Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Isaac Siegel at isaac.siegel@colorado.edu
Hope. Inspiration. Vision. Excitement. Expansion. Understanding. These words are left ruminating in my mind following this weekend’s Front Range Bioneers Conference.
Bioneers is a “fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges.” While the non-profit organization serves many purposes throughout the year, the climactic event is the annual conference that takes place in San Rafael, Calif. This event is a colloquium, in which founder Kenny Ausubel believes: “You can see tomorrow today, a future environment of hope.”
The primary conference took place on Oct. 16-18. However, a satellite conference, in which many broadcasts from the original were projected, coined as Front Range Bioneers, took place this past weekend, Oct. 23-25. I engaged in this conference as a student, a participant in workshop-style discussion and learned of hope for our planet’s struggling, yet promising integrated social and environmental systems.
Over the course of three days, I heard from numerous local experts in the fields of food production and distribution, social justice, incarceration, permaculture, anthropology, ethnography, biology, science-fiction, feminine studies, climate science, technology and ecology — just to name a few. At the intersection of these fields was concern, love and support for our global community to grow in a sustainable and diverse way.
If you missed the conference, be sure to check out videos from keynote speakers on the Bioneers media page. In addition to the annual conference, the Front Range Bioneers group hosts a monthly potluck in which interested individuals come together to eat and discuss relevant environmental and social issues and progressions.
