Jeremy Rifkin
Economist & Author
Jeremy Rifkin is the bestselling author of twenty books on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment.
In 2011, Jeremy Rifkin published the New York Times bestseller The Third Industrial Revolution, which captured the attention of the world. Mr. Rifkin’s vision of a sustainable, post carbon economic era has been endorsed by the European Union and the United Nations and embraced by world leaders including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President François Hollande of France, and Premier Li Keqiang of China.
Mr. Rifkin also served as an adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Jose Socrates of Portugal, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain, and Prime Minister Janez Janša of Slovenia, during their respective European Council Presidencies, on issues related to the economy, climate change, and energy security. He currently advises the European Commission, the European Parliament, and several EU and Asian heads of state.
Mr. Rifkin is also the principle architect of the European Union’s Third Industrial Revolution long-term economic sustainability plan to address the triple challenge of the global economic crisis, energy security, and climate change. The Third Industrial Revolution was formally endorsed by the European Parliament in 2007 and is now being implemented by various agencies within the European Commission as well as in the 27 member-states.
Bill McKibben
Activist & Author
Bill McKibben is an author and environmentalist. His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages. He is founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement. The Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was the 2013 winner of the Gandhi Prize and the Thomas Merton Prize, and holds honorary degrees from 18 colleges and universities; Foreign Policy named him to their inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers, and the Boston Globe said he was “probably America’s most important environmentalist.”
A former staff writer for the New Yorker, he writes frequently a wide variety of publications around the world, including the New York Review of Books, National Geographic, and Rolling Stone. He lives in the mountains above Lake Champlain with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern.
Joanna Macy
Eco-philospher & Author
Eco-philosopher Joanna Macy PhD, is a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. A respected voice in the movements for peace, justice, and ecology, she interweaves her scholarship with five decades of activism. As the root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, she has created a ground-breaking theoretical framework for personal and social change, as well as a powerful workshop methodology for its application. Her wide-ranging work addresses psychological and spiritual issues of the nuclear age, the cultivation of ecological awareness, and the fruitful resonance between Buddhist thought and contemporary science. The many dimensions of this work are explored in over ten published books.
Many thousands of people around the world have participated in Joanna’s workshops and trainings. Her group methods, known as the Work That Reconnects, have been adopted and adapted yet more widely in classrooms, churches, and grassroots organizing. Her work helps people transform despair and apathy, in the face of overwhelming social and ecological crises, into constructive, collaborative action. It brings a new way of seeing the world, as our larger living body, freeing us from the assumptions and attitudes that now threaten the continuity of life on Earth. Joanna travels widely giving lectures, workshops, and trainings in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia. She lives in Berkeley, California, near her children and grandchildren.
Danny Kennedy
Co-Founder of Sungevity
Danny Kennedy is co-founder of Sungevity, Inc. and leads the company’s global business development activities and government relations initiatives. He also plays a central role in developing the Sungevity.org program, an integral component of the company’s Solar Social strategy that has raised over $1 million since 2010 for Sungevity’s non-profit partners.
Kennedy has worked on environmental initiatives for over two decades and is an internationally recognized opinion leader on climate and energy issues. Prior to co-founding Sungevity, he was a campaigns manager with Greenpeace, the largest independent direct-action environmental organization in the world. Among his achievements was his management of Greenpeace’s California Clean Energy Campaign, which helped create the California Solar Initiative, the groundbreaking renewable energy program that ushered in the state’s solar energy boom. In 2010 Kennedy spearheaded Sungevity’s “Solar on the White House” campaign that resulted in a decision by the Obama administration to place solar panels on the First Family residence. The administration honored this commitment in August, 2013. Kennedy also published Rooftop Revolution, How Solar Power Can Save Our Economy–and Planet–From Dirty Energy, in the Fall of 2012, a book that has been described as the clean energy manifesto for the next greatest generation.
Kennedy serves on the board of the Solar Foundation, a global research and education organization in Washington DC, and Solar Mosaic, a solar crowd-funding start-up in Oakland, CA. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from Sydney, Australia’s Macquarie University.
Pandora Thomas
Environmental Educator & Sustainability Consultant
Pandora Thomas is passionate about connection…strengthening our connection to our own selves, between our communities, and to humans and the environment.
She is co-founder of Earthseed Consulting LLC, a holistic consulting firm whose work deepens the impacts of environmental design and advocacy in the lives of diverse communities. She also works as an independent consultant focusing on diversity and inclusion. She studied at Columbia University’s Teachers College and Tufts University. She is a credentialed multiple-subject teacher and curriculum designer, as well as a certified green building professional and permaculture teacher who has created and delivered curriculum and programming to pre-K through adult international audiences around biomimicry, sustainable design, and outdoor environmental education.
Thomas is a public speaker and lecturer, presenting around issues of social entrepreneurship, diversity, women’s leadership, the environment, and human rights. Her writing includes a children’s book, various curricula and a green-building manual for youth.
Most recently, she has been working with Toyota to successfully launch its first campaign targeting African Americans around sustainability as well as helping SFUSD integrate environmental education and permaculture design into its curriculum. She has studied and lived in over ten countries and some of her other achievements include presenting at Tedx Denver and SF, and fellowships from Columbia University Human Rights Program and Green For All’s Green Fellows Program. Her volunteer work includes serving as a Global Peer to four Nigerian women working to bring safe water technology to their communities and co-facilitating an environmental literacy course with the men of the Green Life Program in San Quentin.
Julian Mocine-Mcquine
Education and Outreach Director for Green For All
Julian is an Oakland native raised behind the redwood curtain of Humboldt County. He is a graduate of San Francisco State University who came to Green For All through his organizing work with The League of Young Voters. Julian’s passion for saving our people and our planet finds a vehicle in his work as Green For All’s Director of Education & Outreach.
Julian works with people around the country who are putting government investment dollars to work on a local level to build the green economy. He trains local leaders to build the green economy from the ground up by serving as the facilitator of the Green For All Academy. He trains leaders with the tools they need to communicate the promise of the green economy and to engage disadvantaged communities in support of green jobs and climate protection strategies. Julian works everyday to link local partners, lift those local best practices and models to national prominence, and leverage the success stories for large-scale change. Julian has been featured in The Nation, Wiretap magazine and The San Francisco Xpress, and has been recognized by the California Labor Archives for excellence in writing.
Diane Moss
Director of Renewables 100 Policy Institute
Diane Moss is a Founder of the Renewables 100 Policy Institute and an independent energy policy consultant. She is a Wall Street Journal Expert Panelist on energy issues, and her writing on renewable energy policy has additionally been published by the Heinrich Boell Foundation, Today’s Facility Manager, Cleantechnica, Huffington Post, among others. Ms. Moss was Nuclear Campaign Consultant to Friends of the Earth on the successful effort to shut down the San Onofre nuclear power plant after the discovery of faulty equipment. She has also served recently as U.S. Policy Advisor to World Future Council. Ms. Moss spearheaded and helped lead a campaign to defeat a proposed foreign liquefied natural gas import project that boasted a $100 million dollar lobbying arm.
From 2008-2011, she as Environmental Deputy to United States Congress member Jane Harman, where responsibilities included helping to bring that campaign to a successful conclusion, assisting the authoring of a landmark appliance efficiency provision and uphold Rep. Harman’s historic efficiency lighting legislation and other energy and environmental efforts. Ms. Moss previously founded dima-media, a media, marketing, and event company that specializes in sustainability related projects and campaigns. Clients have included the City of Malibu Mayor/Councilmember, Ballona Institute, Santa Monica Baykeeper, Clearwater Holdings, and Pyron Solar. She also produced events for German Parliamentarian Dr. Hermann Scheer and helped in the development and preparation of the award winning Fechner Media feature film about 100% renewable energy titled “4th Revolution.” She obtained her undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University and New York University and completed a thesis program in political science in Paris with professors from Science Po and HEC.