Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature

A living building is like a flower, planted and rooted to its place. It collects its energy from the sun. It harvests its water from the rain. This building does not pollute. It engages actively with the environmental around it. And its beautiful and inspiring. This is natures blueprint for building a better world, says visionary architect Jason McLennan. He designed the Living Building Challenge 2.0 to raise the bar on green building: meet or exceed what nature provides. While the standards seem impossibly high, it may be simpler than we imagined.

How do we transform a vicious circle into a virtuous circle? How do we move from environmental degradation and the deterioration of human relations to restoration? From war to peace - from hatred to compassion - from isolation to community? How can one person make a crucial difference? Painter and professor Lily Yehs approach to community healing takes that which is broken and creates something whole and wholly new and beautiful through public art. From Philadelphia to Rwanda, broken places are her canvases. Peoples stories are the pigments. Peoples talents and creativity are the tools. At the heart of her work is the transformation of human heart.

Climate change. Energy crisis. Economic collapse. We live in a time of unprecedented global crisisand opportunity. Theres a monumental amount of work to be done to make the transition to a restored world, yet young people are unemployed at astonishingly high rates. How can we unlock the green economic opportunities that will open the door to doing well by doing good for generation green and generations to come?Join Apollo Alliance president Jerome Ringo and clean energy leader Billy Parish for a hopeful glimpse into the organizations and programs that will give our children the opportunity to make a living and make a better world.

When a culture is disintegrating and the stories everybody believed in no longer fit, its time to rekindle our connection to ancient wisdom and universal truths. Mythologist, author and storyteller Michael Meade, founder of the Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, reminds us that the word apocalypse - which has come to mean the end of the world, actually means an unveiling. Once we penetrate that veil, its not the end - but the beginning of a new story the a new beginning to the old story.

We live in a society dependent on toxic chemicals. Today about 287 such chemicals trespass inside the blood of newborns and inside all of us - without our consent. Despite the odds, ecologist, author and mother Sandra Steingraber is an optimist. Shes betting that the burgeoning global environmental human rights movement will free us from our deadly dependency. She believes our grandchildren will look back on us and marvel that our economy was once dependent on toxic chemicals - and they will think of it as unthinkable.

Ethan Nadelmann, founder/director of the Drug Policy Alliance, the nation’s leading drug policy reform organization, traces the hidden history of drugs laws, which are intimately connected with racism and the political exploitation of people’s fears. He offers a set of practical and effective policy reforms that are now being advocated by a rising tide of former drug warriors.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have long been held as the inalienable rights of the American people. Then why is it that corporate personhood consistently overrides the legal rights of citizens? And what about the rights of nature?Do rivers, mountains, whales or ecosystems - have inalienable rights that guarantee their interests? Join innovative environmental attorneys Thomas Linzey and Mari Margil for breakthroughs on the ground that are redefining democracy. In the 21st century, is it time to move from a Declaration of Independence to a Declaration of Interdependence?