Episode Details

Why Community?

It’s easy to feel despair about climate change and environmental destruction. But despair can make it hard to forge connections and take action. According to emotion researchers, hope means believing that you have the power to improve problems, rather than ignoring them. One possible source of hope? Community building events, where diverse groups of activists can find common ground.

What is Bioneers?

Climate Break spoke with Teo Grossman, Senior Director of Programs and Research for the longstanding environmental conference Bioneers, about how community building events like the Bioneers conference foster hope and catalyze action. Now in its 34th year, Bioneers is an interdisciplinary environmental organization whose annual conference brings together environmental advocates and innovators from a wide variety of disciplines to share stories and brainstorm solutions. Grossman joined Bioneers in 2014 but first spoke there while still a college student in the early 2000s. He says his time at Bioneers has convinced him that community events and storytelling are powerful tools for change. 

Bioneers’s History

Throughout its history, Bioneers has been home to new ways of thinking about environmental activism.The annual conference helped spawn major climate organizations like 350.org and inspired some of Michael Pollan’s early work on the food system. Grossman also highlights its role in advancing the Rights of Nature legal movement. Rights of Nature seeks to recognize nature itself – like bodies of water and endangered species – as having legal rights. In 2008, Bolivia became the first country to include explicit rights for nature in their constitution. Other countries have since followed suit. 

Bioneers Today

Bioneers has expanded since its inception, and now includes year round media and educational programming in addition to its annual conference. Grossman says they’re especially proud of their Native-led Indigeneity Program, which includes youth leadership scholarships and forums. 

This year's conference includes speakers from throughout the world of climate and environmental justice, including political scientist Leah Stokes, clean-tech entrepreneur Danny Kennedy, and One Fair Wage President Saru Jayaraman. Also on the agenda? Conversations about the role fiction writing and narrative can play in restoring hope to the environmental movement, hosted by science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson and essayist Rebecca Solnit.  Bioneers is holding its annual conference April 6-8 in Berkeley. You can learn more about the conference on their website.

Other Resources for Finding Community

In addition to Bioneers, there are plenty of other ways to find hope and connect with the environmental movement. Interested in making decarbonization your job? Resources like Climatebase and Work on Climate offer centralized job listings and career support. You can also seek workshops and seminars to hear new perspectives on environmental issues. In