Theme: Climate
Thursday, April 6th
People over 60 were instrumental in creating social change in their youth, and their wisdom and energy are greatly needed today. Third Act is a place where those who’ve been around awhile can bring their life experience to the work of social change, while supporting the next generations in creating a world that is healthy, equitable, and whole. Longtime activist and renowned leadership educator Akaya Windwood explains the work of Third Act, co-founded by Bill McKibben, and how we can participate in this exciting new movement.
April 6th | 12:12 pm to 12:22 pm | Zellerbach Hall
Keynote
Akaya Windwood
Lead Advisor | Third Act
Akaya Windwood, founder of the New Universal Wisdom and Leadership Institute, on the faculty of the Just Economy Institute, “Lead Advisor” at the activist group Third Act, and former President of Rockwood Leadership Institute (for ten years), also directs the Thriving Roots Fund. A longtime “transformation facilitator,” Akaya has won slews of awards for her activism and visionary leadership and is the author of: Leading with Joy: Practices for Uncertain Times.
According to a recent World Wildlife Fund report, since 1970 we have lost, on average, roughly 70% of the global populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish. Scientist activists working tirelessly to reverse this catastrophic trend share their strategies. With: Dave Phillips, co-founder of the Earth Island Institute and Director of its International Marine Mammal Project; Brock Dolman, Co-Director of the WATER Institute and Permaculture Design and Wildlands programs at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, and a leader in CA beaver reintroduction; Michelle Lute, Carnivore Conservation Director for Project Coyote. Moderated by Maureen Nandini Mitra, Editor of Earth Island Journal.
April 6th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Berkeley Ballroom, Residence Inn
Panelists
Brock Dolman
OAEC's WATER Institute | Co-Director
Brock Dolman co-founded (in 1994) the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center where he co-directs the WATER Institute. A wildlife biologist and watershed ecologist, he has been actively promoting “Bringing Back Beaver in California” since the early 2000s. He was given the Salmonid Restoration Federation’s coveted Golden Pipe Award in 2012: “…for his leading role as a proponent of "working with beavers" to restore native habitat.
Michelle Lute
Carnivore Conservation Director | Project Coyote
Michelle Lute, Ph.D., a conservation scientist and advocate with 15 years’ experience in biodiversity conservation on public and private lands around the globe, is the Carnivore Conservation Director for Project Coyote overseeing the organization’s programs and campaigns across the country, helping promote human-wildlife coexistence through effective public engagement, equitable participatory processes and evidence-based decision-making. She began her career in the National Park Service, then worked for non-profits and held research positions at universities across the US, and most recently served as Wildlife Conservationist at the New Mexico State Land Office. Michelle has authored more than 30 publications in ecology and social science disciplines.
David Phillips
Director of the International Marine Mammal Project | Earth Island Institute
David Phillips, a biologist specialized in marine wildlife conservation and Director of Earth Island Institute’s International Marine Mammal Project, has also served as the Institute's Executive Director since its founding in 1982 and has played a leading role in building its network of activist projects. David has represented marine mammal conservation issues at international conventions, including the International Whaling Commission, and has testified before Congress. The U.N.’s Environment Programme granted him its Leadership Award in honor of his efforts to protect dolphins from indiscriminate fishing techniques. In 2009, he helped open the David Brower Center, a LEED Platinum-rated green building that serves as a hub for the environmental movement.
Maureen Nandini Mitra
Editor | Earth Island Journal
Maureen Nandini Mitra is the Editor of Earth Island Journal, an award-winning, environmental magazine. In addition to her work at the Journal, she occasionally writes for other international publications and co-hosts Terra Verde, an environmental issues-themed talk show on KPFA public radio in Berkeley. Her work has appeared in the San Francisco Public Press, Grist, Truthout, The Guardian, The New Internationalist, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, among others.
3:00 pm: Young Activists on the Frontlines, with Brower Youth Award Winners
Presented in collaboration with Earth Island Institute’s New Leaders Initiative
The Brower Youth Awards are among the most prestigious prizes in the U.S. for young eco-activists. In this session, three recent winners share their exemplary and inspiring work and strategies. With 2022 winners Amara Ifeji, a leader in climate education policy-making in Maine; Ilana Cohen, a leader of the successful Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard campaign and co-founder of Fossil Free Research; and 2021 winner Peter Pham, San Jose-based transit justice and climate activist at the local, regional and state levels. Moderated by: Alexia Leclercq, co-founder, Start:Empowerment.
April 6th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Crystal Ballroom, Hotel Shattuck Plaza
Panelists
Amara Ifeji
Director of Policy | Maine Environmental Education Association
Amara Ifeji, 21, an award-winning (2021 National Geographic Young Explorer and 2022 Brower Youth Award) climate justice activist, Director of Policy at the Maine Environmental Education Association, has had great success in mobilizing youth-led, grassroots movements to advance climate education legislation and ensure equitable access to outdoor learning for ALL youth in Maine.
Ilana Cohen
Lead Organizer | Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard
Ilana Cohen is a lead organizer of the Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard campaign and the international Fossil Free Research movement, which combats the fossil fuel industry’s dangerous influence on academia. She is also a 2022 Brower Youth Award winner and a climate journalist with bylines in outlets including The Nation, The New Republic, Teen Vogue, and Inside Climate News. Ilana is currently a senior and Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics Undergraduate Fellow at Harvard University, where she studies the ethics of climate change.
Peter Pham
2021 Brower Youth Award Winner
Peter Pham, an undergraduate student majoring in Public Health, engages in the youth climate movement to pass climate action at the municipal, county, and state levels. He serves on the board of a youth climate nonprofit, an environmental advocacy group and an urban forestry nonprofit, and served as a 2021 redistricting commissioner. Peter won a prestigious Brower Youth Award for his activism in 2021.
Alexia Leclercq
Co-Founder | Start:Empowerment
Alexia Leclercq, a grassroots organizer, scholar and artist, has led dozens of environmental justice campaigns from passing legislation, fighting for clean water, addressing aggregate mining pollution to international advocacy and speaking at the UN on climate negotiations. Co-founder of the Colorado River Conservancy and of Start:Empowerment (a Queer and BIPOC-led nonprofit at the nexus of climate education and environmental justice organizing), her work has been recognized by the Brower Youth Award, Jericho Activism Prize, WWF Conservation prize and more. Currently a graduate student at Harvard, her research there focuses on the use of liberatory pedagogy to advance climate justice and air quality in communities of color.
The rapid increase of extreme heat events in cities is one of the stark indicators of global warming, and the effects of these events vividly expose the grotesque injustice caused by dramatic differences in neighborhood environments. In most major cities, historically “redlined” low-income communities and communities of color typically have less than half the amount of urban forest cover that wealthier communities possess. Lack of urban canopy contributes to an array of inequities including radically disparate outcomes in public health, economic opportunity, education and life expectancy. Today a coalition of NGOs, cities, scientists and community-centered initiatives has converged to create a moment of historic change, leading to massive public investment in urban forestry at 10X the scale ever before seen. Designed as equity-centered community development focusing on jobs and local enterprise creation, this new vision of urban forests will build climatic AND community resilience. Hear from four leaders in this dynamic emergent field: Julia Hillengas, co-founder and Executive Director of Philadelphia’s PowerCorpsPHL; Samira Malone, 27, first-ever Director of the Cleveland Tree Coalition; Amos White, founder and Chief Planting Officer of 100K Trees for Humanity; and moderator Brett KenCairn, Boulder, CO’s Senior Climate and Sustainability Coordinator.
April 6th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Campanile Room, Hotel Shattuck Plaza
Panelists
Samira Malone
Director | The Cleveland Tree Coalition
Samira Malone is the Director of The Cleveland Tree Coalition, a collaborative of public, private and community stakeholders partnered with the City of Cleveland to create a healthy, vibrant, sustainable and equitable urban forest. Samira works to raise awareness of the critical need for a robust tree canopy in Cleveland and to generate financial support for the work of the Coalition. Her practice as an urban planner and environmental leader is rooted in racial and environmental restorative justice and holistic community development.
Julia Hillengas
Executive Director | PowerCorpsPHL
Julia Hillengas, co-founded (in 2013) and is Executive Director of PowerCorpsPHL, initially a City of Philadelphia workforce development initiative designed to help address youth disconnection and violence and promote urban environmental sustainability. Julia, who has extensive experience as an educator, coach, community organizer and public sector leader, currently leads PowerCorps’ strategy, partnerships, and expansion, seeking to work as a bridge-builder between young people and economic opportunities nationally.
Amos White
Founder and Chief Planting Officer | 100K Trees for Humanity
Amos White, founder and Chief Planting Officer of 100K Trees for Humanity, created 100K Trees in 2019 as a political and community action response to America's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. Since its founding, 100K Trees has formed partnerships with a number of organizations, including the Sierra Club and American Forests, and Amos was appointed to CALFIRE's Urban Forestry Advisory Committee in 2021 and to the Alameda County Agricultural Advisory Committee in 2022. He also authored the CA Urban Greenbelt Initiative to plant trees at scale for climate, for equity and for health in 433 CA communities by 2030.
Brett KenCairn
Senior Policy Advisor for Climate and Resilience | City of Boulder
Brett KenCairn, Boulder Colorado’s Senior Policy Advisor for Climate Action and leader of that town’s Natural Climate Solutions team, is the Director of the Center for Regenerative Solutions (CRS)—an initiative to expand natural climate solutions nationally that is co-sponsored by the Urban Sustainability Directors Network. He also is the founder or co-founder of four organizations including: the Rogue River Institute for Ecology and Economy, Veterans Green Jobs, and Community Energy Systems.
Indigenous peoples across the Pacific have a deep knowledge of the ocean and its ecosystems acquired from hundreds of generations of observation. Today, commercial farming, overfishing, resource extraction and global warming are destroying the ocean systems and exacerbating the climate crisis. In this panel, three leaders with intimate knowledge of the relationships between land and ocean will discuss how to restore balance to the Pacific and to the planet. Moderated by Alexis Bunten. With: Loa Niumeitolu; Kiana Frank; Andrea Kealoha.
April 6th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Goldman Theater, Brower Center
Panelists
Kiana Frank
Assistant Professor in the Pacific Biosciences Research Center | University of Hawaii, Mānoa
Kiana Frank, Assistant Professor in the Pacific Biosciences Research Center at the University of Hawaii, Mānoa, weaves contemporary Western techniques with traditional Native Hawaiian science to study how microorganisms shape the land for productivity and health. Her work evaluates overall ecosystem health and informs current monitoring, restoration, cultivation, and management practices in Hawaii. She works to inspire the younger Hawaiian generations to cultivate a connection to science through their culture.
Loa Niumeitolu
Co-Facilitator | Spirit Root Medicine People
Loa Niumeitolu, a Tongan poet, community organizer and educator with degrees in English and International Development, is a farming teacher and lead farmer at Tennyson High School Farm in Hayward, California. She trained in planting taro and other foods of Moana Nui under Tura Koronui in Atiu, Cook Islands; and worked as a land steward at both Sogorea Te Land Trust and at Gill Tract Farm on Ohlone Territory (the East Bay). Loa also co-founded the LGBTQ+ Indigenous support groups One Love Oceania (OLO) and the Oyate Tupu'anga Project, and currently co-facilitates Spirit Root Medicine People (SRMP).
Andrea Kealoha
Oceanographer | University of Hawaii Mānoa
Andrea Kealoha, Ph.D., from Pāʻia, Maui, is an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii Mānoa who specializes in climate change and human impacts to coral reef health. She is the Director of UH Maui College's water quality lab and will be starting a faculty position at UH Mānoa in Fall 2023. In addition to conducting coral reef research to support marine resource management, Andrea also works with students and the community on water quality monitoring and education to increase diversity in STEM.
Alexis Bunten
Co-Director, Indigeneity Program | Bioneers
Alexis Bunten, Ph.D., (Aleut/Yup’ik), Co-Director of Bioneers’ Indigeneity Program, has been a researcher, media-maker, manager, consultant, and curriculum developer for organizations including the Sealaska Heritage Institute, Alaska Native Heritage Center, and the FrameWorks Institute. She has published widely about Indigenous and environmental issues, and is the author of So, how long have you been Native?: Life as an Alaska Native Tour Guide.
Friday, April 7th
Before Rep. Pramila Jayapal was elected to Congress and later became the Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, she was an organizer and activist, and an enthusiastic Bioneers participant. In this personal video message to the Bioneers community, Rep. Jayapal will discuss her theory of change that she developed as an organizer and has employed as a legislator. She highlights an “inside-outside” approach to building power and enacting meaningful change and policy shifts at national, state, and local levels.
April 7th | 9:43 am to 9:57 am | Zellerbach Hall
Keynote
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
Chair | Congressional Progressive Caucus
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, now serving her third term in Congress representing Washington’s 7th District, the first South Asian American woman elected to the House, is the Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and serves on many key committees. A highly influential leader on progressive policies on: immigration, LGBTQ rights, labor issues, economic inequality, climate, clean energy, etc., Congresswoman Jayapal, prior to her election to political office, spent decades working internationally and domestically in global public health and development and as an advocate for women’s, immigrant, civil, and human rights. She is the author of two books, including, most recently: Use the Power You Have: A Brown Woman’s Guide to Politics and Political Change.
Introduction by Teo Grossman, Senior Director of Programs and Research at Bioneers
A massive influx of clean energy investments is poised to transform the American economy during this decade. Opportunities abound to take advantage of new climate incentives. If we get this right, the U.S. could be on track to reach 80% clean power by 2030, leading to deep decarbonization across other sectors including transportation, buildings and manufacturing. Nevertheless, success is far from guaranteed without widespread action from the grassroots to the canopy. What did it take to pass a historic $370 billion climate deal in Congress? How can American households and businesses take full advantage of it? What does effective, equitable implementation look like? Join award-winning author, political scientist, and climate expert Dr. Leah Stokes for a deep dive on clean energy policy and the tools we have to realize our electric future in this decade and beyond.
April 7th | 9:58 am to 10:20 am | Zellerbach Hall
Introduced by
Teo Grossman
Senior Director of Programs and Research | Bioneers
Teo Grossman, Senior Director of Programs and Research at Bioneers, previously worked on a range of projects from federal range management to state-level assessments of long-range planning to applied research on topics including climate change adaptation, ecosystem services, biodiversity, and ecological networks. A Doris Duke Conservation Fellow during graduate school, Teo holds an MS in Environmental Science & Management from UC-Santa Barbara.
Keynote
Leah Stokes
Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics | University of California, Santa Barbara
Leah Stokes, Ph.D., one of the nation’s most influential leading experts and “engaged scholars" in climate and energy policy, is the author of the award-winning book Short Circuiting Policy, which examines the role of utilities in undermining regulation and promoting climate denial. Trained at MIT, Columbia, and the University of Toronto, Stokes’ widely read and cited work has been published in top scholarly journals, as well as the New York Times, Washington Post, and other popular media outlets. She is the Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a senior policy consultant at Rewiring America, and co-host of the popular climate podcast “A Matter of Degrees.”
Climate activists have made landmark progress on fossil fuel divestment. Now we need to evolve the divestment movement to the next level by holding universities and academia broadly accountable to fully separate from Big Oil’s influence. This means getting such institutions to reject industry funding for climate research, which has distorted public knowledge and policy, while contributing to greenwashing. Ilana Cohen will explain how a burgeoning international grassroots movement of students and academics, known as Fossil Free Research, is seeking to combat the industry’s pernicious influence, and how you can get involved in the fight!
April 7th | 10:21 am to 10:30 am | Zellerbach Hall
Keynote
Ilana Cohen
Lead Organizer | Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard
Ilana Cohen is a lead organizer of the Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard campaign and the international Fossil Free Research movement, which combats the fossil fuel industry’s dangerous influence on academia. She is also a 2022 Brower Youth Award winner and a climate journalist with bylines in outlets including The Nation, The New Republic, Teen Vogue, and Inside Climate News. Ilana is currently a senior and Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics Undergraduate Fellow at Harvard University, where she studies the ethics of climate change.
Introduction by J.P. Harpignies, Bioneers Senior Producer
In our opinion, Kim Stanley Robinson is our greatest living science fiction writer. His more than 20 award-winning books over four decades, translated into some 26 languages, have included many highly influential, international bestselling tomes that brilliantly explore in a wide range of ways the great eco, economic and socio-political crises facing our species, yet nothing had prepared him for the global explosion of interest in his visionary 2020 novel, Ministry for the Future, which projects how a possible climate-disrupted future might unfold and how the world might respond meaningfully. It’s also chock full of brilliant science and wildy imaginative ways humanity steps up. Among other results, he was invited by the UN to speak at COP-26 in Glasgow. Stan will offer us his overview of where we currently stand in relation to the climate crisis.
April 7th | 11:39 am to 12:03 pm | Zellerbach Hall
Introduced by
J.P. Harpignies
Senior Producer | Bioneers
J.P. Harpignies, Bioneers Senior Producer, affiliated with Bioneers since 1990, is a Brooklyn, NYC-based consultant, conference producer, copy-editor and writer. A former Program Director at the New York Open Center and a senior review team member for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge from 2010 to 2017, he has authored or edited several books, including Political Ecosystems, Delusions of Normality, Visionary Plant Consciousness, and, most recently, Animal Encounters.
Keynote
Kim Stanley Robinson
Science Fiction Author
Kim Stanley Robinson, an American science fiction writer, is the author of about twenty books, including the internationally bestselling Mars trilogy, and more recently Red Moon, New York 2140, and The Ministry for the Future. He was part of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers’ Program in 1995 and 2016, and a featured speaker at COP-26 in Glasgow as a guest of the UK government and the UN. His work has been translated into 26 languages and won many awards including the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. In 2016 asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson.”
Amara Ifeji mobilized a grassroots effort to address racism in her high school in Maine, at age 14. She also developed a love for the mountains and woods around her, but she saw her passions for the environment and racial justice as distinct until she heard youth of color like herself share their experiences working at this intersection and realized these struggles were completely intertwined. She will share how this awakening shaped her subsequent work as a remarkably effective organizer and advocate who centers storytelling to realize environmental justice, climate education, and outdoor learning for ALL youth.
April 7th | 12:03 pm to 12:11 pm | Zellerbach Hall
Keynote
Amara Ifeji
Director of Policy | Maine Environmental Education Association
Amara Ifeji, 21, an award-winning (2021 National Geographic Young Explorer and 2022 Brower Youth Award) climate justice activist, Director of Policy at the Maine Environmental Education Association, has had great success in mobilizing youth-led, grassroots movements to advance climate education legislation and ensure equitable access to outdoor learning for ALL youth in Maine.
This panel of community leaders from Aotearoa/New Zealand will share their on-the-ground insights, from initiatives that demonstrate paradigm shifts for “rights of nature” legal protections for land and people, cultural capability and education, and convening multi-stakeholder land stewardship. Underpinning all these stories, the unique natural, cultural and legal history of Aotearoa and the Māori worldview reminds us of the value of humility, courage and connection. With: Jan Hania, Principal of Strategy Development, Biome Trust; Lara Hania, educator, storyteller; Erin Matariki Carr, Project Lead, RIVER. Moderated by Chelsea Robinson, Open Lunar Foundation.
April 7th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Golden Bear Room, Hotel Shattuck Plaza
Panelists
Jan Hania
Principal of Strategy Development | Biome Trust
Jan Hania is Tuwharetoa, Raukawa-ki-teTonga, Te Atiawa of Aotearoa/New Zealand, and is the Principal of Strategy Development for Biome Trust, which is focused on having a sustained impact in environment, education, and human wellbeing. Jan has worked both in Aotearoa and internationally on large-scale bioregional regeneration and climate adaptation initiatives. Jan develops exemplar equity-based projects that are practically implemented, demonstrating effective and sustained outcomes.
Lara Hania
Educator and Facilitator
Lara Hania, with 30 years’ experience as an educator in Aotearoa/New Zealand, is committed to contributing to re-establishing Indigenous Māori equity and sovereignty as well as human-nature connections. Lara facilitates professional development for teachers and professionals enhancing cultural competency and nature connection and is a dynamic storyteller who shares narratives that draw on the patterns and wisdom of Te Taiao (the natural world) as a blueprint for humanity.
Chelsea Robinson
Chief Operating Officer | Open Lunar Foundation
Chelsea Robinson, from Waitakere in Aotearoa/New Zealand, lives in Tahoe, CA and leads the Open Lunar Foundation, which seeks to “create good governance and stewardship of the Moon.” Her background includes working on climate policy, movement building, commons management and improving democracy.
Erin Matariki Carr
Project Lead | RIVER
Erin Matariki Carr, of Ngāi Tūhoe and Ngāti Awa descent, lives in her traditional homelands in Aotearoa/New Zealand and works in law and policy, with a focus on the interface between Indigenous and Western legal systems and methodologies. She previously worked as Manager of Planning & Design to create and implement policies under the world-first legislation conferring legal personhood to the Te Urewera rainforest. Matariki is currently a project lead at RIVER, where she focuses on the constitutional transformation movement in Aotearoa with a number of other teams, including Tūmanako Consultants and Te Kuaka NZA.
The dominant culture that brought us colonialism, patriarchy, white supremacy and capitalism has led us to the brink of global ecological, economic and social collapse. In this session we will hear from women leaders who are lifting up frontline women around the world. They will share what they see as emergent directions in movement-building, healing and transformative change. They will describe inspiring examples of grassroots women’s Climate Justice initiatives offering equitable and vibrant solutions. They’ll show how it’s essential to amplify and invest in BIPOC and grassroots women climate leaders globally. With: Osprey Orielle Lake, founder and Executive Director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network International; Leila Salazar Lopez, Executive Director of Amazon Watch; Zainab Salbi, founder of Women for Women International, author of Freedom is an Inside Job; Amira Diamond, co-founder and Co-Director of Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA).
April 7th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Freight & Salvage
Panelists
Leila Salazar-López
Executive Director | Amazon Watch
Leila Salazar-López, Executive Director of Amazon Watch since 2015, leads the organization in its work to protect and defend the bio-cultural and climate integrity of the Amazon rainforest in solidarity with Indigenous and forest peoples. For 25+ years Leila has worked to defend the world’s rainforests, human rights, and climate through grassroots organizing and international advocacy campaigns at Amazon Watch, Rainforest Action Network and Global Exchange. She is also a Global Fund for Women Advisor for Latin America, a Greenpeace Voting Member and serves on the Advisory Circle of Daughters of the Earth. (amazonwatch.org)
Zainab Salbi
Co-Founder | Daughters for Earth
Zainab Salbi, frequently named one of the “women changing the world” by leading publications ranging from Newsweek to The Guardian, founded Women for Women International, a humanitarian organization dedicated to women survivors of wars when she was just 23. Under her leadership (1993–2011), it grew from assisting 30 women to helping more than 420,000. The author of several books, including the best seller Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny and her latest, Freedom is an Inside Job; in 2022 Zainab co-founded (with Jody Allen) Daughters for Earth, a new fund and campaign that aims to inspire all women to engage in climate change action to protect and restore the Earth.
Osprey Orielle Lake
Founder and Executive Director | Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International
Osprey Orielle Lake, founder and Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International, works with grassroots and Indigenous leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a democratized energy future. She also serves on the Executive Committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and is the author of the award-winning book, Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature.
Amira Diamond
Co-Founder and Co-Director | Women's Earth Alliance (WEA)
Amira Diamond, co-founder/Co-Director of Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA), has over 2 decades’ experience delivering community-driven, rights-based programming at the intersection of gender, racial, economic, environmental and climate justice around the world. Before WEA she had stints as: West Coast Director of Democracy Matters, on the team of Circle of Life, and founding and performing with the ensemble, the Social Prophet Choir. Amira, also a leadership trainer, facilitator and strategic planner, has served on a number of organizations’ boards and advisory councils.
4:45 pm: “Brazil is Back, but…”—The Lula Administration’s First 100 Days: What Is the Situation Regarding Human Rights and Amazon Protections?
Presented in collaboration with Amazon Watch
After narrowly defeating the rightwing extremist Jair Bolsonaro last year, Lula da Silva began his third presidential term by reaffirming Brazilian democracy, the rule of law, and reinstating critical socio-environmental protections to reverse the Amazonian catastrophe unleashed by his predecessor. Despite these very positive steps, Lula’s administration faces a myriad of challenges as entrenched interests work to undermine its agenda. What does this scenario portend for the future of the world’s largest rainforest? Moderated by Leila Salazar-López, Executive Director, Amazon Watch. With: Christian Poirier, Program Director, Amazon Watch; Indigenous youth activist and media maker Eric Terena (aka DJ Eric Marky); Priscila Tapajowara (Tapajó I Brazil) an Amazon-born Indigenous rights and climate activist, photographer and documentary filmmaker; Ana Paula Vargas, Brazil Program Director at Amazon Watch.
April 7th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Magnes Museum
Panelists
Leila Salazar-López
Executive Director | Amazon Watch
Leila Salazar-López, Executive Director of Amazon Watch since 2015, leads the organization in its work to protect and defend the bio-cultural and climate integrity of the Amazon rainforest in solidarity with Indigenous and forest peoples. For 25+ years Leila has worked to defend the world’s rainforests, human rights, and climate through grassroots organizing and international advocacy campaigns at Amazon Watch, Rainforest Action Network and Global Exchange. She is also a Global Fund for Women Advisor for Latin America, a Greenpeace Voting Member and serves on the Advisory Circle of Daughters of the Earth. (amazonwatch.org)
Christian Poirier
Program Director | Amazon Watch
Christian Poirier, who has 20+ years’ experience in international development focused on environmental, agrarian and social justice issues, is a senior member of Amazon Watch’s team who has coordinated its Brazil Program since 2009, helping lead international solidarity campaigns to halt the construction of large dams in the Amazon and to pressure the global private sector to cease its complicity in environmental destruction and human rights abuses in the region. While managing Amazon Watch’s Paris office, Christian partnered with European NGOs on Corporate Social Responsibility campaigns, and prior to joining Amazon Watch, he assisted Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement and managed rural development and micro enterprise projects in West Africa.
Eric Terena
Co-Founder | Midia India
Eric Terena (aka DJ Eric Marky), an Indigenous youth activist and media maker, co-founder of Midia India (an Indigenous communication collective), is a member of Youth4Climate and was responsible for the audiovisual coverage of the participation of Indigenous leaders from Brazil at the United Nations Climate Change conferences COP25 and COP26. Eric is also a specialist in ethno-media and works with Indigenous singers.
Priscila Tapajowara
Indigenous Rights and Climate Activist
Priscila Tapajowara (Tapajó I Brazil), born in Santarém in the Amazon, is an Indigenous rights and climate activist, photographer, film director and producer who has been using audiovisual tools for 9 years to fight in defense of the Amazon. She has been the cinematographic director of a number of documentaries in Brazil; a producer of the Latin American Film Festival CineAlter; a coordinator and communicator at Mídia India; and Vice-President of the Instituto Território das Artes.
Ana Paula Vargas
Brazil Program Director | Amazon Watch
Ana Paula Vargas, Brazil Program Director at Amazon Watch, has been working for 20+ years on communications and culture, human rights, and social justice issues in Brazil. She has collaborated with the press, local NGOs, the Brazilian government and international institutions to support and promote projects from popular associations, social movements and grassroots organizations. In the United States, as a member of the US Network to Defend Democracy in Brazil, she has organized advocacy and resistance to threats to human rights, to the Amazon rainforest and to Indigenous people, organizing rallies in alliance with other organizations and activists fighting for climate justice.
On the one hand, the global ecological, socio-political and economic news is indisputably grim: accelerating climate catastrophes, plummeting biodiversity, increasingly authoritarian regimes and movements on the rise planet-wide, the specter of a classic “Thucydides’ trap” in U.S.-China relations, entrenched capital undermining every effort at decarbonization, etc. On the other: the radical awakening and rising up of younger generations, the emergence of some genuinely impactful large-scale “green” initiatives and policies, the exponential growth of clean energy technologies; the recent successful rebuff of several right wing leaders and parties in key countries, etc. Is the human enterprise precariously perched on the knife-edge between catastrophic unraveling or the birth of a new, life-affirming civilization? It is hard to imagine two more appropriate interlocutors to explore the current zeitgeist: Kim Stanley Robinson, our greatest living science-fiction writer, who has fascinatingly and rigorously envisioned scenarios of human adaptation to the climate crisis in many of his novels; and Leah Stokes, a professor of environmental politics who is one of the nation’s most brilliant experts on energy, climate and public policy; and who many consider to have been a key behind-the-scenes prime mover in shepherding the giant IRA climate bill through Congress. Hosted/moderated by J.P. Harpignies, Bioneers Conference senior producer.
April 7th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Berkeley Ballroom, Residence Inn
Panelists
Kim Stanley Robinson
Science Fiction Author
Kim Stanley Robinson, an American science fiction writer, is the author of about twenty books, including the internationally bestselling Mars trilogy, and more recently Red Moon, New York 2140, and The Ministry for the Future. He was part of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers’ Program in 1995 and 2016, and a featured speaker at COP-26 in Glasgow as a guest of the UK government and the UN. His work has been translated into 26 languages and won many awards including the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. In 2016 asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson.”
Leah Stokes
Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics | University of California, Santa Barbara
Leah Stokes, Ph.D., one of the nation’s most influential leading experts and “engaged scholars" in climate and energy policy, is the author of the award-winning book Short Circuiting Policy, which examines the role of utilities in undermining regulation and promoting climate denial. Trained at MIT, Columbia, and the University of Toronto, Stokes’ widely read and cited work has been published in top scholarly journals, as well as the New York Times, Washington Post, and other popular media outlets. She is the Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a senior policy consultant at Rewiring America, and co-host of the popular climate podcast “A Matter of Degrees.”
J.P. Harpignies
Senior Producer | Bioneers
J.P. Harpignies, Bioneers Senior Producer, affiliated with Bioneers since 1990, is a Brooklyn, NYC-based consultant, conference producer, copy-editor and writer. A former Program Director at the New York Open Center and a senior review team member for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge from 2010 to 2017, he has authored or edited several books, including Political Ecosystems, Delusions of Normality, Visionary Plant Consciousness, and, most recently, Animal Encounters.
Nothing is more central and visceral to the human experience than eating. Recent decades have seen a sea change in awareness about the crucial importance of what we eat, how and where our food is grown, and by whom. Making radical changes to our entire system of agriculture and to societal attitudes toward plants, animals and the entirety of the natural world will give us the chance of emerging from our current crises and ushering in the birth of a life-affirming civilization. With: Alice Waters, legendary, highly influential chef who has been a leader in radically improving American cuisine’s social and ecological impacts, as well of course as its gustatory and nutritional qualities; in conversation with Nikki Silvestri, Founder and CEO of Soil and Shadow, former ED of Green for All and the People’s Grocery, recipient of numerous awards, including ELLE Magazine’s Gold Award and OxFam America’s Act Local, Think Global Award.
April 7th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Freight & Salvage
Panelists
Alice Waters
Chef, Restaurateur and Author | Chez Panisse
Alice Waters is a chef, author, food activist, and the founder of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley (est. 1971). She has been a champion of local sustainable agriculture for over four decades. In 1995 she founded the Edible Schoolyard Project, which advocates for a free regenerative organic school lunch for all children and a sustainable food curriculum in every public school. In 2015 she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama, proving that eating is a political act. In 2021, she was awarded the inaugural Carver Carson Award for American innovation in environmental protection and agriculture from the Henry Ford Museum. Alice is the author of sixteen books including her most recent We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto.
Nikki Silvestri
Founder and CEO | Soil and Shadow, LLC
Nikki Silvestri, the founder and CEO of Soil and Shadow, LLC., has had a wide-ranging career that has taken her from presentations at the White House and negotiations with the Environmental Protection Agency to intimate workshops with local businesses and small retail organizing. The recipient of numerous awards, including ELLE Magazine’s Gold Award and OxFam America’s Act Local, Think Global Award, she was named one of The Root’s 100 Most Influential African Americans. Her unique approach to inclusion, leadership, and organizational development takes cues from nature and seeks to build models of “social fertility” to weave them into a Joy and Impact™ framework while attempting to balance the triple bottom line (ecology, economy, and equity).
Saturday, April 8th
Introduction by Kenny Ausubel, Bioneers CEO and Founder
The energy transition race is on. Fossils fuels have peaked. What do we need to get renewables to prevail as fast as possible, and can we make that victory good for everyone? The 2020s will be the decisive decade in the climate justice fight. Where and how we create the new energy economy, who gets to lead it, who owns it and who works in it now matter more than ever. We must prepare for a large pulse of eco-industrial activity the likes of which the world has never known. As we race to the finish line of the transition away from fossil fuels, visionary “green” entrepreneur and founder of New Energy Nexus Danny Kennedy will present a plan to build out the full 3D potential of clean energy—not just distributed energy, but decentralized in ownership and democratized in control. Highly decentralized global grassroots entrepreneurship is central, as the pathfinding work of New Energy Nexus is demonstrating.
April 8th | 9:56 am to 10:15 am | Zellerbach Hall
Introduced by
Kenny Ausubel
CEO and Founder | Bioneers
Kenny Ausubel, CEO and founder (in 1990) of Bioneers, is an award-winning social entrepreneur, journalist, author and filmmaker. Co-founder and first CEO of the organic seed company, Seeds of Change, his film (and companion book) Hoxsey: When Healing Becomes a Crime helped influence national alternative medicine policy. He has edited several books and written four, including, most recently, Dreaming the Future: Reimagining Civilization in the Age of Nature.
Keynote
Danny Kennedy
CEO | New Energy Nexus
Danny Kennedy, with a long background in eco activism, has become one of the nation’s leading figures in clean-technology entrepreneurship and the capitalization of the transition to a “green” economy. Co-founder of the solar energy company, Sungevity, and the clean energy incubator Powerhouse, Kennedy supports the clean technology and energy fields in myriad ways. In addition to leading roles with Third Derivative (a joint venture with the Rocky Mountain Institute) and the California Clean Energy Fund, Kennedy is currently CEO of New Energy Nexus, a global nonprofit providing funds, accelerators, and networks to drive clean energy innovation and adoption.
Introduction by Osprey Orielle Lake, founder and Executive Director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International
How we imagine what’s possible, what matters. Who we are shapes what we do, and what we do in the present shapes the future. In addition to the many practical, scientific and material aspects, the climate crisis has cultural aspects with which we need to engage in order to meet this emergency. Drawing from the new anthology she co-edited, Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, Rebecca Solnit will talk about the stories emerging from what science, Indigenous leadership, good organizing, and visionary thinkers are giving us. These stories offer the grounds for hope and the work hope does. What are the ways that what the climate requires of us could mean ushering in an age of abundance rather than austerity?
April 8th | 11:59 am to 12:21 pm | Zellerbach Hall
Introduced by
Osprey Orielle Lake
Founder and Executive Director | Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International
Osprey Orielle Lake, founder and Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International, works with grassroots and Indigenous leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a democratized energy future. She also serves on the Executive Committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and is the author of the award-winning book, Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature.
Keynote
Rebecca Solnit
Author & Journalist
Rebecca Solnit, one of our nation’s most influential writers, thinkers, historians and activists, is the author of 20+ books, including: Orwell’s Roses; Recollections of My Nonexistence; Hope in the Dark; Men Explain Things to Me; A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; and A Field Guide to Getting Lost. She is also co-editor of Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility (coming April 2023) and writes regularly for the Guardian, serves on the board of the climate group Oil Change International, and just launched the climate project Not Too Late.
The world seems to be unraveling—the ever-worsening climate crisis; slews of ethnic and religion-based violent conflicts; the erosion of democratic structures around the world, etc. We are confronting what some are calling a great “poly-crisis.” In this presentation, climate scientist, Buddhist Zen priest and grief ritual facilitator Kritee Kanko will explore how climate grief and intersectional traumas resulting from legacies of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy shape our nervous systems and shrink our ability to act wholeheartedly. She will explain how “difficult” emotions and traumas around injustices can be “composted” so that they fuel our movements for climate justice, and she will share strategies on how to draw power from vulnerability to heal, build resilience and belonging, and act collectively for a better world.
April 8th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Golden Bear Room, Hotel Shattuck Plaza
Panelists
Kritee Kanko
Climate Scientist, Buddhist Zen Priest and Grief Ritual Facilitator
Kritee Kanko, born in India, weaves her quest for racial justice, climate action and trauma healing into her work as a climate scientist, Buddhist Zen priest and grief ritual facilitator. She co-founded Boundless in Motion and the Rocky Mountain Eco-Dharma Retreat Center, two non-profit organizations based in Boulder, Colorado. She previously directed the Climate Smart Agriculture program in India for the Environmental Defense Fund for 11+ years.
3:00 pm: Climate Justice Through Power-Building
Presented in collaboration with the Othering & Belonging Institute
The rise of regenerative social movements and civil society hold the greatest power for successfully navigating the “Great Unraveling” engulfing our world, but building on a long history of social struggles, the immense racial justice protests of 2020 demonstrated that “creating the world anew” is impossible without also building power where communities feel the most pain. People power, governing power, and narrative power have to go hand-in-hand to have any chance of overcoming the inevitable, intense backlash from entrenched reactionary forces. Join some visionary activists who will share their strategies to forge alliances at the intersections of issues and communities to bring more people into the beautiful work of transforming our world, creating new ways of governing and achieving climate justice. With: Adam Mahoney, climate and environment reporter at Capital B; Claudia Jimenez, longtime community organizer,Richmond, CA City Council Member; Tamisha Walker, Executive Director, Safe Return Project (a campaign to secure the freedom of formerly incarcerated individuals); Christine Cordero, Co-Director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN).Moderated by: Emnet Almedom, researcher at the Othering and Belonging Institute.
April 8th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Berkeley Ballroom, Residence Inn
Panelists
Adam Mahoney
National Climate and Environment Reporter | Capital B News
Adam Mahoney, the national climate and environment reporter at Capital B News, a local-national nonprofit news organization focused on the Black experience, was previously an environmental justice reporter at Grist and reported on the police for the Chicago Sun-Times and The Guardian. Mahoney received the Peter Lisagor Award for best reporting on race and diversity in Illinois in 2021 and was a 2022 national finalist for best community-centered journalism from the Online News Association.
Claudia Jimenez
Councilmember | Richmond City Council
Claudia Jimenez, a trained architect and Environmental Planner and dynamic community organizer, originally from Colombia, has, for the last ten years been actively involved in Richmond and Contra Costa communities in a wide range of campaigns to ensure access to health, jobs, housing and services, especially for those most impacted by discrimination based on race, ethnicity, citizenship status, and other forms of social and economic exclusion. She was elected to the Richmond, CA City Council in 2020 and has been instrumental in passing key proposals to “reimagine public safety” as well as saving millions of dollars by getting the city out of Swap bond deals.
Christine Cordero
Co-Director | Asian Pacific Environmental Network
Christine Cordero is Co-Director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), which organizes with immigrants and refugees for a healthy environment and a thriving economy. For 20+ years she has strategized, organized and built coalitions around environmental health and justice, workers’ rights, and economic and racial justice issues. Christine is also an ordained priest of the Chozen-ji line of Rinzai Zen who trains in Oakland, CA and Kalihi Valley, HI.
Tamisha Torres-Walker
Executive Director | Safe Return Project
Tamisha Torres-Walker serves on the city council of Antioch, CA (District 1) and is a co-founder and the current Executive Director of the Safe Return Project in Contra Costa County, an organization invested in securing the freedom and liberation of formerly incarcerated and convicted individuals using participatory action research and grassroots organizing to end mass incarceration and mass criminalization of poor people. She has been a community organizer and known advocate on issues related to mass incarceration and racial disparity in the criminal justice system since her own release from incarceration in 2009.
Emnet Almedom
Researcher | Other & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley
Emnet Almedom is a researcher at the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley (which “advances groundbreaking research, policy, and ideas that examine and remediate the processes of exclusion, marginalization, and structural inequality”) who focuses on economic justice policy, corporate accountability and divest-invest models for public safety and climate justice. Her work has advanced non-police emergency response in Oakland, government data- and power-sharing for racial equity in New York City, and tenant rights in her hometown of Atlanta.
California’s $48 billion Climate Commitment in 2022 plus the Federal IRA represent a once in a lifetime opportunity to onshore the supply chains and build the infrastructure needed to transform our economy to carbon neutrality, while creating jobs and justice for the 100%. How can California and tribal nations such as the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians partner for an equitable clean energy future rooted in a circular regenerative economy? What would it look like to have the original landowners at the helm of a place-based industrial strategy to onshore an advanced battery and EV manufacturing supply chain to Inland Southern California? With: Jesus Arguelles, Economic Development Director of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians; Rebecca Lee, New Energy Nexus; Bryan Vega, New Energy Nexus. Hosted by: Danny Kennedy, CEO, New Energy Nexus.
April 8th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Freight & Salvage
Panelists
Danny Kennedy
CEO | New Energy Nexus
Danny Kennedy, with a long background in eco activism, has become one of the nation’s leading figures in clean-technology entrepreneurship and the capitalization of the transition to a “green” economy. Co-founder of the solar energy company, Sungevity, and the clean energy incubator Powerhouse, Kennedy supports the clean technology and energy fields in myriad ways. In addition to leading roles with Third Derivative (a joint venture with the Rocky Mountain Institute) and the California Clean Energy Fund, Kennedy is currently CEO of New Energy Nexus, a global nonprofit providing funds, accelerators, and networks to drive clean energy innovation and adoption.
Rebecca Lee
Managing Director of California | New Energy Nexus
Rebecca Lee is the Managing Director of California at New Energy Nexus, a global non-profit organization working to accelerate a just and equitable clean energy future by supporting diverse clean energy entrepreneurs with funds, accelerators, and networks. Previously, she led the regulatory team at Sungevity, a residential solar developer and more recently, was a Senior Fellow at Gridworks where she facilitated workshops with diverse stakeholders to develop collaborative frameworks to advance equity and accelerate decarbonization. Rebecca was also lead author and researcher for "Advancing High Road Labor Standards in Transportation Electrification."
Bryan Vega
Program Associate | New Energy Nexus
Bryan Vega, a Program Associate with New Energy Nexus (a groundbreaking clean energy nonprofit seeking to "create an abundant world with a 100% clean energy economy for 100% of the population in the shortest time possible time"), is working on the ground on the “Lithium Valley” project in the Salton Sea area. Raised in both the Valle of Mexicali in Mexico and California's Imperial Valley, Bryan, who has an academic background in political science and ethnic studies, is an experienced community organizer and civil rights activist.
Jesus Arguelles
Economic Development Director | Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians
Jesus Arguelles, the Director of Economic Development for the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians (TMDCI), is dedicated to accelerating the transition of TMDCI's sovereign tribal economy into an inclusive and equitable regional engine of strategic economic development. He works on: tribal-focused community planning and infrastructure development; environmental sustainability; cultural and natural assets preservation and enhancement; sovereign and circular entrepreneurship; social equity and justice practices; business portfolio diversification in “green," added value industries; financial literacy and fitness; and wealth-building and intergenerational transference.
Climate grief along with intersectional traumas resulting from legacies of social injustice shape our nervous systems and can shrink our ability to act wholeheartedly, but our hope in these complex, chaotic times lies in the fact that if we can “compost” our “hard” emotions (grief, rage, fear and confusion) and traumas, we can harness the resulting energy to fuel our movement for climate justice. The very fear and grief that can incapacitate us can be transformed into creativity and courage if we can ignite the power of vulnerability in our quest for belonging, healing, resilience and effective collective action. This interactive session is intended for those who desire a direct embodied experience of what it might mean to be witnessed or to see and hear another as we “compost” our grief and anxieties in the presence of a receptive, committed and compassionate community. Facilitated by Ladybird Morgan.
PLEASE NOTE: Because of the nature of this session, we will be closing the entrance door at 5 minutes after the start time.
April 8th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | San Pablo Room, Residence Inn
Panelists
Ladybird Morgan
Palliative Care Consultant | Mettle Health
Ladybird Morgan, a registered nurse, social worker and craniosacral practitioner, has 20+ years’ experience in hospice and palliative care, addressing trauma, mental health challenges and repercussions of sexual violence. Ladybird, who guides medical practitioners, families, caregivers and institutions around the world on how to be present to difficult experiences, is currently a private palliative care consultant with Mettle Health and a staff member at Commonweal’s Cancer Care Help Program. She is also a co-investigator/study therapist with a University of Washington study of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy and a Learning Facilitator for Synthesis Retreat’s Psilocybin Practitioner Training.
4:45 pm: Solving the Climate Crisis in One Generation
Presented in collaboration with One Earth
According to the groundbreaking, highly influential organization, One Earth, the solutions to the climate crisis already exist, and there are three pillars of collective action we need to embrace to implement them: a just transition to 100% renewable energy; protection and restoration of half the world’s lands and oceans; and a shift to regenerative food and fiber systems. These goals are daunting, but the good news is that millions of people and organizations around the world are already driving this transformation. How are all these movements connected? How does work in each area grow and thrive with a coherent understanding of the larger systems of change? Join leaders in the three key fields outlined above in a vibrant conversation to explore how both big-picture thinking and slews of on-the-ground practical projects can play a role in solving the climate crisis in time. Hosted by: Justin Winters, co-founder and Executive Director of One Earth. With: Samuel Gensaw III (Yurok) Director of the Ancestral Guard; Cynthia Daley, Ph.D., founder/Director of the Center for Regenerative Agriculture and Resilient Systems at Cal State Chico; and Danny Kennedy, entrepreneur and founder of New Energy Nexus.
April 8th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Freight & Salvage
Panelists
Samuel Gensaw
Founding Director | Ancestral Guard
Sammy Gensaw, III, (Yurok) is the Founding Director of the Ancestral Guard, Artist, Yurok Language Speaker, Singer, Writer, Cultural/Political/Environmental Activist, Regalia Maker, Mediator, Youth Leader & Fisherman.
Cynthia Daley
Founder and Director | Center for Regenerative Agriculture and Resilient Systems at California State University Chico
Cynthia Daley, Ph.D., born into a four-generation Midwestern farming family, is a professor within the College of Agriculture at Cal State Chico and currently serves there as both the Rawlins Endowed Professor for Environmental Literacy and the Director for the Center for Regenerative Agriculture & Resilient Systems (a consortium of interdisciplinary faculty and farmers who recognize the ecological benefits of regenerative farming practices including water conservation, soil fertility, and carbon sequestration).
Danny Kennedy
CEO | New Energy Nexus
Danny Kennedy, with a long background in eco activism, has become one of the nation’s leading figures in clean-technology entrepreneurship and the capitalization of the transition to a “green” economy. Co-founder of the solar energy company, Sungevity, and the clean energy incubator Powerhouse, Kennedy supports the clean technology and energy fields in myriad ways. In addition to leading roles with Third Derivative (a joint venture with the Rocky Mountain Institute) and the California Clean Energy Fund, Kennedy is currently CEO of New Energy Nexus, a global nonprofit providing funds, accelerators, and networks to drive clean energy innovation and adoption.
Justin Winters
One Earth | Co-Founder and Executive Director
Justin Winters, the co-founder and Executive Director of One Earth, a philanthropic organization working to galvanize science, advocacy and philanthropy to drive collective action on climate change, is focused on creating a vision for the world in which humanity and nature coexist and thrive together, based on three pillars: 100% renewable energy; protection and restoration of 50% of the world’s lands and oceans; and a transition to regenerative, carbon-negative agriculture. Prior to One Earth, Justin served as Executive Director of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation for 13 years, where she awarded over $100 million in grants across 60 countries.
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