Conference Schedule

Chinese journalist and award-winning filmmaker John Liu recounts his longterm chronicling of China's pathfinding experiments to revitalize the immense Loess Plateau. The breathtaking restoration of this radically degraded ecosystem shows transformational change on a large scale in fast forward once we widen our perspective beyond "production" to include ecoservices and natural cycles of renewal that can lead to vibrant local living economies. Next stop: restoration of the entire nation of Rwanda.

"Smart by Nature" education has the potential to impart to our young the keys to sustainable living, revitalize our nation's approach to schooling, and point the way to a hopeful future. This bold vision developed by the Center for Ecoliteracy is preparing today's young people for the ecological challenges of the coming decades. Karen Brown, CEL Creative Director and an award-winning designer, explores how this vision is becoming reality in K-12 schools nationally.

The clean energy economy presents transformational economic and environmental potential for the nation. To ensure we achieve energy independence, mitigate the effects of climate change and secure a sustainable path for U.S. workers, it's critical that labor unions and the environmental community work together to advance clean energy policies. As assistant Legislative Director of the United Steelworkers (USW), Roxanne Brown focuses on issues including defense, environment and climate change as one of five lobbyists in the USW's Legislative Office in Washington, D.C. She also serves on the Steering Committee of the Blue- Green Alliance, a groundbreaking national partnership of labor unions and environmental organizations dedicated to expanding the number and quality of jobs in the green economy to secure a sustainable future.

From the heart of the Amazonian rainforest to the depths of the oceans, from Navajo Nation to the jungles of Brazil, Google Earth mapping technology is providing remarkable high-tech tools to visualize alternative futures. Rebecca Moore is founder and Manager of Google Earth Outreach, which gives non-profits and public benefit organizations the knowledge and resources to visualize their cause and tell their story to hundreds of millions of people. As a Google software engineer, she leads Google Earth Engine, a huge collection of the world's satellite imagery made available online with tools for scientists, independent researchers and individual countries who are developing applications for detecting deforestation and mapping land use trends. Rebecca shares her global vision in action, and how seeing the world from a Google Earth-eye view has changed her.

Often the same adversaries oppose women's, anti-racist, environmental, peace, human rights, indigenous, sexual liberation, consumer, children's rights and other such movements. Yet these movements often remain separate and don't see their organic linkage. Gloria Steinem, the iconic leader who continues to inhabit the leading edges of progressive social change, traces the historical, political and practical reasons these movements are linked — not ranked — and why our success depends on it..

What do we need in terms of infrastructure and education in order to take better care of ourselves as individuals and as communities? How can we scale up from making teas and tinctures on our own to design systems of community and regional healthcare based on nature? Herbalist Rosemary Gladstar will focus her discussion on how we may build more resilience into individual and community healthcare systems.

What would a northern food system fit for the conditions of the 21st century include? We will discuss opportunities and challenges in continuing the evolution of Vermont's food system to produce higher quality outputs with radically fewer inputs during an age of climate and economic instability while simultaneously regenerating the health of the land upon which it is based.

This session steps back from where we are today in meeting our energy needs and takes a hard look at where we are headed, where we need to be, and what is being done (or not done) to get there. The experts on our panel – all of whom are leaders in their fields and have decades of working experience in and outside Vermont – talk from their personal experiences and viewpoints to look at electricity, heating and transportation, and to cover the spectrum from efficiency to renewables, from policy to on-the-ground implementation.

Why is it so hard to change behavior around climate change? Join us for a stimulating discussion of an energy-use feedback method that is motivating people of all ages to conserve resources through meaningful, playful and compelling technology. Lorie and her students will present the GreenLite/TellEmotion system, created at Dartmouth and used across the country in schools, businesses and homes. Workshop participants will learn about the science behind behavior change, view live data, and participate in a discussion about ways other groups can utilize the insights from this system and behavioral economics to help change attitudes around climate change.

In this Sixth Age of Extinctions, the life support systems that have allowed humans to thrive are eroding. Paul Stamets, the world's leading visionary "myco-technologist," shows how fungi and mushrooms can help restore ecosystems, degraded landscapes and human health — fast. Like people, habitats have immune systems, and our close evolutionary relationship to fungi provides the basis for novel environmental deployments of key mushroom species that can lead to greater sustainability and better health.

What if Nature had rights? Inspired by local work in the U.S., in 2008 Ecuador became the first country to recognize Rights of Nature in its national constitution. In 2010, the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature formed, calling for the universal acceptance of Nature as a subject with rights to "exist, flourish and evolve." As President of Ecuador's National Coordinating Entity for Environmental NGOs, Natalia Greene has been a key figure in the recognition of Rights for Nature. She surveys the transformational global movement for Earth Jurisprudence.

Visionary media innovators Josh Fouts and Rita King call this time "The Imagination Age." From sudden revolutions in the Middle East to "unimaginable" natural and human-made technological and economic disasters, our world is in a state of radical transformation and readjustment. At the same time, powerful new media are emerging that could presage a hopeful new global culture and economy. Josh and Rita illuminate how extraordinary new tools — virtual worlds, games and the worldwide web — can leverage global cultural empowerment and educational reform, amplified by creativity, collaboration, art and music.

As Director of National Programs at Boston's famed The Food Project, Anim Steel has been building a strong nationwide youth movement for just food systems. Since 2003 he has provided leadership for over 700 young people and forged a network of 5,000+ young activists and farmers. He highlights the Real Food Challenge, a campaign he co-founded to re-direct $1 billion of college food purchases away from industrial agriculture towards local, fair, sustainable and humane sources.

Living legend Amory Lovins, Chairman and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, offers us a new roadmap to how the U.S. can get completely off oil and coal by 2050, led by business for profit, sped by smart policies, and driven by informed customers. As the planet's most important thinker about energy efficiency and energy's links to resources, security, development and the environment, he's a consultant to businesses and governments around the globe, has penned 31 books and won too many prizes to count. Now he and RMI are speeding the transformation, in short, Reinventing Fire™…

Fueled by the determination for a better future, grassroots women in Nigeria's Niger Delta use the threat of stripping naked in public, a cultural taboo, in their deadly struggle to hold the oil companies accountable to the communities in which they work.Through the leadership of the courageous, charismatic and inexhaustible Emem J. Okon, these brave women peacefully transform their "naked power" into a very 21st century political action and mobilization.

Director Taggart Siegel (The Real Dirt About Farmer John) examines the dire global bee crisis through the eyes of biodynamic beekeepers, scientists, farmers, and philosophers. On a pilgrimage around the world, the film unveils 10,000 years of beekeeping, highlighting  how our historic and sacred relationships with bees has been lost owing to hightly mechanized industrial practices.  Featuring Michael Pollen, Vandana Shiva, Gunther Hauk, and beekeepers from around the workd, this engaging, alarming, and ultimately uplifting film reveals a dramatic story about the problems and solutions in renewing a culture to be in balance with nature.

Join us for a conversation with Beth Sawin of Climate Interactives, Ben Falk, Whole Systems Design, and Bill McKibben via Skype. We'll talk about what lessons people took from Hurricane Irene, explore visions for a more resilient Vermont, and close by distilling the evenings discussion into simple short term action steps participants are inspired to take.

BePeace is a practice that combines a scientifically tested method for "feeling peace" with a clear path for "speaking peace" that creates an authentic, compassionate connection. As participants learn this practice, they are empowered to pass it on, to "teach peace". BePeace provides basic knowledge of our capacity as human beings to function effectively in the world, especially in times of great transformation with the social and ecological shifts underway. This workshop will provide an introduction to the BePeace practices.

Today's students will be tomorrow's decision-makers and leaders. How can formal and non-formal education play a role in educating children for this new world? We will discuss exciting case studies from around Vermont and the country.  We'll explore teaching strategies that include place-based and service learning as well as how educators use the environment and sustainability as contexts for teaching all subjects.

Economic systems continually evolve in the face of new challenges, or else collapse. How do we design a restorative economy that repairs damaged ecosystems, justly distributes the planet's resources within and between generations, and improves quality of life? This workshop focuses on three key leverage points: changing our understanding of what is biophysically possible on a finite planet; reassessing what is socially, psychologically and ethically desirable; and designing new economic institutions. We will pay particular attention to the proposed Vermont Common Assets Trust (Vermont House Bill 385), which would make resources created by nature or by society as a whole the common property of all Vermonters, present and future.

Building on the knowledge and experience of Vermonters involved in the local, organic and sustainable food movement, we will discuss how to continue to engage our communities in the evolution of our food system. Join us for a look at how our thinking, organizing and hands-in-the-dirt projects to engage our communities in food system change have evolved, along with other regional, national and international perspectives and projects that support food sovereignty and security for all.

"We're trying to deal with a whole array of integrated problems –climate change, energy, biodiversity loss, poverty alleviation, and the need to grow enough food to feed the planet – separately. The poverty fighters resent the climate-change folks; climate change folks hold summits without reference to biodiversity; the food advocates resist the biodiversity protectors." -- New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman

Join Center for Whole Communities for an experiential workshop that will explore how our differences (cultural, socio-economic, racial, ideological, institutional) have created historical divides in our movements for change and how valuing and engaging a diversity of experiences and perspective is critical to developing resilient and successful movements for change.

Dynamic indigenous eco-cultural revitalization movements provide compelling leadership models by Native peoples working to maintain and restore their Traditional Ecological Knowledge. TEK, the art and science of resilience for the sustainability of future generations, is critically needed as a partner to Western science to restore the world's ecosystems and biological and cultural diversity, including native foods and languages. Professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State, Melissa Nelson is President of the Cultural Conservancy, a Native American nonprofit dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of indigenous cultures and their ancestral lands. She illuminates how the "re-indigenization" movement is inspiring a commitment to reciprocal relationships with place as well as collaborative partnerships among peoples and landscapes.

Envision what our world would and could look like if we actually started reading and following the directions contained in "Life's Operating Manual." Co-founder with Janine Benyus of the Biomimicry Guild and Biomimicry Institute, Dayna Baumeister provides an eagle's-eye view of biomimicry breakthroughs using ecological design and nature-inspired technologies that emulate nature's profound design sophistication. She has worked in the field of biomimicry with Janine Benyus since 1998 and designed and teaches the world's first Biomimicry Professional Certification Program.

India's first "Women's Parliament" brought together over 500 democratically-elected women leaders from every part of the country. What began as a "shadow" Parliament addressing the under-representation of women in government is an inspiring innovation and success story. Pam Rajput, among India's most eminent leaders in the struggle for women's rights, is an academic turned internationally renowned activist engaged in the women's movement in India and internationally. She helped organize and lead the Women's Parliament as its first Speaker, and shares her vision of how the empowerment of women globally will transform the world.

Our lives are guided by stories from childhood to ever-growing maturity. Mary Evelyn Tucker, Yale professor and founder of the Forum on Religion and Ecology, weaves our personal and diverse cultural and cosmological narratives together for the sake of creating a just and sustainable future for all life. She explores cosmic evolution as a profoundly wondrous process based on creativity, connection and interdependence. Her new book and film with cosmologist Briane Swimme, Journey of the Universe, tell the epic story of the universe from an inspired new perspective, weaving the findings of modern science with enduring wisdom in the traditions of the West, China, India and indigenous peoples.

Philippe Cousteau explores his iconic family legacy and its contributions to global oceanic exploration and conservation, and describes how that experience inspired him growing up. Explorer, social entrepreneur and environmental advocate, he is continuing the work of his father through EarthEcho International to engage and empower people to take action for a brighter future with education, balanced advocacy and a commitment to action. A special correspondent for CNN International, he is also Chief Spokesperson for Environmental Education for Discovery Education, the #1 provider of K–12 broadband delivered educational content to U.S. schools. He was appointed founder and co-chair of the Gulf Action Network for the Clinton Global Initiative. He will reveal not only the discoveries but also the challenges in a rapidly changing world, and why oceans and water are the most important systems on the planet. Using video clips from his father's films and some of his own TV work, he'll explore ways all of us can share in the adventure of building a sustainable future.