Urban Forests: A Nature-Based Solution to Climate Breakdown and Inequality

Visionary clean energy entrepreneur Danny Kennedy explores the promise and challenges of the epic civilizational transition to renewable energy. Without doubt, the shift has hit the fan, but will we make the transition in time to avert complete climate breakdown? Danny Kennedy says we can – and the real heroes will be millions of clean energy entrepreneurs and startups, in partnership with the determined leadership of Indigenous Peoples arising worldwide. Featuring Danny Kennedy, with a long background in eco activism, has become one of the nation’s leading figures in clean-technology entrepreneurship and the capitalization of the transition to a “green” economy. Kennedy is currently CEO of New Energy Nexus, a global nonprofit providing funds, accelerators, and networks to drive clean energy innovation and adoption. Credits Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel Written by: Kenny Ausubel Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris Producer: Teo Grossman Resources Danny Kennedy – The Charging 20s | Bioneers 2023 Keynote Danny Kennedy – Optimizing the Energy Transition | Bioneers 2016 Keynote This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

We are sharing an episode from our friends at Future Ecologies. Future Ecologies is a podcast exploring our eco-social relationships through stories, science, music, and soundscapes. Every episode is an invitation to see the world in a new light — weaving together narrative and interviews with expert knowledge holders. We will be back next week with an episode of the Bioneers. Here is more about the episode we are featuring: Food security, climate adaptation, and vibrant biodiversity all in one place — welcome to the ancient and diverse technologies of Sea Gardening.   These widespread (but often overlooked) monumental rock features are proof positive of thriving Indigenous maricultural systems all around the Pacific Rim, since time immemorial.   These spaces are not only simply stunningly beautiful spots to hang out, they're also a powerful symbol of eco-cultural restoration; of Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination, and internationalism; of relationship building; and of the kind of future that is possible as we adapt to a changing climate and rising sea levels. We hope you find them as inspiring as we do.   Join us as we visit a sea garden, learn about how they work, and meet a few of the people bringing them back to life.   Visit futureecologies.net/listen/fe-6-2-sea-garden for full credits, links, citations, photos, a transcript, and more.

New, democratized access to powerful analytical and mapping tools is transforming our understanding of the natural world – and with it, our ability to meaningfully conserve, protect and restore our collective home – the biosphere. In this program, we explore the boundless possibilities of digital maps and platforms with Rebecca Moore, visionary founder of Google Earth Outreach and Google Earth Engine. This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

Visionary urban planners and community organizers recognize that effectively addressing the climate crisis requires drawing down carbon out of the atmosphere and sequestering it back where it belongs in natural systems. Urban forestry is a nature-based solution that simultaneously addresses the parallel crises of climate change and wealth inequality. With Brett KenCairn, Boulder city Senior Advisor and Samira Malone, Urban Forestry Program Manager at the Urban Sustainability Directors Network.

Over 7,000 languages are spoken around the world. Each one reflects a rich ecosystem of ideas - seeds that grow into a multitude of worldviews. Today, many of these immeasurably precious knowledge systems are endangered - often spoken by just a handful of people. We hear from two Indigenous language champions, Jeannette Armstrong and Rowen White. They reflect on the words, stories, songs and ideas that influence our very conception of nature, and our place within it. This is an episode of Nature’s Genius, a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. Visit the series page to learn more. Featuring Jeannette Armstrong, Ph.D., (Okanagan) is an Indigenous author, teacher, ecologist, and a culture bearer for her Native language. She is also Co-founder of the En'owkin Centre. Rowen White (Mohawk) is a seed keeper and farmer, and part of the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network. She operates a living seed bank called Sierra Seeds. Resources En’owkin Centre Indigenous Seed Keepers Network Sierra Seeds Language Keepers: The Struggle for Indigenous Language Survival in California Hand Talk, Native American Sign Language Native Seed Rematriation Credits Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel Written by: Cathy Edwards and Kenny Ausubel Produced by: Cathy Edwards Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch Associate Producer: Emily Harris Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey Program Engineers: Kaleb Wentzel Fisher and Emily Harris Producer: Teo Grossman Graphic Designer: Megan Howe

In this age of global weirding where climate disruption has tumbled the Goldilocks effect into unruly surges of too much and too little water, the restoration of beavers offers ancient nature-based solutions to the tangle of challenges bedeviling human civilization. Droughts, floods, soil erosion, climate change, biodiversity loss – you name it, and beaver is on it. In this episode, Kate Lundquist and Brock Dolman of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center share their semi-aquatic journey to becoming Beaver Believers. They are part of a passionate global movement to bring back our rodent relatives who show us how to heal nature by working with nature. This is an episode of Nature’s Genius, a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. Visit the series page to learn more. Featuring Kate Lundquist, co-director of the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center’s WATER Institute and the Bring Back the Beaver Campaign in Sonoma County, is a conservationist, educator and ecological artist who works with landowners, communities and resource agencies to uncover obstacles, identify strategic solutions, and generate restoration recommendations to assure healthy watersheds, water security, listed species recovery and climate change resiliency. Brock Dolman, co-founded (in 1994) the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center where he co-directs the WATER Institute. A wildlife biologist and watershed ecologist, he has been actively promoting “Bringing Back Beaver in California” since the early 2000s. He was given the Salmonid Restoration Federation’s coveted Golden Pipe Award in 2012: “…for his leading role as a proponent of “working with beavers” to restore native habitat. Resources Beaver Believer: How Massive Rodents Could Restore Landscapes and Ecosystems At Scale Fire and Water: Land and Watershed Management in the Age of Climate Change Brock Dolman – Basins of Relations: A Reverential Rehydration Revolution From Kingdom to Kin-dom: Acting As If We Have Relatives Brock Dolman, Paul Stamets and Brian Thomas Swimme The WATER Institute’s Beaver in California reader Bioneers – Where Water, Flows Life Thrives - Ensuring Drought Resilience and Water Security for Farms, People and Ecosystems Credits Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel Written by: Kenny Ausubel Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris Producer: Teo Grossman Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey Production Assistance: Monica Lopez Graphic Designer: Megan Howe

We trek into the ancient old-growth forest where the trees reveal an ecological parable: A forest is a mightily interwoven community of diverse life that runs on symbiosis. With: Doctors Suzanne Simard and Teresa Ryan, ecologists whose work has helped reveal an elaborate tapestry of kinship, cooperation and mutual aid. This is an episode of Nature’s Genius, a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. Visit the series page to learn more. Featuring Dr. Sm’hayetsk Teresa Ryan is Gitlan, Tsm’syen. Indigenous Knowledge and Natural Science Lecturer at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Forestry, Forest & Conservation Sciences. As a fisheries/aquatic/forest ecologist, she is currently investigating relationships between salmon and healthy forests. Dr. Suzanne Simard, Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia and author of the bestselling, Finding the Mother Tree, is a highly influential, researcher on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence. Resources Forest Wisdom, Mother Trees and the Science of Community | Bioneers Podcast Suzanne Simard – Dispatches From the Mother Trees | Bioneers 2021 Keynote Suzanne Simard – Dealing with Backlash Against Nature-Based Solutions to Climate Change | Bioneers 2024 Keynote The Wood Wide Web: The Intelligent Underground Mycelial Network | Bioneers interview with Suzanne Simard Unraveling the Secrets of Salmon: An Indigenous Exploration of Forest Ecology and Nature’s Intelligence | Bioneers interview with Teresa Ryan Teresa Ryan: How Trees Communicate | Bioneers 2017 Keynote Deep Dive: Intelligence in Nature Earthlings: Intelligence in Nature | Bioneers Newsletter Credits Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel Written by: Cathy Edwards and Kenny Ausubel Produced by: Cathy Edwards Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris Producer: Teo Grossman Graphic Designer: Megan Howe

Nature’s Genius is a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. For all the talk about the Age of Information, what we’re really entering is the Age of Nature. As we face the reality that, as humans, we have the capacity to destroy the conditions conducive to life, avoiding this fate requires a radical change in our relationship to nature, and how we view it. Looking to nature to heal nature, and ourselves, is essential.  Traditional Indigenous wisdom and modern science show us that everything is connected and that the solutions we need are present in the sentient symphony of life. We can learn from the time-tested principles, processes, and dynamics that have allowed living systems to flourish during 3.8 billion years of evolution.  In this enlightening series, we visit with scientists, ecologists, Indigenous practitioners of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, community organizers, and authors reporting from the frontlines of ecological restoration. They explore the intelligence inherent in nature and show us how to model human organization on living systems. Guests featured in the series include: Jeannette Armstrong - Co-Founder, Enwokin Centre; Brock Dolman - Co-Founder and Program Director, Occidental Arts and Ecology Center; Erica Gies - Author and Journalist; Brett KenCairn - Founding Director of Center for Regenerative Solutions; Toby Kiers - Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Co-Founder of SPUN; Kate Lundquist - Water Institute Co-Director, Occidental Arts and Ecology Center; Samira Malone - Urban Forestry Program Manager, Urban Sustainability Directors Network; Teresa Ryan - Teaching and Learning Fellow, Forest and Conservation Sciences Dept., Univ. of British Columbia; Merlin Sheldrake - Biologist and Author; Suzanne Simard - Author and Prof. of Forest Ecology, Univ. of British Columbia; Rowen White - Seedkeeper/Farmer and Author from the Mohawk community of Akwesasne Credits Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel Written by Cathy Edwards and Kenny Ausubel Produced by Cathy Edwards Senior Producer: Stephanie Welch Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris Producer: Teo Grossman Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey Post Production Assistants: Monica Lopez and Kaleb Wentzel-Fisher Graphic Designer: Megan Howe

Water makes life possible. From the tiniest bacteria to the tallest tree, every living thing relies on this irreplaceable substance. Erica Gies, author of “Water Always Wins,” explores water’s unique role in the web of life, and how we might repair and reshape our relationship with it. Rather than telling water what to do, maybe we should start by asking what it wants? This is an episode of Nature’s Genius, a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. Visit the series page to learn more. Featuring Erica Gies is an independent journalist, National Geographic Explorer, and the author of “Water Always Wins: Thriving in an age of drought and deluge.” She covers water, climate change, plants and wildlife for Scientific American, The New York Times, bioGraphic, Nature, and other publications. Credits Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel Written by: Cathy Edwards and Kenny Ausubel Produced by: Cathy Edwards Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris Producer: Teo Grossman Production Assistance: Kaleb Wentzel Fisher and Monica Lopez Graphic Designer: Megan Howe Resources Erica Gies – The Slow Water Movement: How to Thrive in an Age of Drought and Deluge | Bioneers 2024 Keynote Embracing Slow Water: Rediscovering the True Nature of Earth’s Lifeline | Excerpt from “Water Always Wins” Deep Dive: Intelligence in Nature Earthlings: Intelligence in Nature | Bioneers Newsletter

Imagine an underground web of mind-boggling complexity, a bustling cosmopolis beneath your feet. Quadrillions of miles of tiny threads in the soil pulsate with real-time messages, trade vital nutrients, and form life-giving symbiotic partnerships. This is the mysterious realm of fungi. Acclaimed visionary biologists Toby Kiers and Merlin Sheldrake guide us through the intricate wonders of the mycorrhizal fungal networks that make life on Earth possible. This is an episode of Nature’s Genius, a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. Visit the series page to learn more. Featuring Toby Kiers, Ph.D., is the Executive Director and Chief Scientist of SPUN (the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks) and a Professor of Evolutionary Biology at VU, Amsterdam. Merlin Sheldrake, Ph.D., is a biologist and writer with a background in plant sciences, microbiology, ecology, and the history and philosophy of science. He is currently a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, works with the SPUN, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation. Credits Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel Written by: Cathy Edwards and Kenny Ausubel Produced by: Cathy Edwards Senior Producer: Stephanie Welch Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey Producer: Teo Grossman Graphic Design: Megan Howe Resources Merlin Sheldrake – How Fungi Make our Worlds | Bioneers 2024 Keynote Merlin Sheldrake and Toby Kiers – Mapping, Protecting and Harnessing the Mycorrhizal Networks that Sustain Life on Earth | Bioneers 2024 Panel Discussion Interview with Merlin Sheldrake, Author of Entangled Life Deep Dive: Intelligence in Nature Earthlings: Intelligence in Nature | Bioneers Newsletter SPUN (the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks) Fungi Foundation