Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature

In the face of global climate disruption, two billion people worldwide will be challenged by too much water, and nearly another two billion by not enough. When you fight nature, you lose, says Dutch water wizard and designer Henk Ovink. He’s dramatically demonstrating on large scales how to shift our relationship to nature and to culture - and climate-proof our cities and coasts.

In Western civilization, human beings are considered the exceptional species and uniquely intelligent. Yet science is consistently revealing our intimate biological kinship with all species, especially the primates with whom we share 99% of our DNA. The breakthrough primatologist researchers Roger and Deborah Fouts take us on their amazing journey with chimpanzees that shows that, not only are people animals, but animals seem to be people too.

Poetry and Justice for All. Shailja Patels unique artistry is a provocative global mash-up of genres. Shes a slam poetry champion and star of her award-winning, one-woman play Migritude about the intricate webs of global migration and cultural identity. As an acclaimed poet of South Asian and Kenyan ancestry, through her fearless art she embodies the authentic voices of women, South Asians and Africans who are otherwise seldom heard. For her, the ultimate destination of poetry is justice -- too heart-breakingly beautiful to be denied.

The Migration of Grassroots Solutions. Innovations usually arise locally. If conditions are right, they spread globally. That story is playing out around the world today. In India, human rights activist Mallika Dutt designed an elegant media campaign that successfully interrupts domestic violence live in real time. High school science educator Jay Vavra helped his San Diego students save endangered species in Africa by using simple genetic identification technologies in local African bush meat markets. Nonprofit leader Shannon Horst employs holistic rangeland management techniques to stop the spread of deserts in Africa, the U.S. and worldwide. Whats spreading fastest is hope

Power Over or Power To? The future belongs to women. Around the world, women are inspiring each other to envision a world where women lead, but quite differently. Women are spontaneously redefining power and shaping it in novel ways. According to social justice advocate Gloria Feldt and community advocate Reinette Senum, leadership begins inside with power to rather than power over. How is the leadership of women benefitting us all?

Hello, My Other Self. In todays radically shifting world, the name of the game is resilience - the capacity of both human and ecological systems to absorb disturbance, roll with the punches and come up standing. Resilience arises from building community - enduring relationships and networks that hold cultural memory in the same way seeds regenerate a forest after a fire. Indigenous leaders Ilarion Larry Merculieff and Guadalupe Avila come from old-growth cultures that have sustained community over centuries and millennia.

Treehuggers, Earth Acupuncture and Community Forests. Los Angeles as a lighthouse of environmental restoration? You bet. After 40 years of increasingly connected neighborhood actions restoring the landscape of the City of Angels, Andy Lipkis and TreePeople, the legendary group he founded, are ready to scale up. After catalyzing the first major urban Department of the Watershed, TreePeople and friends are motivating millions of Angelenos to grow environmental and community interconnectedness across the entire L.A. watershed. Next destination: all Southern California.

Rainbow in the Heart: Dr. Jane Goodalls Reasons for Hope. The visionary primatologist and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall revolutionized primatology and helped us realize how close our kinship is with the animal kin-dom. It has been 50 years since Dr. Jane, as shes affectionately known, began her intensive solitary studies of chimp behavior In Africas Gombe National Forest and inspired the world to save the rapidly dwindling populations and their habitats. Today her compelling vision in action to restore people, animals and planet is delivering real hope.

The Clean Energy Climate ChallengeThe climate crisis is a crisis of governance and leadership. Will we move rapidly enough to realign our policies, politics and economy to stabilize the climate? Creative and innovative people from all walks of life are stepping forward to address the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. Community organizers Susan Marshall and John Fogarty are taking power local. Youth advocate Alec Loorz is mobilizing young people worldwide for the defining issue of their lives. NASAandapos;s chief climatologist James Hansen says theres still time.

From Hippie to Hip to Scale. Though still small in the big picture, organic food has come all the way -- from hippie to hip to mainstream since the Sixties. But can organic food and fair food ever feed seven billion people? How can the entire food chain become sustainable? And does sustainability stack up to profitability? Visionary food entrepreneur Gary Hirshberg answers those questions with a resounding yes. As founder and CEO of Stonyfield Farm, the worlds largest organic yogurt company, Hirshberg has demonstrated that environmentally and socially responsible business can also be profitable.