Opening Speech, Bioneers Conference
San Rafael, California
October 16, 2009

When the world's national governments come together in December in Copenhagen to fashion a global climate treaty, the most ambitious goal even mentioned is to reduce CO2 emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Even if the governments agree...

Dreaming the future can create the future. We stand at the threshold of a singular opportunity in the human experiment: To re-imagine how to live on Earth in ways that honor the web of life, each other and future generations. It's a revolution from the heart of nature -- and...

In a recent column titled "Soft Shoe in Hard Times," byline Washington DC, Maureen Dowd observed, "Everyone here is flummoxed about why the president is in such a fine mood... Boy George crashed the family station wagon into the globe and now the global economy." Yet he seems "goofily happy."

This piece was the opening talk by the founder of Bioneers at the 2007 Bioneers conference on October 19th.

The nature of nature is change. Sometimes it hurtles into fast forward, tripping radical shifts. Think of it as nature's regime change. For the first time, people are causing it on...

When The New York Times graces the environmentally themed documentary The 11th Hour with what amounts to a rave review, you know the climate is changing, in more ways than one. (Don't get me wrong, I love the Times' Manohla Dargis' tough, smart movie reviews). The Times has historically slighted...

I wanna talk to you about family values.

Family values are under assault. This deplorable situation presents a grave threat to the very fabric of our society. Family values have sustained society since civilization began. People who hold family values have deep convictions. The problem is - more and more...

We are a nation of hustlers. So says historian Walter A. McDougall, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Freedom Just Around the Corner.” Of course, being hustlers has a positive side – a nation of “builders, doers, go-getters, dreamers, hard workers, inventors, organizers, engineers and a people supremely generous.” But, McDougall...

A friend of mine in Texas had a hobby of doing grave rubbings. She favored old, out-of-the-way cemeteries, the final resting places of the notably not rich and famous. She would place a large piece of thin paper over the tombstone and rub it with charcoal to take an impression....

We Survived Katrina! Thank you for your prayers and kindness

These are a series of communiqués that Brenda Quant sent to worried family and friends around the country in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; one of her closet friends is Bioneers board member, Belvie Rooks. Belvie has taken the liberty—at...

You have to figure the Force is with you when Yoda gets on board. In this case, Yoda is the Pentagon’s term of endearment for Andrew Marshall, a revered military oracle who heads up an elite military think tank that envisions future threats to national security. After reading a 2002...