Bioneers
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A Bioneers recommendation:
- Bioneers Learning / Spring of 2024, as the annual conference concludes and planting begins anew...
Common Ground, the Documentary Film
Thinking back to beginnings as the Bioneers continues keeping on... 30+ years in the fields.
Remembering Kenny Ausubel's writing of the seeds, roots, the living treature... beginnings of the Bioneers @work...
A "Passionate Story of the Growing Movement to Restore Biodiversity and Revolutionize the Way We Think About Food"
-- SJS / GreenPolicy360
By Kenny Ausubel / 1994
A tip of our GreenPolicy360 hat to all the Bioneers over the years who are doing and sharing the good work...
Take a quick look at an upcoming 'Regenerative Ag' course, as part of the extended Bioneers programs --
Regenerative Agriculture
- Nourishing the Soil, Healing the Planet
Bioneers Conference
35th Annual
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GreenPolicy360 / Green Networking
Yes, We Are Protecting a Living Earth
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Bioneers Begins Publishing "Earthlings"
(From the 2023 Introduction) Many Indigenous cultures have understood, from time immemorial, the essential wisdom of nature. These cultures prioritized learning from the species surrounding them, treating the land and sea with respect, and thriving as a result.
Bioneers is pleased to present Earthlings, a biweekly newsletter exploring the extraordinary intelligence of life inherent in animals, plants, and fungi. In each issue, we delve into captivating stories and research that promise to reshape your perception of your fellow Earthlings – and point toward a profound shift in how we all might inhabit this planet together.
The last several decades have unleashed a nascent renaissance in our understanding of the complexity and intelligence of the biosphere.
Dear Bioneer:
Welcome to Earthlings, a brand new biweekly newsletter from Bioneers. Today, we're proud to send our entire community the first installment of a project we know will excite and inspire so many of you.
GreenPolicy360 Says Onward --- 'Go Bioneers, Go'
* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Living_Earth.png
The Bioneers
- Revolution from the Heart of Nature
- The Bioneers 34th annual gathering
The big wheels of massive change are turning. Climate disruption bears down daily, and there’s a widely felt morning-after awakening that it’s going to crash the economy and bring civilization to its knees. Although the regime shift to renewables is now an accelerating inevitability, it’s going to take relentless political action. To beat the clock, we also need to override the doom loop of delay and propaganda the desperate fossil fuel industry will keep pushing.
Join In:
Bioneers Pulse:
Updates from the Bioneers community
As scientists continue to deepen their studies of the natural world, the prevailing anthropocentric worldview, which sees non-human animals as less-than-intelligent, unable to possess “culture” or meet various requirements used to designate humans as superior, is beginning to crumble. A rapidly expanding collection of researchers around the world are unearthing the intricate intelligence and relationships that characterize the life of many other-than-human species. A number of animals have long been recognized for their adaptability, communication and social structures, but ongoing research is unveiling even deeper layers of complexity, proving that we’ve only scratched the surface of how animals perceive the world and relate to one another.
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Bioneers on Rights of Nature
March 17, 2023
GreenPolicy360: We agree with today's Opinion from the Bioneers
From Florida to Washington State to Cape Cod to Ecuador, New Zealand, India, England and beyond, the movement around Rights of Nature is burgeoning around the planet. If you’re a long-time reader of this newsletter, you’re likely at least familiar with the concept, but for many, even those well-steeped in environmental activism, this revolutionary approach arguing that nature should have legal standing turns the page on traditional notions of environmental law....
Rights of Nature at Bioneers 2023
Learn more about Rights of Nature at Bioneers 2023 with a film screening and a panel session.
“Does Nature Have Rights?” is a short film that shows frontline Ecuadorian conservationists invoking the “Rights of Nature” clause in their nation’s constitution to work to save areas of immense biodiversity.
In the “International Perspectives on Rights of Nature in Tribal Law” panel, we’ll hear from Indigenous leaders whose tribes have adopted Rights of Nature frameworks to protect sacred territories. They will share practical strategies for organizing and implementing Rights of Nature campaigns within international legal frameworks. Join us to learn more about the movement, and how you can be a part of it.
Read more about 'Rights of Nature' and Living Earth @GreenPolicy360
More about the Bioneers
Via Wikipedia
Conference presenters have included Michael Pollan, Andrew Weil, Gloria Steinem, Jane Goodall, Philippe Cousteau, Eve Ensler, Bill McKibben, Paul Hawken, John Orr and more. Plenary (Keynote) sessions from the national conference are also webcast to Beaming Bioneers satellite conferences held simultaneously in various locations throughout the United States and Canada.
Origin of name
Bioneer (root: "biological pioneer") is a neologism coined by founder Kenny Ausubel.[14] It describes individuals and groups working in diverse disciplines who have crafted creative solutions to various environmental and socio-cultural problems rooted in shared core values, including whole systems, (anticipatory) thinking, a view of all life as interdependent, and sustainable mutual aid.[15]
Annual conference
The first National Bioneers Conference, organized by Co-Founders Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simons, took place in 1990. For many years the conference took place annually in the fall in San Rafael, California. In 2023, the Bioneers conference will move to Berkeley, California and be held from April 6-8, 2023.
The national conference brings together a wide array of scientific and social innovators.[17][18][19] Conference speakers come from interdisciplinary fields: environmental and socio-political activism; "green" biology, chemistry, design, architecture and urban planning; organic and "beyond organic" farming and gardening; indigenous perspectives; biodiversity, bioremediation, and wildland preservation; alternative energy; engaged spirituality, literature and the arts; holistic and "ecological" medicine; ethnobotany; socially responsible entrepreneurship, business and philanthropy; the environmental justice, women's and youth movements; independent media; etc.
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See the Big Picture, It's All Connected
- SJS / GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: As interconnected Planet Citizens our challenge is to improve our Quality of Life and Secure our Common Future...
- Now is time to go beyond old ways of thinking and shape new visions of our communities and our living home -- Planet Earth
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Moving on to a fourth decade of Bioneers transformational ideas & activism
Bioneers 2022 at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, CA, May 13-15
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.
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November 11-13, 2021
The Annual Bioneers Conference
- Thirty+ Years of Bioneer Gatherings: Join In, Become a Change Maker
* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Soil_Underground_Life_-1.jpg
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SJS/GreenPolicy360 Siterunner:
A salute to our friend and fellow Bioneer, Rebecca Moore, who first proposed Google Earth Outreach and has led many follow on initiatives, now including Timelapse, utilizing the Landsat database and its decades of images to bring us an unprecedented vision of earth's changes over time.
Timelapse from Google Earth
Rebecca Moore, Director, Google Earth, Earth Engine & Outreach:
To explore Timelapse in Google Earth, go to g.co/Timelapse — choose any place on the planet where you want to see time in motion.
Launch Date: April 15, 2021
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Bioneers 2020 Conference Postponed, for Health & Safety, Until 2021
Now in its 3rd Decade, the Bioneers Annual Gathering Is Changed this Year as Result of COVID-19
For so many of us, the gathering is the most inspiring, soul-nourishing and catalytic moment in our yearly cycle, and we most certainly aim to be back in 2021 for a powerful reunion. And the work does not stop in between, to say the least.
Read about the 2020 Virtual Conference Announcement here
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File:Bioneers in Solidarity w the Movement For Black Lives.pdf
Bioneers in Solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives
As Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) share their lived experiences of oppression and discrimination — as well as their wisdom for moving forward to dismantle the systems that perpetuate it — the value of listening to these voices right now cannot be overstated. Here are a few of so many inspiring BIPOC organizers and leaders that you should be paying attention to.
- • Patrisse Cullors, best known for being a co-founding partner of the Black Lives Matter movement, also wrote the New York Times best-selling book, “When They Call You a Terrorist.”
- • Kimberlé Crenshaw is the executive director of the African American Policy forum and the host of their podcast, Intersectionality Matters!
- • The Audre Lorde Project is a community organizing center for LGBT and gender non-conforming people of color.
- • Code Switch is an NPR podcast hosted by a multi-racial, multi-generational team of journalists. Their episodes span overlapping themes of race, ethnicity and culture, how they play out in our lives and communities, and how all of this is shifting.
- • PolicyLink is a national research and action institute advancing racial and economic equity by Lifting Up What Works®.
- • Dr. Rupa Marya is a doctor, professor and leading activist whose work connects medicine with social justice.
- • The Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, directed by professor john a. powell, advances research, policy, & communications in order to realize a world where all belong.
- • Anti-Racist Research Policy Center convenes varied specialists to figure out novel and practical ways to understand, explain, and solve seemingly intractable problems of racial inequity and injustice.
- • The Southern Poverty Law Center, founded in 1971, combats hate, intolerance, and discrimination through education and litigation.
- • Repairers of the Breach is a nonprofit organization that seeks to build a moral agenda rooted in a framework that uplifts our deepest moral and constitutional values to redeem the heart and soul of our country.
- • Color of Change is an online racial justice organization that designs campaigns powerful enough to end practices that unfairly hold Black people back, & champion solutions that move us all forward.
- • Dream Corps closes prison doors and opens doors of opportunity. This nonprofit organization brings people together across racial, social, and partisan lines to create a future with freedom and dignity for all.
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Pathways Forward with a Diverse Global Bioneers Community
The Bioneers' award-winning audio series -- Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature -- has reached millions of listeners. As of 2019 it is currently distributed to 165 stations, including 18 of the top radio markets in the U.S. The Bioneers' podcast passed 500,000 downloads in 2019.
Millions of people regularly watch Bioneers-produced videos — full talks from brilliant speakers and edited shorts — with a 400% increase in views in 2019.
Take a look at the Bioneers' 30th Anniversary Video Series, Seeding the Field. Follow the Bioneers for the latest eco-solutions and green stories of environmental action in motion.
The Bioneers global network, a community of communities is working everyday to bring transformative change to the world.
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At the Bioneers 2019 Conference -- 30 Years On and Going Strong
Everyday a Vision of Possibilities and Change
Growing Transformative Solutions
- https://bioneers.org
- https://bioneers.org/about/history
- https://conference.bioneers.org
- https://bioneers.org/the-green-new-deal
Day 2 of the 30th global Bioneers gathering
Activists, organizers, coalition builders step up, join in
Kenny Ausubel & Nina Simons, co-founders of the Bioneers. Welcoming all to the 30th annual conference
GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: San Francisco-Marin, the beautiful site of the Bioneers' annual global conference
2019 / The Thirtieth Get-Together
For three+ decades, with persistence and resilience we keep on keeping on ... https://conference.bioneers.org
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Bioneers, Planet Citizens, Out in Front
Global Climate Strike
Years of Forward-looking Green New Deal Ideas from the Bioneers
We first began advocating for a Green New Deal here at Bioneers in 1995. What may have seemed impossible is now suddenly within reach. The questions are what it’s going to look like, how fast we can make it happen – and how we will overcome the retrograde forces pushing business as usual – and they do mean business. One thing is for sure: The twin crises of climate chaos and extreme inequality will keep getting worse fast — and people will keep rising up in ever bigger numbers demanding and making change. That’s what happened in the 1930s and it’s happening again. -- Kenny Ausubel, Bioneers co-founder, October 2019
30th Annual Bioneers Conference / 1
30th Annual Bioneers Conference / 2
The Bioneers is a network of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges
A "celebration of the genius of nature and human ingenuity", the Bioneers held its 25th Annual Conference in 2014. Congratulations to the Bioneers global network, planet citizen friends of GreenPolicy360
Bioneers Explorations -- Biomimicry, Listening to Nature, Learning from Nature
With the Bioneers, GreenPolicy360 calls for eco-literacy, a path to learning, wisdom, and new vision of sustainable living.
Going green begins with a decision, a choice to become actionable, moving and multiplying, choosing to create waves, creating rippling forces of change...
Going green is to be a Bioneer, 'bioneering' planet citizens
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The Annual Bioneers Gatherings
"When I listen with my heart, I am pierced with an empathic awareness that calls me into action beyond what any amount of learning, reading or mental understanding can prompt."
- -- Nina Simons, Shifting Guidance from Head to Heart,
For over 25 years, the annual Bioneers Conference has connected thousands of people with practical, visionary solutions for pressing environmental and social challenges
Kenny Ausubel, co-founder with Nina Simons, has written many books and over the years inspired with his talks and activism ...
GreenPolicy360 highlights the Bioneers
Bioneers in 2014 celebrating their 25th Anniversary Conference
Long time friends of GreenPolicy360's siterunner, here's to all the connections, a celebration of "the genius of nature and human ingenuity."
Here's to Bioneers at work, an eco-network continuing on, keeping on, protecting, preserving, nurturing, doing 'the good work' locally and globally...
Bioneers on Social Media -- https://twitter.com/bioneers / https://www.facebook.com/Bioneers.org / http://www.bioneers.org/category/blog/
Hearty Congratulations go to Bioneers co-founders Kenny and Nina
The past 30 years of climate change ... With Bill McKibben at the Bioneers Conference
Video, Introduced by Kenny Ausubel
Ancient Wisdom, Earth Connections
Native Wisdom / Native Ecological Knowledge
'It is all connected' ...
Oren Lyons, Chief of Onondaga Iroquois Nation, speaks of the "Seventh Generation"
"We are, you are, part of the earth"
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSwmqZ272As
"We are looking ahead, as is one of the first mandates given us as chiefs, to make sure and to make every decision that we make relate to the welfare and well-being of the seventh generation to come...."
"What about the seventh generation? Where are you taking them? What will they have?"
- Chief Oren Lyons
Eco/Environmental Activists with Vision
Bioneers Dennis Kucinich, Chief Lyons & Leonardo DiCaprio
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2021 Update
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Practical Solutions for Climate Activists: CO2 Drawdown
After Years in Development / 2014-2017
Paul Hawken, one of our many Bioneers friends, introduces 'Project Drawdown' at the annual Bioneers conference.
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Project Drawdown's Climate Book Is Published †
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Paul Hawken - Project Drawdown | Bioneers (Video)
Drawdown maps, measures, models, and describes 100 substantive solutions to global warming. For each solution, we describe its history, the carbon impact it provides, the relative cost and savings, the path to adoption, and how it works. The goal of the research that informs Drawdown is to determine if we can reverse the buildup of atmospheric carbon within thirty years. All solutions modeled are already in place, well understood, analyzed based on peer-reviewed science, and are expanding around the world.
The subtitle of Drawdown — The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming — may sound brash. We chose that description because no detailed plan to reverse warming has been proposed. There have been agreements and proposals on how to slow, cap, and arrest emissions, and there are international commitments to prevent global temperature increases from exceeding two degrees centigrade over pre-industrial levels. One hundred and ninety-five nations have made extraordinary progress in coming together to acknowledge that we have a momentous civilizational crisis on our earthly doorstep and have created national plans of action. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has accomplished the most significant scientific study in the history of humankind, and continues to refine the science, expand the research, and extend our grasp of one of the most complex systems imaginable—climate. However, there is as yet no roadmap that goes beyond slowing or stopping emissions.
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Earth Outreach with Google
Rebecca Moore, one of our most active Bioneering friends, who started up Google Earth Outreach and actively continues making a positive difference doing her best to make the world safer, healthier, better...
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'Bioneering'
The Bioneers... "a network of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges".
SJS / GreenPolicy Siterunner -- My friends since the start-up in Santa Fe ... for over 25 years, the Bioneers have been fortunate to have the love of Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simons out in front as thousands of hearty souls meet and network every year for an amazing conference in the San Francisco bay area to share 'best of' ideas from eco/environmental fields worldwide.
Here is an excerpt from one of the books Kenny and I worked on together, "Seeds of Change: A Living Treasure". Remembering the Coyote Cafe of Mark Miller and a new American cuisine inspired by chefs like Alice Waters of Chez Panisse and Deborah Madison of Greens. Of course, we smile at the roasting of the hot green chile of New Mexico, my favorite among all the varieties of native seeds that have come to be in the Americas.
Protecting seed diversity, co-evolution at work, heirloom produce and food, farm-to-table, independent alternative agriculture and rich organic gardens, farmers markets, peak of season awareness of taste -- and connection of diet to health. We've been bringing a vital message to homes and kitchens, restaurants and businesses, politics and quality of life for years now. Remembering the best of the past and carrying on, keeping on...
Recalling Kenny Ausubel and your GreenPolicy360 Siterunner working on a "Little Green Book" as we looked to alternative agriculture and brought forward ideas and green practices as an alternative to the globally multiplying problems of industrial-corporatized ag.
Restorative Food Systems at the Bioneers
'Climate Smart' Agriculture, Regenerative Agriculture
Alternative agriculture, a decade's long 'Green Politics, Food & Health Project' bringing together the Bioneers & resources of GreenPolicy360
In Santa Fe, from Seeds of Change by Kenny Ausubel
At a distance of twenty yards from the Coyote Cafe in Santa Fe, you can smell the unmistakable dark, earthy aroma of roasting chiles. So far from any visible physical source, the scent rises as a smoky puzzle. One wonders whether perhaps trickster chef and restaurateur Mark Miller has alchemically released an etheric chile loop, an Akashic relleno stuffed with the eternal pleasure and nourishment of some of the most cherished foods in history, and the hottest.
"Food should be a catalyst for creating meaning in our lives," Miller says passionately, "and part of that meaning is a sense of place. Cuisine belongs in a certain place, culturally, historically, and geographically. Our food should connect us to our cultural path. We used to have a food legacy when religions were full of food prescriptions."
It comes as no surprise that Miller completed graduate anthropology work at the University of California at Berkeley in cross-cultural aesthetics before signing on as a chef with Alice Waters. During his tenure at famed Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse, he frequented the Oakland produce market, perfecting the selection of fresh and unusual varieties of vegetables and foods for the restaurant. During his gathering he became "aware that the commercial hybrids were not of the same intensity of flavor as some of the older heirloom varieties..."
From Michael Pollan, in the early years of his career as we shared our work with and 'turned on' a visionary writer to the richness of diversity --
The Seed Conspiracy
By Michael Pollan
The New York Times Magazine, March 20, 1994
GreenPolicy Siterunner: Looking back at the mid-90s and turning Michael Pollan on to the Bioneers-Seeds of Change story...
THIS IS THE SEASON OF THE garden seed, that time of pure promise when the entire contents of a quarter-acre patch of vegetables—the yield of which will burden a small truck come August—can still fit inside an envelope and be sent cross-country by Fed Ex. The seeds themselves betray no sign of the prodigies they contain, but there, in a handful, they are: this weightless, buff disk packs a complete set of instructions for the making of a two-pound beefsteak tomato; that crinkled, blond tablet is etched with the blueprint for a 10-foot-tall sweet-corn tower.
But this is not the only kind of information encoded in a garden seed. For the seeds I order are inscribed with cultural, political and economic information as well. And if I am to believe some of the more polemical seedsmen whose catalogues-cum-tracts have found their way to my mailbox this season, the decision to plant one variety and not another is freighted with moral and environmental significance. A political fight is not exactly what I came to vegetable gardening to pick, but I seem to have stumbled into one anyway.
There I was, looking for a new variety of corn to try, and I wind up reading in the catalogue from Seeds of Change—part of a growing army of seed firms fired with a sense of political mission—about the negative impact that the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), of all things, will have on the free exchange of seeds and global biodiversity...
Re: Environmental laws and global trade
Hybrid seed patents, e.g. Bayer-Monsanto corporate seed-stock and market-controlling mergers, corporate trade protectionism with agreements such GATT / NAFTA / WTO as opposed to Alternative, independent agriculture, environmental sustainability, protection of seed diversity with open-source and 'seed saving / seed sharing', local adaptation to environmental conditions, reduction of high-input petrochemical/pesticide regimes and debt accumulation, soil loss/water pollution/health impacts
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A Look Back over the Decades: The Bioneers
Climate Leadership (Bioneers Conference videos)
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"A Revolution from the Heart of Nature"
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"A Revolutionary Agenda"
- Media & changing the “Mindscape”
- Resilient communities
- Restorative food systems
- Indigenous knowledge
- Women’s leadership
- Youth leadership
- Ecological design
- Ecological medicine
- Human rights and Rights of Nature
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Relational Reality, Integral Ecology
Bioneers & Santa Fe Beginnings of the NM and US Green Party
- Going Green
Focus on Resilience
Resilience - https://www.resilience.org
Resilience Exchange - https://solutionbuilder.org/about/
Resilience Summit - AAAS (June 2014) - Resilience Summit
Resilient Communities - https://www.resilientcommunities.com/
• https://www.transitionus.org/about-us
• https://www.ResilientAmerica.org
• https://www.bioneers.org/check-bioneers-resilient-communities-network/
• https://www.bioneers.org/resilient-communities-part-2/
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Dreaming the Future: Reimagining Civilization in the Age of Nature
by Kenny Ausubel
• https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-Future-Reimagining-Civilization-Nature/dp/1603584595
- Reviews
"Without doubt, Kenny Ausubel has one of the most glorious minds on the planet. Herein he has crafted a dazzling treasury of essays on the destiny of humanity and its place on earth, a rosary of startling truths. His ability to describe the cataclysmic loss of living systems contrasted with the luminous and untold rise of human awakening is unique among living writers and speakers. Read this for its brilliance, but read it also to find joy in the intricate reimagination of what it means to be a human being at this parlous moment in civilization."
-- Paul Hawken, author/editor of Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming
"Kenny Ausubel is one of the planet's key people, a kind of hub for the new ideas that will, if we're smart, shape our future. He delivers them with the... brio and confidence that will help people overcome their fear and get to work!"
-- Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org; author of Eaarth
"Dreaming the Future proposes a path forward that is both profoundly radical and full of common sense. An excellent read for everyone who wants to build a better future-and for those looking to supplement the many dry technical tomes about today's environmental problems. Ausubel explores the political, cultural, and personal changes needed to chart a sustainable path forward, leaving readers delighted and hopeful.
-- Annie Leonard, author and host, The Story of Stuff; co-director, The Story of Stuff Project
"A brilliant new look at what it is to be human on a living planet. Kenny Ausubel has devoted his life to creating organizations that dream a new future. In this marvelous book he shares his vision in eloquent words that inspire us to take action. Read, enjoy, dream--and act!
-- John Perkins, author, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and Shapeshifting
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GreenPolicy360 Siterunner/SJS:
Memories of Joining Up with the Bioneers
Kenny Ausubel came across to me with a welcoming smile. I had moved from Los Angeles to Santa Fe and was living in an adobe place on Camino del Monte Sol across from a monastery and next to St. Johns College. Kenny talked to me about his film Hoxsey: How Healing Becomes a Crime and I talked about my screenplay "Sister Kenny". In the 1940s Sister Kenny, an Australian nurse who traveled to the US with a new, and controversial treatment for polio, came up against the the American medical establishment. Sister Elizabeth Kenny's struggle to bring healing became an epic fight and, as with the Harry Hoxsey story, brought new thinking to care and treatment. Sister Kenny's 'pioneering principles of muscle rehabilitation became the foundation of physical therapy' as is now recognized.
Kenny Ausubel was working on a new project, the start up of the Bioneers, and your GreenPolicy360 editor/siterunner was writing and working with Michael Riccards, the president of St John's to bring a new library to the famed college of Annapolis and Santa Fe. We were successful in the Great Books library and, with Kenny's invite, I moved to set up a new publishing division for the Bioneers drawing on my decade in NY publishing. The timeng was propitious.
It started in a serious way w the launch of Seeds of Change, an initial Bioneers project. The Bioneers story got a boost, an intellectual launch of new ideas we brought forward as we developed, packaged and published....
Think biodiversity, healthy food, organic seeds and agriculture, a new American cuisine, the food movement, Chez Panisse (Alice Waters), The Greens (Deborah Madison), Charlie Trotter 4 star restaurants, farmers markets,
I was asked to talk some more about beginnings with the Bioneers and Seeds of Change... here are a couple quotes from the old days. Those were the days when we were young and full of energy !
>Founder of the publishing division of Seeds of Change. Together with Kenny Ausubel, Steve was responsible for the independent organization of the Bioneers after SOC's acquisition by Mars, Inc. The Bioneers conference is considered a preeminent international gathering of environmental groups, NGOs and individuals, held annually since the early 90s. The Bioneers is a unique network and source of environmental solutions. www.bioneers.org/
>Re Steve Schmidt and Publishing
From: Kenny Ausubel
I did two major book deals with Steve Schmidt, as well as working with him in many other capacities over a period since about 1991. I continue to work close and actively with him today.
Steve served as my agent for my first book deal related to my work with Seeds of Change, the company I co-founded. I developed a proposal with him, and he was invaluable in the proposal development and refinement. He then went out to multiple publishers, and rapidly garnered very high interest that he leveraged into a pre-emptive offer from Harper Collins (1992). It was a two-book deal....
He further negotiated a groundbreaking package that included a 12-city book tour, and a large media campaign that resulted in interviews, reviews and articles from the NY Times and Wall Street Journal, to CNN, ABC and a huge volume of other press. He collaborated with the publisher and me on other innovative strategies. I do not recall the cost of the tour, but it will into six figures and was contractually obligated on top of the advance and money....
Steve built on the first deal for a subsequent two-book deal with Bantam that was at the top level of deals being done in that time, around 1994. He obtained a contract for $(XXX,XXX) for the two books, a rarity for nonfiction. The deal was successfully completed including a substantial ($XXX,XXX) marketing budget.....
I have found Steve to be not only highly effective, but also one of the smartest, most strategic and most editorially insightful people I’ve ever known. He has unwavering integrity, deep vision, and lots of street smarts.
SJS (April 2021) : Thank you Kenny. Looking back on thirty years +. What a ride it's been ;-
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