Keynote speaker: Minqi Li - USC Dana and David Dornsife ...



Global Energy, Environment and Economy Leadership Retreat

University of Southern California Taper Hall of Humanities

Los Angeles CA

April 18th, 2009

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Some thank-yous are in order here

This conference would not have been possible without the help of numerous volunteers who donated gobs of time to put it together. A short list would include:

Lyn Boyd-Judson, Director USC Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics

Lynn Crandall, Director USC Institute for Genetic Medicine Art Gallery

Tom Frye, Adviser USC Institute for Genetic Medicine Art Gallery

Laura Kavanaugh, Director, Global Peace and Security Program at Americans for Informed Democracy

Mollie Ruskin Greater L.A. Area representative, Focus the Nation

Alex Tinker, West Coast Regional Director, Focus the Nation

Bill Barnes, Founder, Focus the Nation

Frank Tripicchio, SoCal and SCI Board Member

Samuel Day Fassbinder, Ph.D. Program Director

Titus Levi, Schedule Coordinator

George Szabo, Event Producer

Dr. Victor Asai, International Business Investment Broker and Governmental Adviser

Terry Shook, Co-Founder, Shook Kelley, North Carolina AIA Firm of the Year

Tsz Chan, Shook Kelley, graphic design and event adviser

Alicia Yelverton, Shook Kelley, event planning

Kenneth Wyrick, Community Technology Consultant and web host

Ray Cirino, Water Woman Founder and Environmental Architect, solar cooking and permaculture gardening. An innovator and teacher, he is helping develop K-12 curriculum

Reverend Bryan Jones, Leader on the Inter-Faith Power and Light project

Reverend Peter Rood, Leader of the many environmental projects at Holy Nativity Church

Joanne Poyourow, Environmental Changemakers Group at Holy Nativity, web site designer, network builder and community communicator

Alexey Steele, Founder, Classical Underground

Olga Vlassova, Maestra extraordinaire

Raymond Carrillo and Joshua Arias, designers and communitarians extraordinaire

And numerous others who (due to human error) could not be remembered in time to make it onto this list for one reason or another – thank you for your hard work!

This guide contains:

1) A short introductory note by its author suggesting an overall theme to the Leadership Retreat

2) A glossary of the subjects which will be discussed in the panel presentations

3) Introductions to our keynote speaker, Minqi Li, and our panel presenters

My hope in circulating a “Guide to the Global Energy, Environment and Economy Leadership Retreat” is that participants can combine the Guide with their experiences at the Leadership Retreat and with their own voiced opinions to fruitfully engage the people and ideas which will be presented therein.

Samuel Day Fassbinder, Ph.D.

Volunteer, Leadership Retreat

Volunteer’s Note:

There are several topics that this conference “is about”; joining them all is the idea of reconciling our economic practices with ecological realities. Economic practices are the things we do, the acts we perform, in order to “make a living” every day. Ecological realities have to do with what the natural environment can take. Are we using up the natural environment’s resources too quickly? Are we polluting the natural environment? We need to be careful to “make a living” in ways that do not cause irreparable damage to nature.

Go outside – look at the traffic on the streets, and imagine the plumbing inside the buildings taking water from clear streams and aquifers in their descent from the Sierras and the Rockies, through the rivers and aqueducts, to the faucets. Imagine those 85 million barrels of oil, as consumed by world society every day, being dredged from the ground, refined, and burned.

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(photo courtesy of NASA.)

This is a composite picture of the world at night-time. Imagine how much of that oil that is burnt every day goes into keeping those lights on. Do we really need all of those lights to be on? Burning enormous quantities of oil, coal, and natural gas will bring to the world what the scientists call “abrupt climate change” – all of that burning will increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, which will allow Earth’s atmosphere to trap more heat. The weather will become hotter, and more humid, on average. Will we be able to adapt to “abrupt climate change” as it changes our weather?

At the center of the whole debate about economic practices and ecological realities is a term called “sustainability.” If something is sustainable, that means we can keep doing it. To a certain extent, sustainability is about not causing catastrophic impact upon the land, the water, the air; put simply, not messing with Mother Nature.

Unfortunately, in real-life practice, sustainability means that we can do something until we can’t do it anymore. A higher ideal would be one of indefinite survival, where our economic practices don’t really do anything to undermine the environment’s ability to support us. That’s what we’ll be working on here, today

Samuel Day Fassbinder, Ph.D.

Volunteer, Leadership Retreat

There are five panels included in this conference. Below is a summary of the subject matter of each panel, and a short list of books for each, that interested readers might consider.

1) The ECONOMIC ISSUES panel is about the economy as a whole, and the problem of creating a sustainable “metabolism between man and nature” through alternatives to normal economic practice.

Interested readers might consult:

a) Herman Daly’s (1991) STEADY-STATE ECONOMICS, which presents the case against “economic growth” in the simplest terms, and recommends instead a “steady-state economy,” which experiences “development” in terms of improved living conditions without any real “growth” in the scale of the economy as a whole.

b) Saral Sarkar’s (1999) ECO-SOCIALISM OR ECO-CAPITALISM, which suggests that the capitalist system, as well as the consumer society, cannot persist against natural limits to growth; Sarkar suggests, instead, that world society adopt a rather austere version of “eco-socialism,” as he calls it.

c) Julian Simon’s (1996) THE ULTIMATE RESOURCE II, which lays out the case for “human intellect” as the one resource which will triumph over all other possibilities of resource shortage, and for “substitutability” as the direct solution to problems of resource shortage: if one resource runs out, use another.

d) Thomas L. Friedman’s (2008) HOT, FLAT, AND CROWDED is a whirlwind tour of “green” industry (and economic speculation thereupon) in light of Friedman’s status as an advocate of globalization.

e) Bill McKibben’s (2008) DEEP ECONOMY advocates a world of local production for local needs and offers a number of examples of how such production is coming to fruit in today’s world.

2) The “NOTES FROM THE FRONT LINES” panel will be about pollution; its panelists will consider the ways in which human intervention in ecosystems is destructive as well as constructive.

Readers interested in pollution issues might consult:

a) Heather Rogers’ (2005) GONE TOMORROW: THE HIDDEN LIFE OF GARBAGE, which is a history of garbage, accompanied by analysis of the garbage problem

b) Wilshire, Nielsen, and Hazlett’s (2008) THE AMERICAN WEST AT RISK, which is about the history of pollution in the American west.

c) Rachel Carson’s SILENT SPRING (1962), although 46 years old, is still a prescient classic, depicting the dangers of pesticide use.

3) The WATER ISSUES panel will discuss, for the most part, how water comes to southern California, and how southern California water can best be used and conserved. This will be an issue of critical importance in the future, as with abrupt climate change we can expect the icepacks atop the Sierra and Rocky Mountain ranges to recede, and perhaps disappear, meaning much less water for southern California. Increased evaporation rates in light of hotter average weather, moreover, will mean a permanent “drought climate” here.

Water is an essential element for life, of course: the standard human body is made up of 62% water. Water issues are, then, essential to issues of human being in an ecological context.

Interested readers in water issues might wish to consult:

a) Mark Lynas’ (2008) SIX DEGREES – this is a dramatized summary of the available research on abrupt climate change, showing probable outcomes for climate change according to the extent to which the climate gets hotter. Lynas has six main chapters in this book, one for each degree (Celsius) the temperature increases.

4) The URBAN PLANNING panel will discuss wow cities are to be designed with ecosystems in mind by reducing the need for constant input from outside sources. Food, water, soil, and effective use of “wastes” will be starting points for innovation in this conversation.

a) William McDonough and Michael Braungart’s (2002) CRADLE TO CRADLE: Remaking the Way We Make Things is one of the seminal texts on how design can be reconsidered to eliminate waste, toxicity, and a great deal of unnecessary expense.

b) Robert Frenay’s (2003) PULSE is not a design book per se, but it is a sweepingly well-considered book on design and systems based on organic and ecological materials and approaches.

c) Janine M. Benyus’ (2002) BIOMIMICRY: Innovation Inspired by Nature goes beyond urban and architectural design, to get at the very essence of design considerations and projects. Her proposal: to look to nature for inspiration, models, and materials for building and design of objects and systems.

d) Dianna Lopez Barnett and William D. Browning’s A PRIMER ON SUSTAINABLE BUILDING (1995) is one of the texts that first broached formal means for changing design, architecture, and construction.

e) Sergi Costa Duran’s GREEN HOMES (2007) provides a comprehensive overview of home architecture, from plumbing to materials, durability to energy reduction.

f) Bob Evans, et. al.’s GOVERNING SUSTAINABLE CITIES (2005) uses multiple case studies to point the way forward in policymaking and governance for urban sustainability.

g) Jerry Yudelson’s GREEN BUILDING A TO Z (2007) is an approachable and easy-to-read guide to thinking and techniques involved in the green building revolution.

5) The PERMACULTURE panel will discuss how best to effectively use local resources to satisfy people who live in an area. Permaculture, as such, has been transformed into an effective business philosophy, and thus also a way of life. In this panel, permaculturists will share with the audience their techniques and philosophies and invite audience members to rethink their local surroundings.

Readers interested in permaculture might wish to consult:

a) Toby Hemenway and John Todd’s (2001) GAIA’S GARDEN: A GUIDE TO HOME-SCALE PERMACULTURE, a basic manual for permacultural design.

b) David Holmgren’s (2002) PERMACULTURE: PRINCIPLES AND PATHWAYS BEYOND SUSTAINABILITY, a document by one of the originators of the term “permaculture,” which offers a more principled and technical take on permaculture than the Hemenway book, from an Australian perspective.

Keynote speaker: Minqi Li

Minqi Li, PhD, Professor, "teaches economics at University of Utah and has also taught political science at York University, Canada. He turned from an advocate of free market principles into a Marxist and was a political prisoner in China between 1990 and 1992." [1] "He is the author of "After Neoliberalism: Empire, Social Democracy, or Socialism?" (Monthly Review 55.8, January 2004) among other articles and The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World-Economy (London: Pluto Press, forthcoming). He also translated Ernest Mandel's Power and Money into Chinese with Meng Jie: Quanli yu Ziben (Beijing: Zhongyang Bianyi Chubanshe [The CCP Central Committee Compilation and Translation Press], 2002)."

Panel members:

Economics panel:

Samuel Day Fassbinder is currently self-employed, having taught English and Communication Studies at a number of southern California colleges and universities. He received his Ph.D. in Communication from The Ohio State University and is currently researching issues in ecological economics as he writes a multidisciplinary book with the prospective title “From Capitalist Discipline to Ecological Discipline.”

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Titus Levi says about himself that “My work on environmental issues began in earnest when I served as a writing consultant on a series of books for Social Science Academic Press (formerly Publishing House of China's Social Sciences) and Brill (a publishing house in the Netherlands).  The first of these books, The China Environment Yearbook (2005): Crisis and Breakthrough of China's Environment, came out in English in early 2007. The second book in this series, The China Environment Yearbook, Volume 2: Changes and Struggles, was released in August 2008.  I also worked on The China Economy Yearbook, Volume 1: Analysis and Forecast of China's Economy.  This volume contains a great wealth of information pertaining to environmental conditions and impacts generated by economic activity. Currently I work as an independent consultant and adjunct professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication. My areas of expertise include technological diffusion, industrial organization, and public choice.”

Jonathan Parfrey is the director of the GREEN LA Coalition, the City's premiere environmental coalition. He formerly served as executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles from 1994 to 2007. In 2003, Parfrey was appointed to Governor Schwarzenegger's Environmental Policy Team and was previously appointed to Governor Davis' select committee on radioactive waste disposal. 

Parfrey currently serves as vice president of the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters. Since 1999, he has served on the US EPA interagency workgroup at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, the most polluted site in Southern California. A coalition-builder, from 1996 to 2006, he co-founded (with Coalition for Clean Air's Tim Carmichael) the Los Angeles Environmental Executives Roundtable. He has published in the Los Angeles Times and other publications. In 1992, he received the Paul S. Delp Award for Outstanding Service, Peace and Social Justice. In 2002 he was awarded a Durfee Foundation Sabbatical Program Fellowship. 

Mike Woo is best known as a Los Angeles city councilman from 1985-1993 Woo now serves on the L.A. City Planning Commission. He is also an adjunct professor in the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development. He has worked on transit planning with the city, as well as the Hollywood Redevelopment Plan. He chairs the board that oversees the Hollywood Farmers Market, and helped to found the Hollywood Community Housing Corporation. He also served as the Western States Director of the Corporation for National and Community Service under President Clinton.

Notes from the Front Lines:

Tony Pereira won a peer reviewed engineering award in an open competition from the United Nations and the UNESCO, the Education, Scientific and Cultural arm of the UN, to address the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) related to eliminating poverty, hunger, and improving access to clean water and education for the 2-3 billion people impoverished people around the world. Over 3,200 entries were submitted from universities around the world, including Cambridge, MIT, Yale, Oxford, Stanford, Princeton and many others. Only 30 projects were awarded.

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Rick Hazlett received his Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Southern California in 1986. He is currently Associate Professor of Geology at Pomona College.

Evaggelos Vallianatos has a Ph. D. in History from the University of Wisconsin and is currently a Professor at the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at the University of Maryland. He worked for the EPA until 2004 and has published five books, three on environmental issues and two on history.

Oscar Ortiz is a member of the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians and the Acjachemen Nation, and has a Master's Degree in Native Policy from UCLA. Oscar has invaluable understanding of his Native Nation's longstanding tradition of sustainability and care for the Earth, air, water, food, plants, animals and soil. Oscar is an expert of Native traditions, culture and policy that respects and preserves the world around us in balance and harmony.

Town Hall Forum

Sean Arian is the Director of Economic Development for the Mayor’s Office, City of Los Angeles. A lawyer by training and a management consultant by experience, Arian began working for the first time in government as the Director of Economic Development Strategy for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa--doing a lot of work on building the green economy (clean tech, leveraging government purchasing to create jobs, etc.)—which turned out to be an interesting, exciting challenge. His past experience includes a stint at McKinsey in assessment and selection (recruiting strategy) plus work in strategy and operations (healthcare, financial services). He’s also served as the director of small nonprofits and legal counsel for the longshoremen's union.

Tim Brick is the Chairman, Metropolitan Water District. He served 14 years on the Pasadena Utility Advisory Commission, which directs the municipal water and power department, including four terms as chair. He is a member of the Colorado River Water Users Associations, National Water Resources Association and a member of the board of POWER (Public Officials for Water & Environmental Reform.) He also belongs to the Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy and the Society for Ecological Restoration. He served as vice-chair of the MWD board from 1998-2000 and chaired the Water Planning & Resources Committee (1995-1998) as well as the Headquarters Committee, which developed MWD’s Union Station Headquarters. He has also chaired the Water Education Committee, the Water Quality Committee, and the Strategic Plan Implementation Committee. This spring Brick attended the World Water Forum in Mexico City and delivered a presentation on Southern California conservation and integrated planning efforts at a panel on the “Challenges and Perspectives of Megacities.” Brick also played an important role in the development of MWD’s World Water Forum program, which provides grants to Southern California colleges for educational efforts addressing world water problems.

Brick is an organizational consultant, currently serving as Managing Director of the Arroyo Seco Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to the protection and promotion of the Arroyo Seco watershed, a major tributary of the Los Angeles River

Lark Galloway-Gilliam is the Executive Director of Community Health Councils, a consumer-oriented health promotion and advocacy organization that focuses on quality healthcare for uninsured and underinsured communities. Ms. Galloway-Gilliam has played an active role in the debate and policy development on issues such as Medical and Healthy Families implementation and outreach, nonprofit hospital conversions, disparities in health between ethnic communities, and access to care.

Jack Lindblad vied for the State Assembly’s 39th District seat. He was the only Green candidate in California on the ballot for statewide Legislative office in 2008 and is already gearing up for the 2010 campaign. He anchors his award-winning sustainable urban design and architecture practice with an urban design and healthcare facility emphasis. This San Fernando Valley-based practice has been recognized for excellence and innovation. Lindblad campaigns on a Green-values, seven plank platform emphasizing stopping gentrification; encouraging the transition to a carbon-neutral, green jobs economy; basing development on bio-regional determinism, not developer-driven influence peddling. He has supported various community grassroots efforts, including providing support to forming neighborhood councils, coauthoring sustainable community plans, revitalizing the Tujunga-Pacoima Watershed, and assisting in the winning 'No on B' effort to provide unfettered solar power to stakeholders in Los Angeles.

Nancy Pearlman was elected to the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees in 2001. She chairs the Infrastructure Committee, which is charged with reviewing all construction projects under Propositions A and AA, passed by the voters in 2001 and 2003. A longtime environmental advocate, she founded the Ecology Center of Southern California in 1972 and Project Ecotourism in 1993, Earth Cultures in 2004, and Nancy Pearlman, the Eco-Traveler in 2007. She launched Environmental Directions, her internationally distributed weekly radio series, in 1977, which is now the longest-running environmental radio series in the country. These half-hour programs, with one to three interviews per show, have featured leading scientists, authors, activists, and representatives from the business, academic, government, and nonprofit sectors. In 1984 her work in radio evolved into Econews, which has been nominated for Emmy awards three times. Award-winning specials in the series include “Gem in the Heart of the City” (the definitive piece on the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area) and “Wind: Energy for 90’s and Beyond.” Television show honors include ACE-nominations (Award for Cable Excellence), Hometown USA Video Festival, and Diamond Awards. Nancy’s public service announcements have won numerous Buccaneer Awards from the Public Interest Radio and Television Educational Society. She also teaches collegiate courses on Cultural and Physical Anthropology, Broadcasting, Journalism, and Mass Communications.

Breakout Sessions:

Greg Akili has dedicated his life to social justice and change. He recently served as a trainer and Regional Field Director for Obama for America, where he was responsible for training Obama Fellows in Florida on political and community organizing and was the lead trainer for the Camp Obamas in Los Angeles and San Francisco. As Regional Field Director he was the leader for the South Los Angeles office for the general election. Akili has provided Consultant and Trainer services to such organizations as The Phoenix Committee to Stop the Violence; The Marin Institute; Oakland Community Services; Milwaukee Housing Authority; Institute for Effective Action; Santa Fe, New Mexico Fighting Back Coalition; Marin City Resident Management Corporation; and the Praxis Project. He has worked in the public sector as Special Assistant to California Assembly Speakers Antonio R. Villaraigosa and Herb Wesson, Jr. Currently Akili is Senior Political/Community Organizer Service Employees International Union Local 1000.

Edward Belden is a member of the San Gabriel River Watershed Council and US Green Building Council, Green Builders. He is a LEED certified architect.

Leon Jenkins is president of the Los Angeles branch of the NAACP. Jenkins has headed the local NAACP branch since January 1, 2009. Before this he served as a district court judge in Detroit, Michigan and an NAACP first vice president. His early career saw him working as a civil rights lawyer specializing in personal injury, medical malpractice and police brutality cases. Jenkins is currently a legal consultant in real estate.

Marcela Oliva is a Professor of Architecture at Los Angeles Trade Tech College, specializing in digital technologies for modeling, rendering, and sharing architectural ideas and green innovations in architecture and urban planning.

Clint Rosemond is the Manager of the Greater Leimert Park Village for Community Build, Inc. Community Build is dedicated to revitalizing the South LA community through human investment and commercial economic development. CBI strives to empower local communities and their young people by investing in, training, and equipping them with the skills, resources, confidence and encouragement they need to become active participants in the process of rebuilding these communities.

Larry Smith (Lumbee Nation) is an accomplished producer, publicist and co-host of KPFK's "American Indian Airwaves", the longest running indigenous radio program in the country. He has had the honor to interview such noted figures as Sherman Alexie, Noam Chomsky, Jack Forbes, Andrea Smith, David E. Wilkins and Robert Williams, to name a few. Mr. Smith has established three nonprofit corporations in recent years and will soon begin a documentary about United States policy toward indigenous peoples and foreign governments. He teaches Alternative Media at CSULB.

John Zinner LEEDtm AP is the principal of Zinner Consultants, a firm specializing in green building, LEED certification and sustainability programs. He is a member of the US Green Building Council Los Angeles Chapter Board of Directors and the Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) Technical Committee. He has worked on projects for clients such as Newcastle Partners, Equity Office, Westfield, and Latham and Watkins; his certified projects include the Metropolitan Water District’s LEED Platinum Water + Life Museum in Hemet, CA, the first museum to achieve LEED Platinum status. Additionally, he has developed green building and sustainability programs for institutional clients including the Los Angeles Unified School District, the City of Long Beach, Boeing and Playa Vista. John is the former chair of the Santa Monica Planning and Housing Commissions, and previously served as both energy coordinator and planning advisor for Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. His awards include two Green Apple District Awards for the LAUSD and San Diego USD CHPS programs; the American Planning Association's Outstanding Planning Program Honor Award for the Energy/LA Action Plan; an Honor Award from the Westside Urban Forum’s Westside Prize for the Playa Vista Residential Sustainable Guidelines, and a top award in the “Electric Vehicle and the American Community” national competition.

Water Issues:

Conner Everts is the executive director of the Southern California Watershed Alliance and co-chair of the Desal Response Group. He is chair of Public Officials for Water and Environmental Reform (POWER) with its annual water policy conference and on the Board of Water for California, as well as other organizations. Conner was elected to the Casitas Municipal Water District and president of the Ojai Basin Management Ground Water Agency. Mr. Everts was convener of the California Urban Water Conservation Council and on the state task forces on TMDLs, Desalination, and the SWRCB recycled water stakeholder process. But his most important work is as elder advisor to the Environmental Justice for Water and with the Southern California Steelhead Coalition helping remove dams on the streams where he caught fish as a youth and hopefully others can in the future.

Miriam Torres is the Project Coordinator for the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water (EJCW), a statewide organization. The EJCW is a coalition of more than 60 community-based and nonprofit organizations working to ensure that low-income and communities of color have access to safe, affordable water resources for all beneficial uses. Miriam joined the coalition over three years ago and now manages EJCW’s Southern California programs. Miriam works directly with impacted communities to build their capacity to engage in water governance. She provides technical assistance and advocates for environmental justice at the regional and statewide level. In December 2006, Miriam completed the Water Education Foundation’s Water Leaders Program. She received a Bachelors of Science in Conservation and Resources Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Renee Maas is the water program organizer for Food and Water Watch’s Los Angeles office. A non-profit consumer advocacy group, Food and Water Watch works to ensure clean water and safe food in the United States and around the world. Ms. Maas’s duties at Food & Water Watch include educating the public about, and building support around, water issues in Los Angeles. This includes advocating against the privatization of public water resources and leading the organization’s local Take Back the Tap campaign to encourage restaurants and consumers to choose tap water over bottled water. She has also been active in efforts to halt the planning and development of a proposed desalination plant in Huntington Beach and in Food & Water Watch’s mission to create a Clean Water Trust Fund to upgrade and maintain the nation’s aging water infrastructure systems.

A California native and graduate of the University of California, San Diego, she recently completed a master’s degree in public policy with an emphasis in water resource management and a minor in sustainable agriculture from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Urban Planning:

Dr. Stephanie Pincetl, Director of the Center on People and the Environment, has a PhD from UCLA’s former Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning.  She is a Researcher at the Institute of the Environment at UCLA and a Social Science Researcher at the US Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station.  She has published extensively on issues of environmental policies and regulation. The content of her research is land use, land use change, with a focus on urban environments and the transformation of their natural environments.  The theoretical core of her research is environmental politics, policies and governance and specifically, the ways that rules and rulemaking impact the participants in decision-making and the content of decisions.  Rules can be formal or informal, hard or soft, but they form the boundaries of what is perceived of as possible.  Dr. Pincetl has studied land use, infrastructure, and environmental preservation or services.

Charles Terry Shook, AIA, is a founding partner and principal of Shook Kelley, a Perception Design firm specializing in strategic consulting services, including branding, architecture, communication design and interior design. Mr. Shook serves as principal-in-charge of a multi-million-dollar New Urban planning and design group, with an emphasis on urban retail design and main street development. As one of the nation's top experts in district planning and Placemarking, he has been recognized as a vanguard in the movement to return meaning to the urban environment.

Mr. Shook is an annual lecturer in the Professional Development Program at Harvard University and speaks regularly for the Urban Land Institute on topics relating to urban design. He is a member of the International Downtown Association and the Urban Land Institute, and was recently elevated to the College of Fellows, the highest honor given by the American Institute of Architects.

Larry Eisenberg is the Los Angeles Community College District’s Executive Director of Facilities Planning and Development. As such he oversees the development of the district’s building program, which includes 44 new and thoroughly remodeled buildings meeting LEED certification, energy reduction and solid waste reduction programs, furniture procurement focused on using recyclable materials and offering end-of-life return. These efforts have put the LACCD at the forefront of institutions moving toward sustainable resource use in the Los Angeles area and in the educational sector. 

Thomas Spiegelhalter is an architect, industrial designer, and town planner holding R.A., E.U., ACE, ISES, LEED AP certifications. He has worked on numerous solar, zero-fossil energy, passive and low-energy building realization projects; large-scale sustainability master planning and consultancies; redevelopment projects for abandoned post-industrial architectures and landscapes; engineered suspension bridges; as well as preservation and revitalization projects. Many of his completed projects have been published in International anthologies of European and American Architecture such as "Contemporary European Architects, Volume V," 1997, “Building a New Millennium 1999-2000", both published by Taschen; in "Solar Architecture for Europe,” published by Birkhäuser in 1996; in "The Architectural Review,” on "Ecology and Architecture,” in 1998 in “Architectural Record, which won a "DESIGN VANGUARD AWARD in 2003; or in the monograph "Adaptable Technologies - Le tecnologie adattabili nelle architetture di Thomas Spiegelhalter” published by Franco Angeli, Rome, in 2008.  

Lance Williams, PhD is the Executive Director of the US Green Building Council-Los Angeles Chapter. He is a LEED® Accredited Professional. A primary area of Dr. Williams’ interest is the relationship between culture and sustainability. He has served as an advisor on green building policy development to Los Angeles County and various corporate organizations. He participated in the 2007 Annual Congress of the World Green Building Council held in Toronto, Canada. He is a also member of the Social Equity Task Force of USGBC national, charged with expanding parameters of the LEED® rating system. 

At the 2007 Greenbuild Annual International Conference and Expo, USGBC-LA received two national awards from USGBC: First Place Award of Excellence, Advocacy, and Honorable Mention, LEED®. USGBC-LA has also recently produced a 2008 Membership Directory, published by McGraw-Hill Construction. Dr. Williams was editor and principal photographer for the Directory.

Alexey Steele, a noted Los Angeles painter of the Russian Representational School, is a passionate believer in public art as well as in the greater role of art within the life of a society. In the unique institutional/academic setting of USC’s Institute for Genetic Medicine Art Gallery, Alexey's work, “The Force of Life,” represents his belief that Art is capable of giving voice to the land in danger.  His "THE RISING" examines the drama and struggle of an un-suppressible individual creative force within the restrictions of a modern day consumerist society, while commenting on a position of art within it. The exhibit provides a frame for the Focus the Nation Forum by hosting events from March through June. The events explore complex environmental, economic and social issues that helped us build our team and its concepts prior to the Forum.  It will provide an atmosphere in which to debrief the Forum via events and discussions through the month of June.

Permaculture: 

Ray Cirino is a force of nature and a huge inspiration for environmental integrity. He lives life absolutely voraciously, showing others, by example, how to do the same. Having created myriad works of functional architecture that defy convention, he alters environments to live in accordance with nature.

A powerhouse of art and love, his creations demonstrate effective design, with the intention of reconstructing our planet. His life's mission is to create self-reliance and peace for everyone. Founder of Water Woman Gardens in Mar Vista, California, Ray offers people of all ages a chance to learn, in a fun and creative atmosphere, what it takes to build a functional future.

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Sean Jennings has been getting his hands into anything Permaculture for almost a decade now. He has lived and worked on farms in a variety of locations from Hawaii, the Bay Area, & Vermont. He now finds himself starting his own CSA farm on over 5 acres of land in Malibu, designing it with permaculture principles in mind. He is also founder of the community group Westside Permaculture, a group working towards building community and creating change in our neighborhoods.

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Dr. Bill Roley is an applied ecologist, environmental instructor and permaculture design consultant. He designs strategies to improve sustainable resources for homes, organizations, governments and business. He combines the disciplines of anthropology, biology, architecture, engineering, agriculture, and ecology to address modern challenges of providing for human needs while maintaining ecosystem health. He has consulted and presented internationally on how to incorporate these multifaceted concepts into working sustainable systems. His courses at universities and colleges and links the social and environmental sciences into an integrated pattern of cultural genetics (social DNA). His teaching and design work at the John Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies at California Polytechnic University is a graphic example of this interdisciplinary work. Dr. Roley is committed to the future planning of economically viable, environmentally sensitive, and culturally appropriate development patterns. He brings a contagious enthusiasm and an academic overview to the public forum and frequently makes presentations to businesses, professional societies, conferences and civic groups.

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Joan Stevens teaches environmental science, permaculture and yoga. She has studied with a variety of permaculture teachers including Larry Santoyo, the Bullocks brothers, Michael Becker, Michael Kramer, Christopher Peck, Jude Hobbs, Tom Ward, Toby Hemenway, Brock Dolman, and Penny Livingston.

In her academic training she studied breadfruit biodiversity in Samoa, home garden design in Tapachula, Mexico, plant spirit medicine in Killarney, Ireland, ethnobotany in Chiapas, Mexico, and antimicrobial properties of medicinal plants in Southern California. She is a botanist and master gardener as well as a student of plant chemistry, entomology, herbal medicine, home-scale ecology and resource conservation, fermentation, and mycology. She loves to explore ways to apply ancient wisdom and modern technology to create beauty and abundance for future generations.

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