Greetings fellow Bioneers!
The past few days, weeks and months have brought us trying news ... the kind of news that could easily make us question the good in the world around us. Keeping hope alive is essential, as is nourishing our hearts and minds for what is to come. Fortunately, we have hundreds of reasons to be hopeful right now, including the wonderful work and advocacy of the network of Bioneers around the world. In one week, this year's Bioneers conference will help shed light on the work activists, environmentalists, doctors, and others are doing to create solutions—even as the issues we face become larger and more pressing.
In this week’s newsletter, we give a peek into just some of the work Bioneers are doing to make the world a healthier, more equitable place to live for its billions of inhabitants—no matter how dire our current situation may seem. And check out our newly designed Bioneers.org for easy access into thousands more inspiring stories and solutions.
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Wise Words
“So what do we do? What do we do to tackle the issue of inclusion? How do we create a world in which you can live with fewer barriers? How do we understand disability not as a medical perspective, but rather as an experience of human life that anyone can fall into at any time? And how do we create those bridges that allow us to realize our potential?
“I think we can each do something. We can each think about what it means to be human, and we could each understand that being human is not about being just part of the same species. It’s about understanding that we’re not all perfect. It’s understanding that we each have vulnerabilities. And it’s those vulnerabilities that can unlock strengths within each one of us. It’s those places where we’re uncomfortable where we can we re-imagine what’s possible.”
—Dr. Victor Pineda, President of World Enabled and of The Global Alliance on Accessible Technologies and Environments, and Senior Research Fellow at U.C. Berkeley
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| Heather McGhee: A New ‘We the People’ for a Sustainable Future |
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Video to Watch: Advocating For Deep Democracy
Heather McGhee, Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos, a public policy organization working for an America where we all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy, will depict how deep democracy is the only solution to the crises of inequality and climate change, and how the changing demos — people — of America can rise to meet this moment. A thought leader on the national stage, Heather, among her many accomplishments, helped shape key provisions of the now threatened Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
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Person to Know: Paul Stamets
World-renowned mycologist Paul Stamets has spent more than 40 years studying mushrooms and the intricate underground fungal networks called mycelium. Stamets is an author and the founder of retailer Fungi Perfecti, and was also lead researcher on a recent study that explores the benefits of extracts from two genera of mushrooms that could potentially hold the key to solving DWV, a virus that’s devastating honeybee populations around the world — learn more about it at Wired.
His work has long been key to understanding the many astonishing ways in which mushrooms can be used to help solve some of the world’s most puzzling problems. Since our species emergence from Africa, mushrooms have represented a thread of knowledge — critical for human survival as medicine, fire portability and the regeneration of forests.
In 2014, Stamets shared his breakthrough discoveries on MycoHoney and the immunological and bioremedial properties of mushrooms for the first time ever at the annual Bioneers Conference. MycoHoney, made by bees that sip mycelium droplets, which prolongs worker bee longevity, detoxifies the hive, and could prevent colony collapse disorder, as well as our own. Watch his 2014 Bioneers keynote address or listen to it on Bioneers radio.
Stamets credits Bioneers with helping to grow his web of life-changing connections. It is connections, both human and subterranean, that have formed the foundation of Stamets’ career. In Bioneers, Stamets found an ideal outlet through which to share his findings and connect with people who have inspired him in his work. These connections have helped him spread the word about his research and some of the truly magical and restorative capabilities of fungi. Learn more about his work with Bioneers here. |
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This Week on Bioneers Radio & Podcast
From the microbes to the mammals, all life shares far more in common than what makes us different. In other words, it’s all relatives. If we knew that literally we are water, that we are mushrooms, that we are stardust—instead of shredding the web of life, might we start acting as if we have relatives? Bioneers Brock Dolman, Paul Stamets and Brian Thomas Swimme reveal inspiring reflections in the gene pool that show life as a kin-dom, not a kingdom.
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Book to Read: Redefining the American Dream
Courtney Martin is an accomplished writer and speaker who explores topics related to feminism and social justice. She is the co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, Valenti Martin Media and FRESH Speakers Bureau. Martin is also Editor Emeritus at Feministing.com, a weekly columnist for On Being, and author or editor of six books, including her most recent, The New Better Off. In this excerpt from the book’s introduction, Martin explores how the meaning of the American Dream is changing for new generations.
The phrase “new better off” is the shorthand I’ve created for this burgeoning shift in Americans’ ideas about the good life. It’s the patchwork quilt version of the American Dream, not the (phallic) sculpture reaching high into the sky. It’s about our quest to use our current precarity as the inspiration to return to some of the most basic, “beginner’s mind” questions: What is enough money? How do we want to spend our finite energy and attention? What makes us feel accountable and witnessed? It’s about creating a life you can be genuinely proud of, an “examined life” (in the words of dead Greek guys), a life that you are challenged by, a life that makes you giddy, that sometimes surprises you, a life that you love.
It’s leaving a job that pays well but makes you feel like a cog for a freelance life that makes you feel like a creator—the financial highs and lows be damned. It’s sharing a car with a few friends and learning how to repair your favorite pair of jeans. It’s moving in with your grandmother because she needs someone to reach the highest shelf in the kitchen and you need someone who helps you keep our turbulent times in perspective. It’s putting your cell phone in a drawer on Saturday afternoon and having the best conversation of your life that night. It’s starting a group for new dads where you admit how powerful and confusing it is to raise a tiny human.
But lest I fall into the same trap of all those who idealize bootstraps, the New Better Off mentality is not solely about the individual. It’s also about the collective. Playwright Tony Kushner writes: “The smallest indivisible human unit is two people, not one; one is a fiction. From such nets of souls societies, the social world, human life springs.” Read more here. |
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| Julia Butterfly Hill asking for YLP scholarship support |
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Take Action: A Message From Julia Butterfly Hill on Encouraging Our Youth
Eighteen years ago, the courageous activist Julia Butterfly Hill, who had spent more than two years living 180 feet high in a 1,500-year-old redwood tree to protest the clear cutting of old growth forests, spoke at Bioneers. She both inspired and challenged us to include more youth at the Bioneers Conference. This year we will provide over 400 scholarships to young people. You can help by supporting our Youth Leadership Scholarship (YLS) Campaign. Watch a message from Julia above, and find out more about how you can contribute to the YLS Campaign here. |
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Bioneers.org’s New Look!
The Bioneers website recently got a face lift, and we're excited for you to see it! Click on this link and browse around for easier access to our full collection of incredible videos, podcasts and articles, in addition to information about our programs. See something that still needs tweaking? Let us know by sending an email to it@bioneers.org. |
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Interested in leveraging technology for human flourishing and emotional wellbeing? Learn, develop and connect with new technologies and like-minded people at the Transformative Technology Conference, which sits at the intersection between neuroscience, psychology, technology, and entrepreneurship. The 2018 line-up includes AI, Augmented Reality, Blockchain, Neurotech, and Biotech for mental health, wellbeing, and joy — and that’s just for starters. Bioneers members who purchase tickets before October 15 can get 20% off the current ticket price when using this link: |
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