Fighting for Justice for Farmworkers  This champion of labor rights who left Mexico at age 14 to work in the fields in the US has led campaigns for living wages and ending farm worker slave camps. By organizing boycotts and hunger strikes, he and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers have forced the world’s largest and richest fast-food chains to the negotiating table.

Lucas Benitez (www.ciw-online.com), a farmworker and co-director of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, originally from Guerrero, Mexico, came to the U.S. on his own when he was 16 to help support his five brothers and sisters. By organizing fellow migrant farmworkers, Lucas helped secure the first wage increase for tomato pickers in 20 years, exposed and stopped two slavery rings, and launched a Labor Action Rights program that collected nearly $100,000 in back wages. In 1999 Lucas was the recipient of the prestigious Do Something BRICK Award, which recognizes and honors ten outstanding leaders under the age of 30.

CHRISTINE LOH The “Development” Imperative for Asians  How Asians look at development will have a great impact on Earth’s environmental and ecological future. With the threat of climate change, the world must collaborate much more meaningfully, but will that happen fast enough? This internationally acclaimed environmental activist has worked extensively in Chinese business and government and now heads Civic Exchange, a Hong Kong think tank. She shares her perspectives on key levers for restorative development in Asia.

Christine Loh, with a stellar background in law, business, politics and media, is a leading voice on public policy in Hong Kong and internationally, and is the co-founder and CEO of the think tank Civic Exchange. Formerly Loh served on the Hong Kong Legislative Council and had a successful career in business. She writes extensively about politics, energy/climate change, and sustainable development in mainstream and academic publications, has written and edited many books, and is an international adviser to many prestigious groups, including the G8+5 Climate Change Dialogue. A member of Asia Society’s International Council (and co-chair of human rights in China), Christine has been widely recognized for her achievements, including as one of TIME’s “Heroes of the Environment.”

RAY ANDERSON Sustainability in Action  The nation’s most inspiring green business visionary leader and Interface, Inc., his $1 billion global carpet-manufacturing company, are nearly half-way to a zero environmental footprint by 2020. He shows how sustainability and ethics are far better paths to business performance and profit.

Ray Anderson (www.interfaceinc.com) is the most successful visionary "green business" leader in America, founder and chairman of the environmentally groundbreaking company, Interface Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of modular carpet and a leading producer of commercial fabrics. Anderson, the author of Mid-Course Correction and a former co-chair of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, was named one of TIME International’s Heroes for the Environment in 2007.

 

PAUL STAMETS Solutions from the Underground  Using Fungi to Help Save the World One of the most brilliant explorers of the deep biology of mushrooms and fungi illuminates some potentially worldchanging fungus-based ecological, medicinal and nutritional technologies.

Paul Stamets (www.fungi.com), president of Fungi Perfecti, a mail-order business supplying “mycotechnologies” to mushroom cultivators worldwide, has: discovered four new species of mushrooms; pioneered countless techniques in edible and medicinal mushroom cultivation and in “fungal bioremediation;” and written six books including Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, The Mushroom Cultivator, Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World, Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, and many articles and scholarly papers. A dedicated hiker, conservationist and explorer, his passion is to preserve, protect and clone as many ancestral strains of mushrooms as possible from the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. 

JANINE BENYUS Nature’s 100 Best   Top Biomimicry Solutions to Environmental Crises The brilliant naturalist, author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, and founder of the Biomimicry Institute reminds us that our prime directive as living beings is always to seek to create conditions conducive to life. What are Nature’s 100 Best (her book-in-progress), revolutionary solutions to the world’s most vexing challenges?

Janine Benyus (www.biomimicryguild.com) is a biologist, innovation consultant, and author of six books, including Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Her company, the Biomimicry Guild, helps clients such as HOK Architects, Interface, Herman-Miller, Kohler, and Seventh Generation consult life's genius to create sustainable products and processes. Janine also co-founded the non-profit Biomimicry Institute, a biomimicry design portal on the web, and the Innovation for Conservation program to conserve the habitat of the mentor organisms. Her latest book project is Nature's 100 Best, a look at what ingenious (and often endangered) species can teach us about becoming true natives.

ALEXANDRA COUSTEAU Saving Our Water Planet 

 As a member of the legendary Cousteau family, Alexandra grew up traveling the globe and learning firsthand the value of conserving the natural world. An Emerging Explorer with National Geographic, Alexandra will discuss what we must do to preserve the integrity of our planet’s waters, share stories from her most recent adventures around the world, as well as talk about her latest initiative which seeks to inspire and empower individuals to protect not only the oceans and its inhabitants, but also the human communities that rely on the purity of our freshwater resources.

Alexandra Cousteau (www.earthecho.org), born in 1976, granddaughter of the legendary Jacques-Yves Cousteau, is a leading activist and advocate for the conservation and restoration of the planet's oceans and sustainable management of its water resources. A member of the third generation of the Cousteau family to devote their lives to the natural world, she learned to scuba dive with her grandfather when she was seven and hasn't stopped exploring since. Raised in France and the U.S., Alexandra, who co-founded EarthEcho International with her brother Philippe in 2000, is a 2008 National Geographic Emerging Explorer and has spoken to audiences at the UN, Harvard University and the Smithsonian, among numerous other institutions. Alexandra founded her own organization, Blue Legacy, in 2008 and is preparing to launch a global initiative, the Blue Campaign.

 

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16

KAVITA RAMDAS Shakti, Shanti, Sangam  Power, Peace and the Politics of Change The president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, among the most effective international leaders empowering women globally, explains how listening to and learning from women community leaders is the key to building sustainable and effective movements for social justice, equality and peace.

Kavita N. Ramdas, the president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, is one of the most effective international leaders working to empower women around the world by increasing girls’ access to education, defending women’s health and reproductive rights, preventing violence against women, and advancing women’s political participation at all levels.

GREG WATSON   Twelve Degrees of Freedom Lessons Learned from Thirty-five Years of Environmental Activism His exemplary contributions have ranged from launching community gardens and farmers’ markets to serving as Massachusetts’ Commissioner of Agriculture, teaching environmental science, working with low-income communities, developing sustainable technologies, and helping create the nation’s first offshore wind farm. Now senior advisor for Clean Energy Technology within the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, he describes how to foster unprecedented collaborations in support of comprehensive design solutions.

Greg Watson (www.masstech.org) is senior advisor for Clean Energy Technology within the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and vice president for Sustainable Development with the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative. Greg’s long life of exemplary, cutting-edge public service has included serving as: executive director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative; director of educational programs for Second Nature; director of The Nature Conservancy's Eastern Regional Office; commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture; and executive director of the New Alchemy Institute.

DUNE LANKARD Sustainable Solutions Over Centuries A New Business Model

This Eyak Athabaskan native from the Copper River Delta region of Alaska and lifelong commercial fisherman became a community activist and preservationist when the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill desecrated his homelands and waters. He describes the preservation of ecosystems and people as the way to maintain healthy thriving economies for businesses and communities into the future.

He has dedicated his life to protecting human rights and the environment. Selected by Time magazine as one of its "Heroes of the Planet," he is a co-founder of the RED OIL Network (Resisting Environmental Degradation of Indigenous Lands).

SANDRA STEINGRABER   The Environmental Life of Children  From Placenta to Puberty Dubbed “the new Rachel Carson,” this ecologist, biologist, cancer survivor, mom, internationally recognized expert on environmental links to cancer and reproductive health and author of the award-winning books: Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment, and Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood explains why pediatric environmental health activism is the civil rights movement of our era.

Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D. is a biologist, award-winning author, mother of two, and cancer survivor. Currently a scholar-in-residence at Ithaca College in New York, she is author of the classic, highly influential books, Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and Environment, and Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood. Hailed by the Sierra Club as "the new Rachel Carson," Steingraber is presently at work on a book about the environmental life of children. She has addressed many environmental health conferences, testified at Congressional briefings, and appeared frequently on national media.

REBECCA MOORE Google Earth   Visualizing Change, Mapping the Future Google Earth’s mapping and visualization technologies are powerful tools for public interest purposes, from environmental justice to climate change, biocultural preservation, land conservation and creating a sustainable society. This software engineer turned public-interest advocate founded Google Earth Outreach, and her efforts are dramatically leveraging the crucial work of NGOs, communities and indigenous peoples worldwide.

Rebecca Moore (earth.google.com/outreach) is a computer scientist and longtime software professional. At Google, she conceived and now manages the Google Earth Outreach program, which supports nonprofits, communities and indigenous peoples around the world in applying Google's mapping tools to pressing problems in areas such as environmental conservation, human rights, cultural preservation and creating a sustainable society. Her personal work using Google Earth was recently instrumental in stopping a plan (www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200709/google.asp) to log more than a thousand acres of redwoods in her Santa Cruz Mountain community.

NAOMI KLEIN The Shock Doctrine  The Rise of Disaster Capitalism One of the most important political and economic thinkers of our time, this Canadian journalist and author (The Shock Doctrine and No Logo) penetrates the veils of corporate globalization to expose transnational capital’s most ruthless strategies yet to exploit catastrophe from Baghdad to New Orleans. She portrays her vision of how people’s movements can counter the disaster of disaster capitalism.

Naomi Klein (www.naomiklein.org) is an award-winning Canadian journalist, syndicated columnist and author of the highly influential, bestselling books: No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies and, most recently, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. She writes a regular, internationally syndicated column for The Nation and The Guardian. Her reporting from Iraq for Harper’s Magazine won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and she co-produced The Take with director Avi Lewis, an award-winning feature documentary about Argentina’s occupied factories.

DAVID ORR Some Like It Hot, But Lots Don’t  The Changing Climate of US Politics One of the nation’s most important architects of environmental literacy in higher education and a leading light of the sustainability movement, this visionary educator will outline a national climate change policy for the incoming administration developed by the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP).

David W. Orr, professor and chair of the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin College and an award-winning scholar and leader in the sustainability movement, renowned for his pioneering work on environmental literacy and ecological design, is the author of The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror; The Nature of Design; Earth in Mind; and Ecological Literacy; and co-editor of The Global Predicament and The Campus and Environmental Responsibility. At Oberlin, he directed a collaboration of students, staff and some of the world’s most innovative designers and architects to build a state-of-the-art green building, the Environmental Studies Center.