Bioneers

If you read nothing else, check out my john a powell section at the bottom.

This weekend I attended the Bioneers conference in San Rafael.   The whole event is revolutionary and visionary - justice, biomimicry, and resiliency being some of the key words - but it's also incredibly expensive, largely white (esp. among the attendees), and therefore pretty exclusive.   I hope someone is working on making it more accessible by 1) doing more to offer scholarships ( I was lucky enough to have one from an outside organization) and 2) advertising that a bunch of it is actually free!

For now, here's my small contribution in the name of making it more accessible.

Aves Plastico: seagull constructed from garbage.  You think you could go the beach and construct this? Angela Haseltine Pozzi made this with 100's of volunteers (Free).

Conference organizers introducing speaker while dressed as sperm.  It put that white middle-aged audience in cahoots!  (This part, a plenary, was free on video projection in a big tent.)

Destiny Arts teens from Oakland perform at lunchtime (free).

Sourcing food locally

A father from Oakland Green Youth Arts Media Center (I missed his name) sings to his mohawked baby boy, Obama, at the Youth Open Mic. (Free)

Wikuki Kingi, a Maori man, speaks about canoe carving in the Indigenous Forum tent.
His Maori introduction transported me back to my time in Aotearoa/New Zealand! (Free)

The Vida Verde van.  "Educational Equity in the Outdoors."

"Exploring What It Means to Be White" session.  Wasn't there, but I hope it was productive. (Free)

"Change vs. Transformation."  Moderated by Akaya Windwood of the Rockwood Leadership Institute, who would ask questions like "What is justice?" and then nuggets of wisdom would follow.  Featuring john a. powell of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity,  Brock Dolman of Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, Sarah Crowell of Destiny Arts.  (See notes on my twitter).

John Warren spoke about "green chemistry" and "molecular biomimicry."  "Instead of trying to always invent our own molecules, let's see how nature does it."  He told a story about how he how he was a super successful chemist - with as many awards as anyone and over 2,000 chemical synthesized, when a rare disease killed his two year old son.  He tortured himself over whether or not it was because of a chemical he'd touched.  "I realized that even though I was one of the most successful chemists, I'd never taken a course on toxicology, never been taught what makes a chemical toxic."    Let this be a WAKE UP CALL.  He says there is no money for green chemistry research in the U.S. (only for the hip and sexy "nanotechnology") but that China has 14 green chemistry labs and India is trying to require a year of green chemistry for his students.  Will and friends, you should check him out!  His book is Green Chemistry Theory and Practice.

Andy Lipkis talked about planting urban forests in south/south central L.A.  One oak tree with a 100 foot diameter can treat 57,000 gallons of water in a 12 inch flash flood.  It's nature's water treatment plant!

He spoke of a retired teacher who organized neighbors, raised money, and got a gov't permit to plant 20 trees on King Blvd, including getting "gang banger kids" to help break concrete, channel their anger.  When they decided to make it a full-on greenway, the gov't said, "Great, it'll take 10 years and $10 million dollars."  So instead, after a few months of planning, 3,000 volunteers planted a 7 mile stretch in 4 hours.  (Dude liked numbers.)

He told us they also trained 250,000 kids about ecological literacy and recycling in L.A.  This critical mass of students translated info into 6 different languages, trained their peers, and soon enough--even with resistant parents--supposedly 90% of L.A. residents recycle. (Is this true?  Can white folks put this energy into anti-police brutality organizing?)

Elmer Ave., a majority Latino neighborhood, is the first environmental justice zone in L.A.  Different home-based water catchment, filtering, and diverting technology has solved what used to be massive flooding, draught, and pollution problems in the neighborhood.  The new systems have provided resilience against what will become increasingly extreme weather patterns (global warming!), brought back a sense of community, and brought in more more birds.

L. Frank, indigenous activist and unofficial stand-up comedian, had me laughing out loud at every sentence:  "I'm half Spanish, so I oppress half myself.  Half of me is like build a canoe.  The other half is like, 'No, don't.'"

[Talking about small, naturally built houses]: "We're Indians! We don't have big houses and are like look at all this tile that we furnished our home with from Italy, where they blew up a whole mountain to get us this tile...What kinda Indian are you?!"

Check out her books on Amazon!

john a powell was dropping wisdom all over the place!!!  For me, his central theme was illuminating the intersections between ANTI-RACISM and the goal of INTERCONNECTEDNESS!!  "So often," he said, "we are good at thinking about our interconnectedness to the natural environment, but we fail when thinking about PEOPLE!"  Yes!!!  What a kind way to confront the whiteness of white environmentalists.

He quoted Jeffery Sachs - "an economist, not radical" - as saying that the U.S. is in decline because people are unable to deal with its social diversity.  More people are withdrawing from the public, retreating into shrinking private space.  As many have pointed out, the fact that the U.S. is increasing becoming less white is the underlying issue on the all the debates about public healthcare, public education, and public services in general.  This fear of the the other must be countered by a project of embracing diversity, which powell quotes Toni Morrison as saying, is both an internal and external process.

Like the fish who discovered she was swimming in water, we must be conscious of and celebrate our interconnectedness in everything we do, but, he says, "to say we are related -- to have positive feelings and attitudes -- is not enough.  We must re-structure our entire society to reflect that."

He used simple diagrams and drawing to demonstrate how our cultural upbringing (often unconsciously) affects how we see the world.  For example, on sketch looks to most westerners appears to be a bunch of people sitting in a room, but to most Tanzanians, he tells us, it seems to be a bunch of people under a tree.  "How we process things," he teaches, "is not an individual phenomenon.  It's cultural."

"The way we structure space carries value...How do we make our architecture work to reflect the best of us?"

He concludes: "Racism manifests itself in the way we arrange our space, our institutions, and our unconscious, but it is not inevitable...Finding the 'proper relationships' to have with each other is hard and complicated. The task is daunting, but the opportunity is great."


There are so many insights, but I'm spent for now.  I want everyone to go next year!