The 19th Annual Bioneers Conference expects to draw another sell-out crowd of more than 3,000 to its primary California site Oct. 17-19.
Another 10,000 are likely to attend 18 satellite gatherings from Alaska to Massachusetts, where its morning sessions will be beamed to communities that add unique local afternoon sessions and networking opportunities. The main event happens less than an hour from SSU in San Rafael at the Marin Civic Center.
Bioneers is a term developed nearly two decades ago by conference co-producer Kenny Ausubel to describe biological pioneers; it has since expanded to cover a wide range of visionary social and scientific innovators. "Revolution from the Heart of Nature" is how Bioneers describes itself. It presents what is portrayed as "an oasis of hope" that is solution oriented.
The gathering offers over 100 sessions with more than 150 speakers and 100 exhibiters on a pleasant, sprawling campus around a pond. Fees are as low as $60 a day for students, though this rate is already sold out and the exhibit hall is free. Networking opportunities abound and people come from all over the U.S. and beyond to the San Rafael site.
A special Youth Program will occur again this year on "Education for Action, Connection for Power, Inspiration for Change." Tree-sitter Julia Butterfly-Hill stimulated the Youth Program when she attended in 2000. Since then Bioneers chapters have sprung up on various college campuses.
This year's satellite locations are hosted by California State University-Stanislaus, the Environmental Center at Colorado University, Utah State University and the Environmental Center at Westminster College in Salt Lake City.
To students Bioneers offers scholarships, a full-day orientation before the gathering begins, a youth space, extensive young adult programs and a Saturday night dance. Its goals include "influencing politicians" and voicing youth "thoughts and actions through art, music, spoken word and dance." More information at www.youth.bioneer.org.
SSU Professor of Psychology Mary Gomes, an ecopsychology pioneer, will be one of this year's presenters. The mother of a young child, she will moderate a panel on "Children and Nature." It poses the following question, "In a technologically mediated world plagued by 'nature deficit disorder,' how do we nurture the connection kids have with the natural world?" Among the innovations in this year's schedule are more sessions on children. Professor Gomes in the past has taken some of her psychology students to the annual gathering.
"Democratic Education and the Ecological Citizen" entitles another panel. Faculty and students from Lesley University's Audubon Expedition Institute, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will lead it. They advocate "educational experiences that promote community consciousness, social justice, and ecological citizenship" and will present "ecologically designed curricula." The Center for Ecoliterarcy will present a pre-conference all-day intensive on "Eco Schools: Educating for Sustainable Communities."
One of this year's panels is titled "Education IS Empowerment! Youth Empowering Youth to Stop Climate Change." It is hosted by 13-year-old Alec Loorz, founder of Kids vs. Global Warming.
Many prominent Sonoma County environmentalists will present this year. Among them are the following: Peak Oil author/educator Richard Heinberg; Dominican College's Green MBA director John Stayton; biologist Brock Dolman, a water wizard who opened this year's SSU Sustainability Series; Michael Dimock of Roots of Change Fund and former chairman of Slow Food USA; Doug Gosling, head gardener/botanist since l982 at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center; and Ralph Metzner, former Harvard professor and advocate of "green psychology."
"We stand at the threshold of a singular opportunity in the human experiment: to re-imagine how to live on Earth," starts the Bioneers' vision statement. "There appears to be a worldwide awakening" it asserts, focusing on "viable solutions." The vision statement concludes with a quotation from David Orr, "Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up." Professor Orr teaches Environmental Studies at Oberlin College in Ohio.
Bill McKibben has been a frequent presenter at Bioneers. He authored the seminal The End of Nature in l989 and was quoted in the 2006 New York Times article on Bioneers as follows: "The issues they were raising a decade ago, from local food to rooftop power, have moved into the mainstream. The Bioneers has been consistently ahead of the curve.
It is a hatchery for the next wave of important ideas." McKibben will host a panel this year on "Changing the Political Climate: Large-Scale Climate Initiatives." He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont.
The award-winning Van Jones of San Francisco has also been a frequent presenter. Last year he gave one of the keynotes, talking about "Toward a Green Growth Alliance: Birthing a New Politics." This year members of his new group Green for All will present on that idea, described as "The Vision and Practical Progress of Green-Collar Jobs." It will be hosted by the co-founder of the California Student Sustainablity Coalition in Los Angeles, Nikki Henderson. Jones himself is on a national tour promoting his new book "Green for All" and has been mentioned as a likely member of the new administration, if voters elect Senator Barack Obama.
As the director of Yale University's Center for Green Chemistry and a presenter in 2007, Prof. Paul Anastas, notes, "It may be impossible to come to Bioneers and not be inspired." More information at www.bioneers.org.
Shepherd Bliss, sbliss@hawaii.edu, is currently an adjunct lecturer in psychology at SSU, teaches an FYE section, and farms in Sebastopol. His writing on agropsychology and agrotherapy-farms as healing places-is scheduled for various forthcoming books.
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