The Great Turning:
Education, Leadership and Activism for a Life Sustaining Civilization

Sponsored by Audubon Expedition Institute of Lesley University
October 17-20, 2007
Geneva Point Conference Center, Moultonboro, NH

The purpose of this conference was to pose critical questions about the challenges and opportunities we face as we work toward a life sustaining civilization, and the different ways we choose to respond to them. The conference focused on the strategies of environmental activism and environmental education. Participants engaged body, mind and spirit in collaborative dialogue with each other and with the Earth. As we learned from this dialogue, we explored our personal and professional commitments to act on behalf of a just and sustainable future.

Who attended: One hundred thirty one people traveled from 20 states in the USA, as well as New Brunswick, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, and Israel to come together for the conference. All sectors of society involved in creating a life sustaining civilization were represented: activists, artists, educators, students, faculty, workers in non-profits and businesses, parents, and concerned citizens.

Keynote Speakers:

You can see longer keynote speaker and conference event facilitator bios by clicking here.

Wednesday evening: Winona LaDuke, celebrated Anishinaabe Native rights and environmental activist and author spoke about her work to save wild rice, to preserve native culture, and to prevent mining on native lands. She is the founding director of the White Earth Recovery Project, co-chair of the Indigenous Women's Network, and program director of Honor the Earth. Ms. LaDuke ran for Vice President of the United States of America as a Green Party candidate in 1996 and 2000. www.nativeharvest.com

Thursday Morning: Jim Rough introduced the Wisdom Council, a method of leading "dynamically facilitated" conversations to come to creative solutions for responding to environmental issues and envisioning new ways of working. Two group of conference attendees worked with Jim in two Wisdom Council sessions, and learned a lot. Jim is a co-founder of the Center for Wise Democracy (www.WiseDemocracy.org) and Jim Rough & Associates, Inc.(www.ToBe.net). For more information, click here.

Thursday Evening One: Ted Nordhaus, co-author of Break Though: from The Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility, and co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute spoke about the need for environmentalism to be re-framed with a more aspirational message that will reach a broader segment of society. In October 2004, Nordhaus and co-author Michael Shellenberger published an essay called "The Death of Environmentalism" that caused a nation-wide debate over the future of environmentalism and progressive politics. www.thebreakthrough.org

Thursday Evening Two: David Abram, a cultural ecologist and philosopher whose work has had a deepening influence on the environmental movement mesmerized attendees with storytelling and his vision of how story and the land are linked. He is the author of The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World, for which he received the international Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction. An accomplished storyteller and sleight-of-hand magician who has lived with indigenous shamans in Indonesia , Nepal, and the Americas,  he maintains a passionate interest in interspecies communication, and in the rejuvenation of oral culture.

Friday Morning: Ludovic Blain spoke to the need for white environmentalists to examine their own racism and that of society so we can attend to the oppression that harms both humans and the earth. He is one of the creators of The Soul of Environmentalism, an essay focusing on the important work being done via modern environmental and social justice movements, written in response to The Death of Environmentalism. Mr. Blain is a social justice activist.

Friday Evening: Bill McKibben, the author of The End of Nature, regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, spoke about the urgent need for personal and social action on climate change given current scientific findings. The recipient of Guggenheim and Lyndhurst fellowships, he was awarded the 2000 Lannan Prize in Nonfiction Writing. His book Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape is about a solo hiking trip from his current home in the mountains east of Lake Champlain in Ripton, Vermont back to his longtime neighborhood of the Adirondacks. www.billmckibben.com

Friday Night: Musician Dana Lyons brought together a mix of comedy, ballads and love songs and refreshed and amused his audience. His sharp wit and beautiful voice have him performing at concert halls, festivals, conventions, fundraisers and universities across the US and around the world. Dana’s music style includes a bit of everything; his biggest radio hit, “Cows With Guns,” receives crossover radio play on country, rock, alternative, community, college and oldies radio stations worldwide. He has seven releases to date, including his latest two, released in 2004: “Circle the World: Songs & Stories” with Dr. Jane Goodall and “Ride the Lawn.” www.cowswithguns.com

Saturday Morning: Coleen O'Connell, who co-designed the Ecological Teaching and Learning (ETL) master's degree for AEI/Lesley University, and guides faculty and graduate students in defining the emergent qualities and skills of an ecological educator helped move participants though a closing process that included 4th Time and Going Fourth exercises. Coleen also co-founded the Maine Earth Institute. She has been trained by Joanna Macy, Buddhist scholar and activist, in facilitating The Work to Reconnect.  ETL Program Website

Workshop Strands:

Conference attendees selected from a broad range of workshops. For the complete list of workshops offered and their descriptions, please click here.

Environmental Leadership: What are the organizational behaviors and practices that will create a just and sustainable society? What kind of leaders will facilitate the development of those behaviors and practices? How can we become those leaders? How can we frame our proposals for change around compelling visions and core values? What kind of organizations do we need?

Environmental Justice: How do we insure the right to ethical, balanced and responsible use of the planet's resources in the interest of a sustainable planet for humans and other living things?

Ecological Teaching & Learning: What does education look like that creates a just and sustainable world for all beings?

The Great Turning: What are the alternative structures and shifts in consciousness necessary to move from the industrial era to an ecological one? see www.joannamacy.net

Other Conference Events:

The complete schedule for the conference is available here. 

A Wisdom Conference experiment within The Great Turning Conference- the "dynamically facilitated" conversation about how we are responding to environmental issues and envisioning new ways of working. (all day Thursday and Friday) – led by Jim Rough from the Center for Wise Democracy (www.WiseDemocracy.org) and Jim Rough & Associates, Inc.(www.ToBe.net).

Group Mural: conference participants worked with artist facilitator Michael Schwartz and his partner Jodi Netzer to create two large scale artworks -- visual collages of the Great Turning. Using projection, creativity, and paint, we recorded our visions of a sustainable future. To see Michael's blog about the conference mural, go to http://communityarts.blogspot.com/.

Commitment to Action: To close the conference, Coleen O'Connell and Lily Fessenden facilitated a small group process from Joanna Macy's Work to Reconnect in which each conference participant committed to a specific action that nurtures a life-sustaining civilization. To see the list of Going Fourth commitments from the conference, click here.

Conference Logistics:

Climate Positive Conference Challenge: In the interest of reducing our collective carbon emissions impact for this conference, we developed a set of data collection sheets for all conference participants in order to attempt to more than offset our carbon emissions, hence be "climate positive" rather than carbon neutral. We asked folks to track conference associated mileage and air miles as closely as possible, and gave them a worksheet when at the conference that allowed them to select some actions to take to offset emissions. Any carbon emissions left over will be offset by Audubon Expedition Institute. Our thanks to Living Routes for helping with this project! If you want to know more and see the worksheet, click here.

The Site: Geneva Point Center is a beautiful lake-side retreat center in rural New Hampshire. We had a wonderful time there enjoying the fall colors, the trails, the lake, and the cozy spaces. Visit the Geneva Point website at www.genevapoint.org for more information on the location.

Families: We had a small group of conference kids who had fun playing while their parents had a chance to dive into the conference. Thank you to all those who helped with child care. The future generations need us to do this work!

For more information or with questions: email Lily Fessenden, AEIDirector at lfessenden@lesley.edu or call (207)338-5859 ex. 10.

Thanks to:

Lesley University and the Audubon Expedition Institute gratefully acknowledge the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation for its generous support.