Jane Fonda is a renowned actress, author, and political activist. Throughout her illustrious career, she has utilized her platform to advocate for various social and political causes. Fonda's activism spans decades, with her outspoken stance against the Vietnam War garnering significant attention. She co-founded the Campaign for Economic Democracy and has been a prominent voice in the feminist movement, championing women's rights and equality.

In recent years, Fonda has become a leading figure in the fight against climate change, founding organizations like the Jane Fonda Foundation, which focuses on environmental issues. Through her Fire Drill Fridays protests and activism, she continues to raise awareness about the urgent need for environmental action.

Marianne Williamson is a bestselling author, political activist, and spiritual thought leader. For over three decades, she has been a leader in spiritual and religiously progressive circles. She is the author of 15 books, four of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers. Williamson founded Project Angel Food, a non-profit organization that has delivered more than 16 million meals to ill and dying homebound patients since 1989. The group was created to help people suffering from the ravages of HIV/AIDS. She has also worked throughout her career on poverty, anti-hunger and racial reconciliation issues. In 2004, she co-founded The Peace Alliance and supports the creation of a U.S. Department of Peace. Williamson ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 and 2024

Xiye Bastida is a 21 year old Mexican climate justice activist. She is part of the Otomi-Toltec Indigenous community, located in the highlands of Central Mexico. In April of 2020, she convened and co-founded Re-Earth Initiative to highlight frontline communities and advocate for solution-oriented efforts.

Xiye has been a leader in the youth climate movement since she started organizing climate strikes and protests in 2019. In September of that year, she co-organized a 300,000 person climate strike in New York. Xiye was named Ambassador to the United Nations High Level Champions in 2021. She is the recipient of the 2018 United Nations Spirit Award, and was named ELLE Woman of the Year in 2023.

Bill McKibben helped found the first global grassroots climate campaign, which has organized protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action. He played a leading role in launching the opposition to big oil pipeline projects like Keystone XL, and the fossil fuel divestment campaign. He is founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for action on climate and justice. His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages. Foreign Policy named him to its inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers.

An artist, veteran, author, and teacher, Doug Good Feather is a Native American Lakota raised on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota. A direct descendant of Chief Sitting Bull, his upbringing was embedded within the spiritual practices and Indigenous ways of his elders. He founded and serves as Executive Director of the Lakota Way Healing Center in Colorado. He’s also a co-founder of Spirit Horse Nation, which educates and mobilizes a global community on Conscious Living, Mindful Consumption & Collective Impact. His latest book, Think Indigenous: Native American Spirituality for a Modern World, is a guide to integrating indigenous thinking into modern life.

Dr. Michael E. Mann is Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment in the Annenberg School for Communication. He is director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media (PCSSM). His research interests include the study of Earth's climate system and the science, impacts and policy implications of human-caused climate change.

Anthony Rogers-Wright has over 12 years of experience as an environmental/urban planner, researcher, policy analyst, political strategist, consultant and organizer, and serves on the advisory board of the Global Center For Climate Justice. Most recently Anthony has focused on Climate Disruption (aka Climate Change) mitigation strategies at the local and regional levels. He is a staunch advocate and student of Environmental Justice (EJ) tactics and strategies, including tactics to bring environmental awareness and stewardship of low-wealth communities and communities of color to the "mainstream" environmental consciousness.

Alnoor Ladha’s work focuses on the intersection of political organizing, systems thinking, structural change and narrative work. Alnoor comes from a Sufi lineage and writes about the crossroads of politics and spirituality in troubled times. His work has been published in Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Truthout, Fast Company, Kosmos Journal, New Internationalist, and the Huffington Post among others. He is the Council Chair of Culture Hack Labs, a co-operatively run advisory for social movements and progressive organizations. He is also the co-director of Transition Resource Circle and the co-author of Post Capitalist Philanthropy: The Healing of Wealth in the Time of Collapse.

Gail Bradbook is a British environmental activist and molecular biophysicist who co-founded the environmental social movement Extinction Rebellion. She has been involved in various campaigning groups in Stroud, including a 2010 to 2013 period as voluntary director of Transition Stroud, an anti-fracking protest, various actions in opposition to the building of a local incinerator, including a naked protest, and an early Extinction Rebellion roadblock in Merrywalks, Stroud. In 2015, with George Barda, she set up the group Compassionate Revolution, (which morphed into Rising Up!, out of which came Extinction Rebellion).

Margaret Klein Salamon, PhD, is a clinical psychologist turned climate activist. As Executive Director of Climate Emergency Fund, she raises money for and makes grants to disruptive climate activists. Margaret founded and directed The Climate Mobilization from 2014-2020, advocating an all-hands-on-deck, whole society mobilization to protect humanity and the living world from climate catastrophe. She is the Founding Principal of Climate Awakening, a project to unleash the power of climate emotions through scalable small group conversations. She is the author of Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth, a radical self-help guide for the climate emergency.

Thom Hartmann is a progressive national and internationally syndicated talk show host. He's the New York Times bestselling, 4-times Project Censored Award-winning author of 24 books in print in 17 languages on five continents. Leonardo DiCaprio was inspired by Hartmann's The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight to make the movie "The 11th Hour". His radio show is syndicated on for-profit FM and AM radio stations nationally by Pacifica, and across the entire North American continent on SiriusXM Satellite radio (Progress, Channel 127). HIs radio show is also simulcast as TV by the Free Speech TV Network on Dish Network and DirectTV, reaching 40 million homes across the US and Canada. 

Jamie Wheal is the author of Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death In a World That's Lost Its Mind and the global bestseller Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work and the founder of the Flow Genome Project, an international organization dedicated to the research and training of human performance. He lives high in the Rocky Mountains in an off-grid cabin with his partner, Julie; two children, Lucas and Emma; and their golden retrievers, Aslan and Calliope. When not writing, he can be found mountain biking, kitesurfing, and backcountry skiing.

Charlotte E. Binns has been organizing communities around environmental action for a decade. Starting in her neighborhood in Brooklyn, she  created GoGreenbk.org as a hub for everything environmental in Greenpoint and Williamsburg and joined the board of North Brooklyn Neighbors, helping the community to win back Bushwick Inlet Park. She led a Participatory Budgeting campaign to win $400,000 for a public school eco playground. And has worked with municipalities across the state to enable local clean energy legislation, converting tens of thousands of homes to renewable energy. Before moving out of NYC, Charlotte successfully lobbied the City Council to commit to a feasibility study to buy clean energy with savings for entire neighborhoods. Charlotte is now the Sustainability Director in her Village of Irvington in Westchester.

Professor Jem Bendell is a world-renowned scholar on the breakdown of modern societies due to environmental change. His Deep Adaptation paper inspired the growth of the Extinction Rebellion movement in 2018, and generated a global network to reduce harm in the face of societal collapse. He completed his PhD at the University of Bristol and his Geography BA (Hons) at the University of Cambridge. For decades he worked on Sustainable Development as a researcher and NGO manager, as well as a consultant to businesses, political parties and UN agencies.He is now a regenerative farmer in Bali and a singer-songwriter, releasing an EP with the band Sambiloto. Selected free audio chapters of his book are available here.

Professor, University of Cumbria & Distinguished Fellow, The Schumacher Institute

Global Fashion Exchange founder, Patrick Duffy is an expert at developing networks and activating ideas, guiding creative teams globally partnering with institutions like the V&A in London, Bryant Park in New York City,  Federation Square Melbourne, and iconic spaces like Madison Square Garden and The Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles.

Patrick’s experience includes producing events and creating marketing & PR campaigns for some of the world’s most recognized brands across the art, fashion and tech spaces including H+M, Moët Hennessy, and Microsoft, spanning 15 years and hundreds of events in 5 continents. Patrick has managed global partnerships for Common Objective (CO), an intelligent business network for the fashion industry, as well as launching “Mr Duffy, ”a 100% circular and sustainably focused clothing collection. with partner Fashion 4 Freedom in Vietnam.

Dr. Nate Hagens is the Executive Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF), which focuses on educating and preparing society for the coming cultural transition. Allied with leading ecologists, energy experts, politicians and systems thinkers, ISEOF assembles road-maps and off-ramps for how human societies can adapt to lower throughput lifestyles. Nate hosts the podcast The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens. He recently produced a short animated film.He has co-authored the books Reality Blind - Integrating the Systems Science Underpinning Our Collective Futures - Vol 1 and The Bottlenecks of the 21st Century and continues to expand his energy and economy education projects.  Nate lives on a small farm in the Mississippi River Valley with his pack of rescue dogs, taking care of horses, chickens, and an intermittently tended garden.

Frances Moore Lappé is the author or co-author of 20 books, many focusing on themes of “living democracy”—suggesting not only a government accountable to citizens but a way of living aligned with the deep human need for connection, meaning, and power. She has received 20 honorary doctorates from distinguished institutions across the country, most recently Indiana University in 2021.

Her first book, the 1971 Diet for a Small Planet, has sold over 2.5 million copies. Its 50th- anniversary edition was released in 2021 with features in The New York Times, Boston Globe, and other major outlets. In 2019, The New York Times Magazine interview with Frances began: "Frances Moore Lappé changed how we eat. She wants to do the same for our democracy."

Her most recent publication, Crisis of Trust: How Can Democracies Protect Against Dangerous Lies (2023), dives into the roots of the American disinformation crisis and shares lessons from democracies leading the fight to combat harmful lies and promote truth.

Neil Theise is a professor of pathology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Through his scientific research, he has been a pioneer of adult stem cell plasticity and the anatomy of the human interstitium. Dr. Theise’s studies in complexity theory have led to interdisciplinary collaborations in fields such as integrative medicine, consciousness studies, and science-religion dialogue.

HIs latest book, Notes On Complexity, is an electrifying introduction to complexity theory, the science of how complex systems behave—from cells to human beings, ecosystems, the known universe, and beyond—that profoundly reframes our understanding and illuminates our interconnectedness.

Aria McKenna is a multi-hyphenate filmmaker and Al Gore-trained climate impact strategist who works to build bridges between climate scientists, policy makers, media and the public. She was born in Miami - ground zero for sea level rise in the United States and her brand is “Saving Planet Us”. Her mission is to use storytelling to break down the cultural barriers that keep us from restoring a safe climate. 

With roots as a film producer/writer/director, voice-over artist, and award winning actress, Aria’s experience has run the gamut from acting on TV, radio, and on screen at The Rhode Island International Film Festival, Warsaw International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Big Apple Film Festival and more - to organizing a Scientific Advisory Panel for director/producer Adam McKay's Hyperobject Industries, lobbying senators for climate action in and out of Washington DC with Citizens Climate Lobby, and helping to co-found the Healthy Planet Action Coalition with climate scientists and policy experts around the world to advance a holistic “climate triad” of strategies to restore a safe climate. She has also created both short and long form environmentally driven content through Global Cooling Productions and the Sierra Club, produced political ads for NY candidates through Quantum Surge Media, was part of the narrative division of the Healthy Climate Alliance, and an on-camera host for GreenTV and Long Island International Film Expo.

James Ehrlich is Director of Compassionate Sustainability at the Stanford University School of Medicine CCARE Institute (Center for Compassion, Altruism Research and Education, under Dr. James R. Doty). Additionally, James is appointed Faculty at Singularity University, Senior Fellow at NASA Ames Research Center, and a White House / OSTP Appointee to a joint taskforce on Regenerative Infrastructure.

Mr. Ehrlich is also the Founder of ReGen Villages Holding, B.V. a Stanford University spin-off formed in the EU as a Netherlands impact-for-profit company, using machine learning software to address the U.N. 17 Sustainable Development Goals, specifically to provide solutions for affordable housing, climate change adaptability, and regenerative resiliency.

Mr. Ehrlich founded ReGen Villages in 2016, with its patent-pending VillageOS™ operating system software, using machine learning to design and operate bio-regenerative and resilient (self-reliant) neighborhood infrastructure and retrofits - integrating clean water, renewable energy micro-grids, high-yield organic food, and circular nutritional flows at the neighborhood scale. To promote healthy long-term outcomes for residents and flourishing communities.

A serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley for over 25-years, James successfully founded and managed technology and media companies with successful exits. For nearly a decade, Mr. Ehrlich executive produced an award-winning national public broadcasting series based on his case study research of organic and bio-dynamic family farms, that at its apex reached over 35-million homes each week and is also the co-author of a best-selling companion book on Hachette, Organic Living THG (2007).

Chris Ford is a design professional, design educator, and design researcher in the areas of both Architecture and Infrastructure design. He studies and shapes urban futures through design-actionable research utilizing human-centered methodologies.

After teaching as a lecturer at the University of Arizona, Chris joined the College of Architecture at the University of Nebraska as tenure-track/tenured faculty. He regularly taught undergraduate and graduate design studios including the NAAB Comprehensive Project, elective courses in Design Methodology and Modern Craft, and advised Design Thesis. In Spring 2013, Chris coordinated the "London | 2013" Program where his funded research prompted coursework on Hybridized Urban Infrastructures. In 2015, Chris resigned as a tenured Associate Professor in Architecture to pursue a PhD in Mechanical Engineering.

Chris was the 2016-2019 Hamamoto Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow at Stanford University, where he completed a PhD in Mechanical Engineering (Design Group) and a PhD Minor in Civil & Environmental Engineering. His PhD investigation is titled "Resilient Infrastructure Futures: An Aetiological Analysis of Lifeline System Failures since 2000 for Enhancing the Resilience of Next-Generation Infrastructure Design" Chris was originally advised by Larry Leifer (Emeritus ME), and was co-advised by Martin Fischer (CEE) and Sean Follmer (ME) at the close of the PhD investigation. As a research coordinator for the Urban Futures initiative, Chris applied Design Thinking to demonstrated problems in the built environment including housing, lifeline infrastructure systems, and urban resilience.