FRIDAY OCT 14TH PLENARIES
- John D. Liu helped open the CBS News Beijing News Bureau as producer-cameraman during the early normalization of relations between the United States and China. Since the mid-1990s Mr. Liu has concentrated on producing, writing, directing and presenting environmental films broadcast on BBC, National Geographic and other networks. His award winning film “Hope in a Changing Climate” has led to public speaking engagements on 6 continents. Liu now studies and documents restoration worldwide. http://eempc.org
- Karen Brown, Creative Director of the Center for Ecoliteracy, is an award-winning designer who has lectured throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan on the human and environmental consequences of design. Her design has shaped the online and print publications of the Center for Ecoliteracy, including its Rethinking School Lunch Guide, Big Ideas, and educators’ guides to the films Food, Inc., Nourish, and Connected. Her work has been featured at the Smithsonian and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, as well as in many publications, including The New York Times and Architectural Digest. http://ecoliteracy.org
- Roxanne Brown is the Assistant Legislative Director for the United Steelworkers (USW) and serves on the Steering Committee of the Blue Green Alliance, an alliance of the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club. She covers a range of issues including climate change, environment and labor law reform in her lobbying and advocacy work.
- Rebecca Moore, a computer scientist and longtime software professional, 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. http://earth.google.com/outreach
- Gloria Steinem, world-renowned writer, lecturer, editor, and feminist activist, co-founded New York magazine in 1968 and Ms. Magazine in 1972, for which she continues to serve as a consulting editor. She has produced a documentary on child abuse, a feature film about the death penalty and been the subject of countless profiles. Her books include the bestsellers Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, Moving Beyond Words, and Marilyn: Norma Jean, and she helped edit The Reader’s Companion to U.S. Women’s History. Ms. Steinem has helped found many important groups, including: the Women’s Action Alliance, the National Women’s Political Caucus, Voters for Choice, Choice USA, the Ms. Foundation for Women, Take Our Daughters to Work Day, the Beyond Racism Initiative, and the Women’s Media Center. http://www.gloriasteinem.com
SATURDAY OCT 15TH PLENARIES
- Louie Schwartzberg is an award-winning cinematographer and director whose career spans more than three decades. In 1997, he founded BlackLight Films, a production company specializing in theatrical and IMAX films, HD and TV programming. Currently, he is in production on a nature documentary, Naked Beauty, which will be released worldwide under Walt Disney Pictures’ new production banner, Disneynature. Louie is a member of the DGA and Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
- Paul Stamets has written six seminal mushroom-related books, the most recent being Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World. Growing Gourmet & Medicinal Mushrooms and The Mushroom Cultivator are used as textbooks around the world by the specialty and medicinal mushroom industries. Paul started a medicinal and gourmet mushroom business, Fungi Perfecti, LLC, in 1980. He has received numerous environmental awards, including from Bioneers and the National Geographic, as well as Adventure’s Magazine’s Green-O-vator and the Argosy Foundation’s E-chievement awards. In 2010, Paul received the President’s Award from the Society of Ecological Restoration. http://www.fungi.com
- Natalia Green, born in Ecuador, coordinates the program on “Political Plurinationality and the Rights of Nature” at the Fundación Pachamama in Ecuador and is the President of CEDENMA, Ecuador’s national coordinating entity for environmental NGOs. A graduate in political science from Hampshire College, she holds a master’s degree from FLACSO Ecuador and a special degree from Andina University on climate change. She was a key figure in the effort to include the recognition of rights for nature in Ecuador’s constitution and has worked on the environmental and indigenous rights aspects of the Yasuní-ITT Initiative to keep oil underground in the Amazon.
- Josh Fouts, a writer, journalist, gamer and technologist, is a Senior Fellow for Digital Media and Public Policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress, a Next Generation Fellow at The American Assembly, and Executive Producer at Dancing Ink Productions. Fouts has an extensive career on the cutting-edge of journalism, online media, games, culture and foreign policy and a history exploring the impact of new technology tools for media years before they are adopted by the mainstream. In 2005 he was the first person to propose and direct a project illuminating how virtual worlds could be used for cultural relations.
- Rita King is the Founding Director of Dancing Ink Productions, a company that works with major clients focused on the emergence of a new global culture and economy in the Imagination Age. King is Innovator-in-Residence at IBM’s Analytics Virtual Center, a former Senior Fellow at The Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York City and a current Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress in Washington DC. Her essays, various writings and works of art have been commissioned, published and exhibited globally.
- Anim Steel is the Director of National Programs at The Food Project in Boston, MA, founded twenty years ago to create personal and social change through sustainable agriculture. It currently employs over 100 Boston-area teenagers from diverse backgrounds who annually grow, sell, and donate over 250,000 pounds of organic produce. Nationally, the Food Project is helping to build a strong youth movement for just and sustainable food systems. Since 2003, Anim has provided leadership training for over 700 young people and forged a network of 5,000+ young activists and farmers. In 2008, he co-founded the Real Food Challenge, a campaign to re-direct $1 billion of college food purchases away from industrial agriculture towards local, fair, sustainable, and humane sources. Born in Ghana and growing up in West Africa and Washington, DC, Anim holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School and a B.A. in Astrophysics and History from Williams College. http://thefoodproject.org
- Amory Lovins, a physicist and consultant to businesses and government leaders, is Chairman and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). He’s written 31 books and received the Blue Planet, Volvo, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, Zayed Future Energy, and Mitchell Prizes, MacArthur and Ashoka Fellowships, 11 honorary doctorates, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Right Livelihood, National Design, and World Technology Awards. Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and Foreign Policy, one of the 100 top global thinkers. His most recent book (in collaboration with a large RMI team) is Reinventing Fire. http://www.rmi.org
SUNDAY OCT 16TH PLENARIES
- Melissa Nelson, Ph.D. (Anishinaabe/Métis/Norwegian [Turtle Mountain Chippewa]), a cultural ecologist, scholar-activist, writer and media-maker, is a Professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State and the President of the Cultural Conservancy, a Native American nonprofit dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of indigenous cultures and their ancestral lands. She is the editor of the Bioneers anthology, Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings For A Sustainable Future and producer of the award-winning documentary film, The Salt Song Trail. She is the co-founder/co-producer of the Indigenous Forum at Bioneers and co-founder of the new Bioneers Indigeneity Program as well as serving on Bioneers board. http://www.earthdiver.org
- Dayna Baumeister has worked in the field of biomimicry with Janine Benyus since 1998 as a business catalyst, educator, researcher, and design consultant. Together they founded the Biomimicry Guild, The Biomimicry Institute, and Biomimicry3.8, collectively fertilizing the movement of biomimicry as an innovative practice and philosophy to meet the world’s sustainability challenges. Dayna also designed and teaches the world’s first Biomimicry Professional Certification Program and compiled over a decade of experience into the Biomimicry Resource Handbook: A Seed Bank of Knowledge and Best Practices (2011). http://biomimicry.net
- Pam Rajput is an Indian academic turned internationally renowned activist who has been engaged in the women’s movement since the mid-70s both in India and internationally. She helped organize and was the first Speaker of a “Women’s Parliament” that brought together over 500 women leaders from every part of India. A recipient of many academic fellowships, she is a member of several expert committees and bodies in India including the nation’s: Planning Commission, Ministry of Women & Child Development, National Commission for Women, delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, and many others. She is also the founder and Director of the Centre for Women’s Studies & Development and the Head of the Department of Political Science at Panjab University.
- Mary Evelyn Tucker teaches world religions and ecology at Yale University. She helped establish this new field by organizing ten conferences at Harvard and editing ten volumes exploring views of nature in the world’s religions. She founded the Forum on Religion and Ecology that has an outreach to 12,000 people worldwide. She is a member of the Earth Charter International Council. She has edited Thomas Berry’s books and with Brian Thomas Swimme she helped create the Journey of the Universe book and film. She is the author of Worldly Wonder and The Philosophy of Qi. http://emergingearthcommunity.org
- Phillipe Cousteau, 31-year-old son of Jan and Philippe Cousteau Sr. and grandson of the legendary Jacques-Yves Cousteau, continues his family’s legacy as CEO of EarthEcho International, a non-profit he founded with his sister and mother. Philippe is also: co-founder of Azure Worldwide, a strategic environmental design, development and marketing company; Chief Ocean Correspondent for Discovery’s Animal Planet; a special correspondent for CNN International hosting a series of environmentally themed specials; co-host with his sister Alexandra of Planet Green’s annual Blue August initiative; Chief Spokesperson for Environmental Education for Discovery Education; and the co-author of Going Blue, A Teen Guide to Saving Our Oceans, Lakes, Rivers, & Wetlands. Philippe also serves on many boards, including those of The Ocean Conservancy, Marine Conservation Biology Institute, and the National Environmental Education Foundation, as well as on the advisory boards of Planet Green and the National Council of the World Wildlife Fund. http://earthecho.org, http://azureworldwide.com
