Tag: blessed unrest 2020

Steve Weinberg champions win-win solutions with a focus on initiatives that cultivate vibrant and sustainable communities and businesses.  In the late 1990s Steve learned about Paul Hawken’s work with a sustainability framework, The Natural Step, which informed Steve about systems thinking and a change process adopted by small and large business and communities alike.  Steve’s successive visits…

Florence Reed is a prize-winning thought leader, innovative practitioner, and deeply engaging speaker who believes that when people work together, things can change for the better. This belief led her to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras in the early nineties. In 1997, Reed founded Sustainable Harvest International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to working…

Nick Rabb is a PhD student at Tufts University jointly studying computer science and cognitive science. His research areas have included explanatory and scientific reasoning, and computational social simulations including ideology-driven population-level behavior and its interaction with “fake news.” He organizes with the Sunrise Movement’s Boston hub as well as with Massachusetts Peace Action, and frequently…

Sven Pihl, founder of CT Edible Ecosystems, LLC is a Regenerative Land Planner/Designer and Permaculture educator based in Connecticut. Sven designs multifunctional Edible Landscapes and Forest Gardens for homes, commercial properties, campuses and public spaces. He’s passionate about regenerative landscape design to create productive agro-ecosystems. Sven’s beginnings were with the financial crash of 2008 where he…

Precious Phiri is a smallholder farmer, regenerative agriculture practitioner and trainer  based in Zimbabwe. She is also an accredited Field Professional in Holistic Management education for communities with the Savory Institute. She works with rural communities through her organization EarthWisdom Consulting and other partners both in southern and east Africa to regenerate degraded communal lands. Precious…

Holly M. Paar is the Advancement Director for Dogwood Alliance, a Southern US based nonprofit mobilizing diverse voices to protect southern forests and communities from destructive industrial logging. Her work involves coordinating with frontline communities and partners at the intersection of climate, forests and justice, including Dogwood’s participation in the Justice First Tour, launched by Reverend Leo…

Elizabeth Monson, PhD, is the Spiritual Co-Director of Natural Dharma Fellowship and the Managing Teacher at Wonderwell Mountain Refuge, a Buddhist meditation retreat center in Springfield, NH. Elizabeth holds a Doctorate in Religious Studies with a focus in Tibetan Buddhism and Ethics from Harvard University. She has been studying, practicing, and teaching Buddhism for over thirty years and has been…

Dr. Pablo Suarez’s research focuses on the use of information for reducing vulnerability. He is associate director of programs for the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre, and an advisor for Oxfam America’s Private Sector Team. He has consulted for the United Nations Environment Programe, the World Bank, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the International Institute…

Janot Mendler de Suarez is aTechnical Advisor & Caribbean focal point for the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, a consultant to the World Bank for the Caribbean CREWS (Climate Risk Early Warning Services), and a Visiting Research Fellow at Boston University Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future.  She is an innovator in the…

Jim Laurie is a restoration biologist and co-founder of Biodiversity for a Livable Climate. He was manager of the Vermont “Living Machine” which was designed by ecological visionary John Todd. This biodiverse system treated 80,000 gallons of sewage per day. For 20 years he was a biologist and technical trainer in the chemical industry in Houston, Texas, where his…

Jan Lambert  is an environmental writer and editor of The Valley Green Journal www.valleygreenjournal.com , which addresses connections of agriculture, nature and communities. She has been a working partner with internationally recognized hydrological scientist Michal Kravčík, in promoting awareness of the central role of water cycles for environmental sustainability, via her journal and her book, Water, Land and Climate–The Critical Connection, published in October…

Susan Jennings became Executive Director of The Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions (AMICS) in 2014. Since that time, she has partnered with the AMICS board to implement a new strategic plan oriented toward the support of resilient communities. She also led AMICS in the 2017 purchase of Agraria, a 128-acre farm on the outskirts of Yellow Springs…

Hayat Imam is an American-Muslim of Bangladeshi origin. She is a feminist-activist committed to building global social justice movements. Her efforts have been directed towards nuclear disarmament, renewable energy, and economic opportunities for women. Former Executive Director of the Boston Women’s Fund, she has written and organized extensively on violence against women, and is co-author of Watermelons Not…

Claire Hedberg is a 15-year-old climate justice activist with Zero Hour and Polluters Out.  She was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala, but resides in Richmond, Virginia. Through her work, she hopes to spread awareness about the current crisis and empower communities of color and indigenous peoples. 

Anna Gilbert-Muhammad is the Food Access Coordinator of NOFA/Mass and lives in Springfield. She was born in New York City but, being the child of a Marine Corps father, lived in various places in California as well as Baltimore. While in California, although she was raised as a Roman Catholic, Anna became interested in the Nation…

Rev. Dele is a grandmother,author and pastor who opens the environmental narrative to include the voice of Mother Nature so we create JOY with our Impact. Trained as a Climate Reality Leader and spiritual director, she supports spiritual leaders and Earthkeepers who are struggling with burnout and rage. As grandmother, theologian and permaculture professor Dele teaches…

Ronnie Cummins is co-founder and International Director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) and its international affiliates Via Organica  (Mexico) and Regeneration International. OCA is a non-profit, U.S. based network of two million consumers, dedicated to safeguarding organic standards and promoting a healthy, just, and regenerative system of food, farming, and land use. OCA’s primary strategy is to work on national…

Cynthia Contie (BA, Psychology, MEd – Environment) started her Blessed Unrest journey while working in a high pressure corporate management position of 12 years in Minneapolis Minnesota.  Although her life was materially comfortable, she found herself deeply disturbed by our society’s fractured relationship with Nature, and particularly with the beings of the animal kingdom.  Seeking out…

Christopher Haines  is a seasoned architect licensed in both MA and NY who applies expertise in regenerative architectural design, healthy materials, preservation, renovation and specification writing to small commercial and urban projects. He has spoken for years at US and international forums as well as formally teaching sustainability and environmental management to undergraduate and graduate students.…

Iona Conner has been an environmental activist for more than five decades. The birth of her first child 53 years ago catapulted her into the realization that her daily choices had a direct bearing on the health of her son and the well-being of the Earth. She has been an active participant in the movement…

Arielle Martinez Cohen is a singer, songwriter, producer, and activist from Los Angeles, CA. She has been working in the music business since she was nine years old, singing back-up vocals for artists such as Macklemore, Imagine Dragons, Frank Ocean, and Foster The People, and appearing on the Jimmy Kimmel Show and Conan O’Brien Show, among…

When Rachel Burger, a South Portland, Maine resident and new grandmother, heard about Exxon Mobil’s plans – to use a World-War-II-era pipeline to pump millions of gallons of dirty tar sands oil through Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, crossing over rivers, the Sebago Lake watershed and right out into Casco Bay, risking nearly all of…

Roland Bunch is one of the most well-respected leaders in regenerative land management, both in terms of food security and for addressing ecological degradation and climate change. He has worked as a consultant in sustainable agricultural development for over 45 NGOs and governments in 50 nations, including Cornell University, the Ford Foundation, Oxfam, Save the Children,…

Rabbi Ellen Bernstein founded Shomrei Adamah, Keepers of the Earth, the first U.S. Jewish environmental organization in 1988.  She graduated one of the first environmental studies programs at U.C. Berkeley; co-directed Turtle River, a wilderness river company; helped develop the field of religion and ecology; and authored numerous articles and books on Judaism, Bible and…

Alfred Brownell is an environmental and human rights lawyer and executive director of Green Advocates (GA), a Liberian NGO that he founded in order to represent communities seeking to protect their environmental and human rights. Brownell also established a network to connect community-based organizations throughout Liberia—the Alliance for Rural Democracy (ARD)—to collaborate on environmental justice…