This sixth-annual conference begins in the morning on Friday November 16 and continues through Sunday afternoon on November 18. The venue is the Prince Conference Center at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The theme of the conference is Vision, Action, Leadership. The purpose of the conference is to provide the audience with in-depth ideas about concrete actions that can be taken now, in our own communities, to help achieve stronger economies, cleaner environments, and greater energy security.
Headliners at the conference include Daniel Quinn, Steve Keen, Richard Heinberg, Nicole Foss, Albert Bates, and Stephanie Mills.
In addition to the featured speakers, the conference invites proposals to speak. Especially sought are proposals on culture change, sustainability, transition towns, peak oil, climate change, and protecting biodiversity. All proposals are due by October 7, 2012.
Conference details and registration information are available now at the conference web site: SustainabilityConference.org.
Attendees are invited to attend all or any part of the conference. Early-bird registration fees in September are $199 plus meals. Low-income participants can get a discount for volunteering at the conference.
Sponsors include: Local Future, The Post Carbon Institute, The Prince Conference Center, and the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association.
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Experts in energy, economics, and environment will combine forces in November at the 2012 International Conference on Sustainability, Transition and Culture Change: Vision – Action – Leadership.
Headliners for the 6th annual conference include: Daniel Quinn, Steve Keen, Richard Heinberg, Nicole Foss, Albert Bates, and Stephanie Mills.
Daniel Quinn is a best-selling author of books including Ishmael, Providence, The Story of B, and Beyond Civilization. In 1990, Ted Turner offered a $500,000 prize for the best unpublished novel offering positive solutions to global problems. Quinn submitted Ishmael, which was selected as the grand prize winner, by a panel of distinguished authors, out of 2500 entries.
Quinn is retired from public speaking, but agreed to appear via pre-recorded video. Local Future founder Aaron Wissner directed three days of filming in Houston in August, recording seven hours of high-definition video footage with Quinn.
“The shoot exceeded our best expectations, with Daniel delving into topics including: the origins and structure of our culture, the challenges of population growth and overshoot, perspectives on mass extinction and climate change, and his motivations for writing environmentalist fiction,” said Wissner.
“This was the most extensive interview ever conducted with Daniel, and includes unique and exclusive moments, many of them too personal to describe in print,” continued Wissner.
Quinn is joined by Steve Keen, Richard Heinberg, Nicole Foss, Albert Bates and Stephanie Mills who will provide insight and inspiration into current topics in energy, economics and environment.
Steve Keen is the Australian economist and professor who most cogently warned of the 2008 economic crisis, for which he was awarded the Revere Award from the Real World Economics Review. He is the author of the Debunking Economics, which takes aim at conventional economists for using a flawed model of the economy which inevitably leads to economic recessions, depressions, job losses, and market crashes. An international speaker, Keen travels to the conference as part of a trip that includes stops in Bangkok, New York City, Grand Rapids, London, and Berlin.
Richard Heinberg is senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, and is author of ten books including The Party’s Over, Peak Everything, and The End of Growth. He is regarded as one of the world’s most effective communicators of the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels. Heinberg appear via exclusive live video conference after an exhaustive fall speaking schedule.
Nicole Foss is senior editor for The Automatic Earth and former editor of The Oil Drum – Canada. Foss is a professional speaker on peak oil, economic instability and personal preparation. Foss has delivered her Century of Challenges presentation hundreds of time to conferences including peak oil, biodiversity, and economics. During 2012, Foss embarked on a world-wide speaking tour including stops throughout North America, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the United Kingdom.
Albert Bates is author of The Biochar Solution: Carbon Farming and Climate Change and many other books. A former environmental rights lawyer, Bates lives at The Farm, an intentional community in Tennessee; co-founder of the Global Ecovillage Network and delegate to the UN climate talks; and teaches permaculture, ecovillage design and natural building. Bates traveled extensively in 2012 including teaching permaculture design in Belize, participating in the Rio+20 climate summit, and speaking at the Mother Earth News Fair.
Stephanie Mills is an author, lecturer and bio-regionalist. Her books include: On Ghandi’s Path, Tough Little Beauties, Epicurean Simplicity, Turning Away from Technology, In Service of the Wild, In Praise of Nature, and Whatever Happened to Ecology? Mills is president of the Bay Bucks local currency board, fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, board member of Local Future, and holds an honorary doctorate from Mills College, California.
Mr. Aaron Wissner is a teacher, writer and speaker specializing peak oil, climate change, money and debt, and cultural transition. Wissner has organized six major conferences bringing in hundreds of speakers and thousands of participants. A featured article on Wissner was published on the front page of the Wall Street Journal in 2007.
For more information, visit: SustainabilityConference.org
