Janine Benyus, a winner of countless prestigious awards, world-renowned biologist, thought leader, innovation consultant and author of six books, including 1997’s foundational text, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, is widely considered the “godmother of Biomimicry.” In 1998, she co-founded the Biomimicry Guild, which morphed into Biomimicry 3.8, a B-Corp social enterprise providing biomimicry consulting services to a slew of major firms and institutions. In 2006, Janine co-founded The Biomimicry Institute, a non-profit institute to embed biomimicry in formal education, and over 11,000 members are now part of the Biomimicry Global Network. Among various other roles, Janine serves on the board of the U.S. Green Building Council, the advisory board for the Ray C. Anderson Foundation, the advisory board for Project Drawdown and as an affiliate faculty member at The Biomimicry Center at Arizona State University.

Youth Leadership: Asa Miller – Viva el Vivero: Finding the Besty Nursery for Cuba’s Coral
Asa Miller has taken a simple yet revolutionary step to contributing to solving the climate crisis, one that doesn’t involve convincing others with data or investing billions in new technologies: he decided to reconnect with his roots and help restore a part of his ancestral homeland. A multi-award-winning marine conservationist and his town’s Youth Poet Laureate, Asa returned to his native Cuba in an effort to help restore the country’s coral reefs, and found there communities not paralyzed by the injustices of climate change but catalyzed by their love of their land and its living things. Asa will share his challenges and rewards working with our under-resourced neighbor, and the lessons he brings back to our own over-resourced world.

In 2024, the removal of four dams on the Klamath River marked a historic victory for an Indigenous-led movement, achieving the largest river restoration project in history. A revolutionary approach is underway, blending Indigenous knowledge, modern science, and sustainable practices, and the early results are remarkable—salmon are returning in unexpected abundance to spawning grounds that have been inaccessible for 100 years. Today, Amy Bowers Cordalis, mother, fisherwoman, Executive Director, Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group and former general counsel of the Yurok Tribe who has played a major role in this struggle, will highlight the Indigenous values and lessons from the Klamath, showcasing nature-based solutions that heal the land, waters, and people while benefiting the economy. The goal is to restore the river as a living relative, ensuring its health for generations. The Klamath’s renewal is not just history—it’s a path forward for all.

We’re at a dire point in the human story, with temperatures higher than they’ve been in 125,000 years, but we have one secret weapon: the sudden and rapid drop in the price of energy from the sun. In his talk, Bill McKibben, one of the earliest to warn of the risks of climate change decades ago and in our view the most impactful climate activist of our era, will explain that we have a fleeting chance for a truly transformative reorientation of the way our world works…but we will need everyone to make it happen.

California is harnessing the power of nature to tackle climate change and build resilience against wildfires, droughts, floods, and extreme heat. By restoring ecosystems and integrating natural infrastructure into climate policy, we are enhancing biodiversity, improving public health, and supporting sustainable communities. Secretary Crowfoot addresses California’s commitment to Nature-Based Solutions as a cornerstone of climate action, its influence on national and global initiatives, and the importance of continued investment and collaboration to protect people, economies, and ecosystems.

As author, broadcaster and scholar Thom Hartmann sees it, the lines between corporate power, billionaire interests, government authority, public “knowledge,” and foreign influence have not just blurred — they’re vanishing. This is not just politics as usual; this is an emergency. When has any small group of private citizens held such sway over both domestic and foreign policy? The America we once knew — where elected officials were accountable to voters rather than billionaires — is slipping away. This erosion of democracy is largely due to five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court ruling that political bribery equals “free speech,” allowing billionaires to flood our 2024 election with money. In truth, this long-developing alliance between American oligarchs and the Supreme Court marks a climactic corporate endgame to replace American democracy with plutocratic autocracy. Do we, the American people, still possess the power and will to challenge this oligarchic takeover? Yes, says Hartmann. This is a call to action.

The city of Richmond has provided an impressive example of highly effective progressive grassroots organizing that has included the building of groundbreaking citizens’ organizations, local institutions and co-operatives and successful electoral campaigns, as well as a major Environmental Justice victory in a decades-long struggle with Chevron, whose massive facilities have long polluted the region. One of the most important figures in this exemplary community is Doria Robinson whose multi-faceted activism has been a key element in its successes. She’s been the Executive Director since 2007 of Urban Tilth, a renowned urban food project building a more sustainable, healthy, and just food system and helped nurture the birth of many local initiatives from bicycle co-ops to urban “greening” projects. Now serving on Richmond’s city council, Doria will share with us some of what she has learned in her decades of building people’s power from the ground up.

We are facing so many crises—climatological, technological, “democratilogical”—that even the use of the word “crisis” has reached crisis levels. While there are of course policies and investments and direct actions we need to fervently work on in response, we also need to pay attention to the story, because what we tell ourselves about ourselves shapes how we show up in these times. Baratunde Thurston, host and Executive Producer of the PBS TV series America Outdoors, creator of the How To Citizen and Life with Machines podcasts, and author of the comedic memoir How to Be Black, will share those stories he has been unearthing about our relationships with the natural world, our fellow humans, and even with machines, that provide strong hints of where we need to go and how to get there.

For generations, Indigenous science has safeguarded ecosystems worldwide—yet mainstream environmental solutions continue to sideline it. As climate crises escalate, young activists are reclaiming these knowledge systems, challenging colonial frameworks, and forging global solidarity. Drawing from my family’s six-generation history in India’s tea industry and my work decolonizing environmental education at UC Berkeley and through my nonprofit, Project Planet, this talk explores how students and youth-led movements are reshaping the fight for climate justice by centering Indigenous knowledge. The future of sustainability isn’t about reinventing solutions—it’s about reclaiming the roots that have long sustained our planet. The question is: will we listen?

César Rodríguez-Garavito, an Earth Rights scholar, lawyer, and founding Director of the MOTH (More-Than-Human) Rights Program at NYU School of Law, has advanced new ideas and legal actions worldwide on issues such as climate justice, Indigenous rights, and what he proposes to call “more-than-human rights,” which are as much a legal proposition as they are a story about our relationship with the more-than-human world. Drawing on his fieldwork and participation in legal actions advancing the rights of nature around the world, César will tell a renewed story about the living world: one in which all of nature is alive; where human and nonhuman animals, plants, fungi, rivers, forests, oceans, and other ecosystems are all animate, subjects of moral and legal consideration, and entangled in the planetary web of life.