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2007 Presenter Bios
 Brahm Ahmadi was born is Iran, grew up in Los Angeles and now lives in Oakland, CA. Brahm is co-founder and Executive Director of People’s Grocery, a community-based nonprofit organization founded in 2002 that has attracted local and national attention for its effort to transform inner city food systems. He is also Executive Director of the North Oakland Land Trust, which dedicates land in North Oakland for community gardening.
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 Sharif Abdullah is an author, trainer and a leading catalyst for inclusive social, cultural and spiritual transformation. Sharif teaches groups and individuals how to understand and practice inclusivity – the connection with all other beings.
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 Abell is Executive Director of WAGES (Women’s Action to Gain Economic Security), a non-profit organization that has created three successful eco-friendly housecleaning cooperatives in the San Francisco Bay Area that provide good incomes, leadership opportunities, and healthy working conditions for the Latina immigrant women who own them, while
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 Author of Slow Is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure and Joie de Vivre (New Society Publishers), Andrews has a leadership role in the national volunteary simplicity movement.
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 Mark Anielski is the author of The Economics of Happiness: Building Genuine Wealth, which was published in June 2007 by New Society Publishers. Mark is a well-being economist, entrepreneur, professor and president of Anielski Management Inc. which specializes in measuring quality of life and sustainable well-being.
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 Jessica Assaf and Carly Wertheim, high school students from Marin County, are active members in the Teens for Safe Cosmetics Campaign. With passion and wisdom, they frequently speak at schools, to groups, and at large public events to educate others about this important cause.
Panel
Beauty News We Can All Use: The Truth About Cosmetic Safety
This esteemed and wide-ranging group comes together to help you make healthier choices about the products you spritz, spray and slather on your face and body every day.
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 Bayuk is a Permaculture Designer interested in designing sustainable human living systems that abundantly meet all of our needs while enhancing the environment in which we live, wonder and play.
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 A state-licensed journeyman electrician, Belfrey is outreach coordinator for GRID Alternatives, a nonprofit that provides free solar panel installations for lowincome homeowners.
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 A human rights and social justice supporter for more than 20 years, Medea Benjamin is coeditor of Stop the Next War Now and a cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK. Click here to see her talk.
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 Berman is a health integrationist and independent scholar who has been working with people on their individual health issues for the past twenty years. She is creator, co-host and co-producer of the Your Own Health And Fitness radio show featured on KPFA 94.1 FM and carried on 25 stations in the Pacifica Network.
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 Having received a master’s degree from the London School of Economics, Biggs is currently the director of the Local Economy Project for Global Exchange. She is currently working on her book, Minding Our Own Business.
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 Matthew Blom’s passion is working with individuals and groups in transforming conflict into collaboration. A graduate of the Bay Area Nonviolent Communication year long leadership program, Matthew is a professional mediator helping parties in conflict find peaceful, enjoyable solutions for all. In addition, he has facilitated groups of up to 300 people in Open Space Technology, including The National Conference for Dialogue and Deliberation and the US Project Speaking Peace conference.
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 Annie is the editor and producer of Care2's Healthy Living channels and Health and Wellness Series newsletters. She brings over 20 years of experience as a leading authority, writer and editor about the connections between the environment, personal health and well-being. Annie has authored four books, including her most recent work, Home Enlightenment: Practical, Earth-Friendly Advice for Creating a Nurturing, Healthy, and Toxin-Free Home and Lifestyle (Rodale, 2005).
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 Bower is Co-founder and Executive Director of greenmuseum.org, an online museum of environmental art, launched in 2001. He has a background as an artist, curator, designer and organizer in the arts, cultural exchange and environmental non-profit sectors in the United States and in Ecuador.
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 Wendy E. Brawer is a New York-based designer, public educator and consultant. She is best known as creator of NYC’s Green Apple Map and as Founding Director of the award-winning Green Map System, which has energized communities in over 50 countries to chart a sustainable future. In addition to producing maps and related websites (GreenMap.org, GreenAppleMap.org), books, exhibits and presentations, Wendy has taught, spoken and written on eco-design internationally since 1990.
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 Brooks is a grassroots organizer and San Francisco Community Choice advocate. He began with Ralph Nader's Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) in the mid 1980's and is now coordinator of the San Francisco based environmental, consumer protection, and social justice organization, Our City: www.our-city.org.
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 Dr. Capra is the author of four international bestsellers, The Tao of Physics (1975), The Turning Point (1982), Uncommon Wisdom (1988), and The Web of Life (1996). He coauthored Green Politics (1984), Belonging to the Universe (1991), and EcoManagement (1993), and coedited Steering Business Toward Sustainability (1995). His most recent book, The Hidden Connections, was published in 2002.
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 Caroline W. Casey is a Visionary Activist Astrologer, devoted to the principle that Imagination lays the tracks for the Reality Train to follow.
Based in Washington DC, Caroline broadcasts, for over ten years, her live weekly radio show, "The Visionary Activist Show", of which she is the host-creator-weaver-of-context, wedding spiritual magic to ingenious social action to Pacifica station KPFA (94.1) in Northern California , replayed on L.A.s KPFK.
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 Acknowledged as one of the world's greatest leaders in the field of mind body medicine, Deepak Chopra, continues to transform our understanding of the meaning of health. Through his creation of The Chopra Center for Well Being in California in 1996, Chopra established a formal vehicle for the expansion of his healing approach using the integration of the best of western medicine with natural healing traditions, in both conventional and complementary healing arts.
www.deepakchopra.com
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 Leafe Christian is author of Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities (New Society Publishers, 2003), and the new Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community (New Society Publishers, 2007). She was editor of Communities magazine for 14 years and now edits Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities, an online newsletter.
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 Cleary is chief operating officer of Clif Bar & Co, the leading maker of all-natural and organic energy and nutrition foods and drinks.
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 As a Northern California Cohousing regional organizer, Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC) boardmember and Communities magazine cohousing co-columnist, Certified Green Building Professional, Certified Senior Cohousing Facilitator, and Certified Green Business, Raines helps people create and find community, both intergenerational and for aging in place.
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 Culman is a USGBC-certified architect providing integrated design, planning and facilitation for green and sustainable projects through his firm, Solutions. He is also a founding member of the Business Council on Climate Change and board member for the Global Citizen Center.
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 Over the past 6 years, Supervisor Chris Daly has taken the lead at City Hall on affordable housing, tenants rights, homelessness, public health, the environment, and senior and kids issues. As Supervisor he has continued his passionate fight for economic, social, and environmental justice in San Francisco.
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 Kevin Danaher is a co-founder of Global Exchange, the noted human rights organization based in San Francisco. Dr. Danaher received his PhD in sociology (1982) from the University of California at Santa Cruz. His areas of expertise include: Elite Globalization vs. People's Globalization; The World Trade Organization: Secret Global Government ; Fixing the Main Flaw in US Foreign Policy ;Building the Local Green Economy
Dr. Danaher has appeared on television and radio shows around the country. He has published articles in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the International Herald Tribune, Harvard Educational Review, The Nation, The Progressive, and many others. Click here to see Kevin speak at the San Francisco Green Festival.
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Derfel, Ari & Fenster, Eric |
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 Eric Fenster and Ari Derfel founded Back to Earth together on the Summer Solstice in 2001. Back to Earth is both an Organic Catering Company and Outdoor Adventure program based in the San Francisco Bay Area. They are food activists, mountain guides, social entrepreneurs, teachers, and passionate optimists.
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 Ms. Diefendorf is executive director of the Environmental Finance Center for Region IX, which works closely with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to promote cleaner business. Some of her efforts in this position include coordinating county and state Green Business Programs throughout the western region and developing a series of conferences and roundtables on the use of toxic chemicals in industry.
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.jpg "Image") Riane Eisler is an eminent social scientist, attorney, keynote speaker, and social activist best known as author of the international bestseller The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future, now in 22 languages, including most European languages and Chinese, Russian, Korean, Hebrew, Arabic, and Japanese.
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Engelhart, Matthew & Terces |
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 Matthew and Terces Engelhart are co-owners of Café Gratitude, an organic raw vegan restaurant. The couple also lead workshops in sacred commerce, abundance and relationships. Together they created The Abounding River logbook and boardgame, and are stewards of Laulima Farm.
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 Fawcett is a writer and independent scholar. He is founder and president of the Sustainable Health Institute (a newly formed organization dedicated to social change through health education), publisher of the Progressive Health Observer: A News Commentary Alternative to Big Box Medicine, and co-producer of the Your Own Health And Fitness radio show, to which he regularly contributes. His PhD in environmental economics and political economy is from UC Riverside.
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 Paul Fenn is Chairman and CEO of Local Power Inc. (localpower.com), based in Oakland.
Over the past fourteen years, Paul Fenn has developed a matrix of market structures and strategies to make possible an exponential scaling up and accelerated development of renewable energy and demand-side energy technology.
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 As Global Exchange's Fair Trade Cocoa Campaigner, Fitch-Frankel reaches out to chocolate lovers and chocolate makers alike to help create a world in which we are all free to enjoy guilt-free chocolate. Her area of expertise is the impact of commodities, both extractive and agricultural, on local communities, particularly indigenous people.
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 John Francis, Ph.D., is known the world over as the Planetwalker. In
1971, John witnessed an oil spill in the San Francisco Bay. The effects
of the spill compelled John to stop using motorized vehicles. Several
months later, to stop the arguments about the power of one person’s
actions, he took a vow of silence.
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 Senior vice president for social research and policy, Freeman manages Calvert's Social Research Development and directs its research and advocacy work.
Investing to Make a Difference
Socially responsible investment (SRI) advocacy matters more than ever on some of the most important issues facing us—from the environment and climate change to human rights and work place diversity.
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 Freundlich is Director of Strategic Initiatives with Calvert and has been with Calvert Foundation since 1997. Tim conceived of and launched Calvert Giving Fund, the socially responsible donor advised fund.
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 Gaddies is a respected community peace activist who founded Operation Save-a-Life/The Peacemakers of San Francisco's Visitacion Valley, meeting every Friday on one of the most dangerous corners in the Southeast sector. The group believes in meeting people where they are, by any means necessary. They meet their communities with culture - drums, singing, and spiritual or spoken word, while providing referral services, and grief and spiritual counseling. During their consistent presence between November 2003 and December 2006, the community felt safer and more and more neighbors showed up at the Friday night gatherings and monthly BBQs. Crime decreased 40% each year during this time.
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 Amy Goodman began her career in community radio in 1985 at Pacifica Radio's New York Station, WBAI. She produced WBAI's Evening News for 10 years. In 1990 and 1991, Amy traveled to East Timor to report on the US-backed Indonesian occupation of East Timor. There, she and colleague Allan Nairn witnessed Indonesian soldiers gun down 270 East Timorese. Indonesian soldiers beat Amy and Allan, fracturing Allan's skull. Their documentary, "Massacre: The Story of East Ti | |
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