Beam me up, Scotty!
To the Whidbey Island Beaming Bioneers Conference, that is.
The Whidbey Institute at Chinook in Clinton will host the solutions-based weekend from Oct. 15-17 which will include local speakers, as well as plenary speakers such as Jane Goodall, John Francis and John Warner, who will be beamed onscreen via satellite from a sister conference in San Rafael, Calif.
Tucker Stevens, an environmental engineer from Seattle and a Bioneers conference volunteer, said he is excited about turning people on to the conference and its effects.
“A Bioneers conference is an incredibly inspiring and rejuvenating experience,” Stevens said.
The word “bioneer” was coined in 1990 to describe a culture of social and scientific innovators who strive to serve human ends without harming the web of life. They are a solutions-based group who draw from the most basic principles of nature — kinship, cooperation, diversity, symbiosis and the cycles of continuous creation absent of waste — to serve as a guide to an equitable, compassionate and democratic society.
Inspirational is exactly what the Bioneers had in mind when they created what’s meant to be a transformative weekend for those who attend. The focus is on solutions-based sustainability encouraged and exemplified by energizing speakers, workshops, well-cooked local food, community building and networking.
Each fall, the Bioneers conference in San Rafael brings together leading innovators to speak and present their unique stories and solutions. The lectures from the national conference are “beamed” to more than 20 sites around the country.
“It can be really difficult to describe, but when you walk away from one at the end of the weekend, you feel ready to excel at the challenges and problems that you’ve been working on,” Stevens added.
Goodall, the great primatological research scientist, is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and works tirelessly for the chimpanzees of the Gombe forests of Tanzania and for worldwide environmental conservation, traveling an average of 300 days per year for the cause.
Francis witnessed the disastrous 1971 oil spill in San Francisco Bay which compelled him to stop using motorized vehicles and to take a vow of silence.
In the course of the next 22 years, Francis walked across the United States, sailed and walked through the Caribbean and walked the length of South America while also earning several degrees in environmental studies and land resources. He is the author of “Planetwalker. 22 Years of Walking. 17 Years of Silence.”
John Warner is considered the co-founder of the field of green chemistry and is the president and CTO of the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry and the Beyond Benign Foundation. He has patented a wide range of technical applications, and has published a long list of books and papers on such applications that demonstrate the commercial viability of sustainable technologies based on the 12 principles of green chemistry.
These are only three of the 15 speakers who will be beamed in from California via satellite.
In addition to the beamed-in lectures, local innovators and artists will be on hand at the institute to speak and hold workshops. They include Jesse Guerrero, who will hold a somatic movement workshop, and Alan Seid, who will speak about tools, processes and methodologies for sustainable living, personal development, and organizational effectiveness. Marcia Meyers and Jered Gardener will be there to talk about how to build real wealth in one’s community. Rick Ingrasci will introduce the Whidbey Geodome Project, and Cary Peterson and Todd Spratt will talk to participants about building a garden for food, community and as a living classroom for youths. Milenko Matanovic will speak about community planning under the “Multiple Victories” model and Lief Utne, writer and social entrepreneur, will speak about social media and a passionate advocacy for a greener, kinder world.
The keynote speaker for the weekend is David Korten, a leading critic of corporate globalization and a visionary proponent of a planetary system of local living economies. His international bestseller, “When Corporations Rule the World,” is sometimes referred to as the bible of the historic protest in Seattle against the World Trade Organization, which framed the global resistance against corporate domination.
Korten’s most recent book, “The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community,” illuminates the significance of resistance by placing it in the historical context of 5,000 years of an empire culture and the organization of human relationships by dominator hierarchy.
After he received master’s and doctorate’s degrees from Stanford Business School, Korten spent 30 years working as a development professional for the U.S. in Asia, Africa and Latin America. His eyes were eventually opened to the devastating consequences of an economic system designed to make rich people richer without regard to the human and environmental consequences. He became a defector from the foreign aid establishment and joined the global resistance against flawed development models.
Korten, with his focus on “the great turning,” or the idea that the culture needs to turn itself toward a community-oriented, local economic model in order to survive, is an appropriate keynoter for such a symposium.
Stevens said it’s not about just standing on the sidelines and listening or watching. Change starts on the personal level.
“It’s about solutions,” Stevens said.
“These speakers are working on solutions to our present-day problems. This is a great event for individuals and organizations to communicate with each other through shared meals and discussions. It’s a place where we can find solutions to problems through discussion,” he said.
Tuition is $85 for the weekend. To register, and for more details, click here. For the national conference website, click here.
