With Mark Lakeman, founder of City Repair

Placemaking is a growing movement across the U.S. and around the world whereby communities, neighborhood by neighborhood, are collaborating in the “creative reclamation of public space.” Mark Lakeman is the founder of the movement, whose City Repair in Portland has developed a number of model projects that have been replicated in hundreds of towns and cities across the U.S. In the last decade Mark has directed, facilitated, or inspired designs for more than three hundred new community-generated public places in Portland, Oregon alone. City Repair’s Village Building Convergence event has for over a decade been catalyzing the development of dozens of participatory organizations and urban permaculture design projects across the United States and Canada. The holistic approach to rearchitecting local spaces, bringing village-like public gathering spots back into our isolating urban and suburban neighborhoods, is having a profound impact upon communities, changing the social dynamic of neighborhoods as well as public respect for and intelligent engagement with the local ecology. This conversation covers not only the remarkable work of City Repair and the localization movement it has spawned, but also reveals Mark’s unique influences and informed vision that have ignited a do it yourself revolution in neighborhoods – with far reaching evolutionary consequences.

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with Wendy Jehanara Tremayne, author of The Good Life Lab: Radical Experiments in Hands On Living

This is the true story of how (and why) one couple ditched their high-pressure lives and moved to rural New Mexico to make, build, invent, forage, and grow everything they need to live self-sufficiently. After mastering life in the modern age as successful working professionals in New York City, Wendy Jehanara Tremayne and her husband Mikey began to reflect on their choices. Inspired by their experiences at the Burning Man Festival with its “gift economy” (no commercial transactions of any kind except the purchase of ice and coffee) and observing that her generation is the first to witness the whole world for sale, Wendy asked herself some questions: Am I limited and mechanistic, a consumer? Or am I unbounded and creative, a creator? Answering these questions became a journey of discovery and evolution as she and her husband sought a middle ground between living in the material world, and satisfying their need for a broader definition of what it is to be human. Their journey is chronicled its lessons distilled in Wendy’s new book The Good Life Lab: Radical Experiments in Hands-On Living. Our conversation goes into details on what they have learned by doing, as they forged a creatively and ecologically satisfying post-consumer lifestyle in building a compound – in effect a laboratory – that gives new life to used materials and offers many solutions on how to do much more, with much less. The many ideas and insights shared here are likely to inspire that same infectious do-it-yourself spirit that Wendy and Michael came to embody.

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With Linda Booker, producer of Bringing It Home

Hemp, the non-psychoactive cousin to cannabis sativa, has been an essential crop around the world for thousands of years, and still is in most countries. Why not in the U.S.? This discussion with Linda Booker, producer of the new documentary on industrial hemp Bringing It Home reveals the profound qualities of this truly remarkable plant, that make it ideal for textiles, building materials, food products, bio-plastics, auto parts and more. The film is based on a father’s search to find the healthiest building materials for his environmentally sensitive daughter, and the construction of the nation’s first hemp house in Asheville, North Carolina. As Linda shares here, the film was a journey of discovery as she learned about the astounding utility of this carbon-sequestering, weed-resistant and highly profitable crop currently grown in 31 countries. It became all the more puzzling that hemp farming is illegal in the U.S. when in reality this renewable resource is used to make thousands of sustainable products and offers solutions for global warming, nutrition, poverty and deforestation. Our exchange goes into details about hemp building and other uses, and initiatives to change the laws led by groups such as Vote Hemp and Hemp Industries Association. Hopefully this entertaining and highly informative film will help wake up the American public to the sham that hemp prohibition is, and inspire the political changes needed to make this vital natural resource available to U.S. farmers, industry and consumers.

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With Benjamin von Mendelssohn, Activist and Community Pioneer

Intentional community projects such as Arcosanti in Arizona, Auroville in Southern India and Damanhur in Northern Italy have all contributed to the sustainability equation, which is as much about personal psychology, lifestyle choices and social dynamics as it is about well designed infrastructures and renewable resources. Tamera was founded two decades ago in Portugal as a “peace research center and healing biotope.” The experimental community combines innovations in social systems that support inner and outer peace, with an applied holistic relationship with their local ecology. This 45 minute exchange with Benjamin von Mendelssohn, a next generation leader in the community, goes into detail about the project‘s history and current activities. One of the most significant initiatives was the renewal of their 400 acre property through ingenious water retention techniques. Current projects include a high tech solar village integrating a comprehensive combination of solar technologies, environmentally sound energy storage and food production, intelligent greenhouses, and other innovations.

We also discuss the community’s many educational and service outreach programs. Their informative website is in English, German and Portuguese www.tamera.org.

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With Adam C. Hall, author of The Earthkeeper: Undeveloping the Future

Adam C. Hall made a fortune in real estate development as a master of structured finance. He was living what he understood to be the American Dream. But it all came apart, like a fractured picture of perfection, as he sought meaning in his life as a human being. His journey of discovery, both within himself and as witness to the miraculous works of the natural world, led to his founding new ventures in service of the planet, and authoring The Earthkeeper: Undeveloping the Future, a very personal and bold account of his experiences, and a comprehensive reference on current environmental initiatives and groups. Following a philosophy he calls Earthonomics and the quadruple bottom line (people, planet, profits, peace), his Certified B Corporation Earthkeeper Alliance, invests in thousands of acres throughout the U.S. as land stewards for conservation and “undevelopment.” The Alliance donates 10% of profits to its sister non-profit Earth Services, Inc., which is a major facilitator of the urban gardening movement among youth in major American cities, and promotes the “Earthkeeper Movement.” This conversation should be an inspiration for everyone looking for the deeper reality behind the façade of consumer culture, but especially for those people who represent financial institutions and corporations that have the opportunity (the responsibility?) to play a role in the shift to sustainability – vs. continuing on with “business as usual.”

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With Jim Channon, Futurist, Shaman, Eco-visionary

Jim Channon was a Lieutenant Colonel in U.S. Army before before spending 20 years as a “strategic shaman” for generals and leaders of Fortune 100 companies. He was the inspiration for Jeff Bridges’ role in the film Men Who Stare At Goats, and is the author of several books including the First Earth Battalion Operations Manual for the Army. This one hour conversation unveils an overall blueprint for moving our human evolution out of darkness (and dark influences) and into the light – as stewards of this living planet, vs. its destroyers. A key approach to our transformation is what Channon calls “social architecture.” The conversion of our military forces from armed conflicts to a New Earth Army focused on disaster management and Earth remediation, transforming local communities and building eco-villages and green cities, creating a global capital and spaceport for extraterrestrial relations are some of the provocative topics covered in this inspired exchange, as well as Jim’s concisely stated comprehensive Plan for a thriving future.

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With indigenous leader Chief Phil Lane Jr. and Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler

In January 2013, at the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, an historical event was held: the Gathering to Protect the Sacred from Tar Sands Projects. There, representatives of Native Americans, Canadian First Nations, Indigenous Nations and their allies, including farmers and ranchers, business and environmental leaders, leading treaty and environmental lawyers, news media, and other concerned citizens gathered for the signing of the International Treaty to Protect the Sacred from Tar Sands Projects. This treaty brings many associated parties into solidarity to block the Keystone XL TransCanada Pipeline from destroying hundreds of vital natural ecologies, including many designated as historical sacred grounds, as well as unleashing the dirtiest, most polluting oil extraction industry in history that would have a devastating impact on not only Canadian and American environments, but on the lives of countless species, including humans, worldwide. This conversation with Chief Phil Lane Jr., an indigenous leader and founder of the Four Worlds International Institute, and Rex Weyler, writer, activist, and co-founder of Greenpeace, reveals the grave prospects of the Keystone Pipeline projects, and the growing power of the Protect the Sacred campaign as it unites Indigenous Peoples against this misguided assault by the oil industry and the Canadian government on our planet and our humanity. Chief Lane and Rex presented a landmark document at the gathering, “The Critical State of Our Mother Earth” which presents a sobering assessment of our situation and a call for “unprecedented unified action” to change the path we are taking as a culture.

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With Dane Wigington of GeoEngineering Watch

Weather modification has been going on for decades, without the knowledge, not to mention consent of the global population. In this info-intense exchange, Dane Wigington of GeoEngineeringWatch.org conveys the shocking reality of constant worldwide toxification of the biosphere and manipulation of weather patterns via chemtrails (1000 planes flying daily) and ionospheric heaters (the HAARP facility in Alaska is only one of many). Whereas Eco-Evolution is mostly focused on the brave and pioneering work people and organizations are doing to facilitate our shift to sustainability, this program addresses an unrecognized major factor in global warming, and an astounding violation of human rights, ecological ethics and international laws. A growing body of data suggests that partnerships between national governments, military forces, military contractors such as Raytheon, major universities and corporate profiteers are carrying out an ongoing, devastating assault on humanity and our planet. Our environmental groups, health organizations, academics, churches and human rights groups have so far been largely unaware of this tragedy, by design. The mass media and weather reporting systems have been influenced by the forces behind this practice, to hide it from the pubic. The work of researchers such as Dane and films such as Why In the World are They Spraying is bringing this most disturbing story of the modern era to light. It is a story that must be changed, and soon.

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With Howard Williams of Construction Specialties
The built environment is one of the most important dimensions of the sustainability movement. While green architectural designs promise low carbon footprint projects, and green building practices lesson the construction industry’s negative ecological impact, the sourcing and production of construction materials is a key to not only a healthy environment but also to human health. Construction Specialties of Lebanon, New Jersey, founded in 1968 with current annual sales of $350,000,000, has a leadership position in the international construction industry, supplying fabricated building materials to iconic architectural projects. Since the mid-1990s the firm has been on a path to sustainability, eliminating toxic waste from their manufacturing processes, achieving Cradle to Cradle certification for many of their products, greening their supply chain and adopting ecologically responsible practices in the local regions of their plants. The conversation covers the origin of the company’s green ambitions, their progress along the way and their many awards, the eco evolution of the construction industry, the green architecture movement, and other companies that are leading the way in the field.

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At the core of consciousness researcher and pioneering psychologist Ralph Metzner’s work is an attempt to understand our eco-psychology: how we as human beings relate to the natural world. Recorded at the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies conference in Oakland, California (the annual gathering of scientific research on the healing and psychological effects of entheogenic and psychedelic agents found in nature) this Earth Day 2013 edition of Eco Evolution is a wide-ranging conversation with one of the most informed minds on the human condition, and potential. Topics include Metzner’s work with Theodore Roszak launching the field of eco-psychology and the Green Earth Foundation as a clearinghouse, deep ecology, plants as healing agents and “teachers”, shamanism, cannabis and entheogens used for veteran’s post traumatic stress syndrome, bio-regionalism, community currencies and banking systems, the role of media in our eco evolution, and more. Underlying this conversation is a deepening awareness in our collective psyche that we are out of balance with the divine, and that this divinity reveals itself in the loving intelligence of the living planet in which we are embedded.

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As we foster regional, corporate and social transformation toward a sustainable world, Silicon Valley stands at the epicenter of all three spheres of change. As a region, its local institutions are committed to adopting sustainable community design and practices. As home to some of the most influential technology companies on the planet, this is a community that can accelerate the greening of the international ICT sector. And as the innovation center of the digital world, Silicon Valley visionaries are uniquely positioned to launch a new generation of tools and services to facilitate our shift to sustainability. Marianna Grossman, the Executive Director of Sustainable Silicon Valley, has not only pursued the non-profit’s original multi-stakeholder mission to develop a regional environmental management system, but also has developed a number of programs that are bringing Silicon Valley’s best and brightest together addressing the technology industry’s current and potential contributions to sustainability in both its practices and its products and services. This conversation covers a lot of territory, including SSV’s work with NASA, regional initiatives, and corporate engagement in the global shift movement. The bottom line: we are counting on American ingenuity to invent the New American Dream – of a world in which our grandchildren will thrive.

Sustainable Silicon Valley
http://sustainablesv.org

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