Climate Justice and The True Price of Oil
Steven Kretzmann - Executive Director, Oil Change International
What Chevron has done in the Ecuadoran Amazon, what Shell has done in the Niger Delta, is not merely a matter of parts per million of pollution - it is about power. This address will seek to expose the political and economic powers that have benefited from climate pollution, and who continue to do so. In doing this, we will organize and unite those constituencies that are the victims of this system, and sketch out how to arrange the politics of climate in a way that promotes systemic change.
Oil companies that are exploiting people and resources in the South are also those blocking progressive climate policies in the North and a fair outcome from the climate negotiations.
Focusing on corporations leverages existing efforts by linking them with each other and climate change, builds solidarity among groups in the North and South, and provides a platform for engagement with other groups. In short, we will describe a re-organization of the climate movement to focus on making the polluters pay, rather than paying the polluters.

Biography
Steve Kretzmann has worked on energy issues and the global oil industry for twenty years. After eight years with Greenpeace, he served as the environmental advisor to Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People in Nigeria and was a co-founder of the human rights and environmental organization Project Underground. In 1997, he conducted the first independent soil and water samples in Ogoni, which proved the Ogoni claim of Shell's pollution and double standards on their land. He has also successfully campaigned to keep Florida’s coast free from oil & gas drilling, and represented various organizations at UN environmental negotiations.
While at the Institute for Policy Studies, Steve helped coordinate a global civil society effort to engage in the World Bank’s Extractive Industries Review, which recommended an end to Bank support for coal and oil projects. He has authored numerous articles and reports and is a regular commentator on issues of corporate accountability, transparency, the global oil industry, environmental and human rights.
Steve founded Oil Change International in 2005 in order to carry out strategic, systemic campaigns focused on the oil industry. He is currently campaigning for climate justice and coordinating an international coalition effort to expose and counter corporate influence over climate legislation and international treaties.

The global financial crisis is no accident. It is the natural outcome of a flawed system that has long been building to a climax. The limits to growth have been reached and a metamorphic societal change is underway. Power is devolving to the community and bioregional level as we the people organize and empower ourselves to create a new “convivial” world order and steady state economy that offer the possibility of a dignified life for all. The key to achieving that lies in reclaiming the credit commons and transcending the dysfunctional political money system that has been for centuries centralizing power, concentrating wealth, and forcing artificial growth. Thomas Greco will explain how that can be achieved by means of voluntary, localized approaches to exchange and finance that empower communities and reward people fairly.

Biography
Thomas H. Greco, Jr. Mr. Greco is a community and monetary economist, writer, networker, and consultant, who for three decades has been working at the leading edge of transformational restructuring. He is regarded as a leading authority on free-market approaches to monetary and financial innovation, including cashless exchange systems and complementary currencies. A former engineer, entrepreneur, and tenured college professor, Greco is a sought-after advisor and speaker at conferences internationally. He is Director of the Community Information Resource Center, a U.S. non-profit networking hub, which provides information access and support for efforts in community improvement, social justice, and sustainability.
He is the author of the recently released, The End of Money and the Future of Civilization. His previous books include, Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender, New Money for Healthy Communities, and Money and Debt: A Solution to the Global Crisis. Further information can be obtained from the website http://reinventingmoney.com and the blog http://beyondmoney.net

Brian Tokar - Activist, author and a leading critical voice for ecological activism.
"Renewing Energy and Renewing Society"
Three decades ago, a powerful grassroots antinuclear movement transformed debates about US energy policy and articulated a vision of a liberatory, solar-powered society. Today, after 30 years of political stagnation and reaction, concerns about our energy and climate future are again in the forefront of popular awareness. The time horizon for action is much shorter than before, but the need for fundamental changes in how we live is more urgent than ever. Social ecologist Brian Tokar will discuss the potential--and the necessity-- for broadly democratic and participatory social changes at the heart of a meaningful solution to our energy and climate crises, in contrast to the many status-quo "false solutions" that often dominate our public discussions.

Biography:
Brian Tokar has been an activist, author and a leading critical voice for ecological activism since the 1970s, and is currently the Director of the Institute for Social Ecology, based in Vermont. He is the author of The Green Alternative (1987, revised 1992) and Earth for Sale (1997), and edited Redesigning Life?, an international collection on the politics and implications of biotechnology, (Zed Books, 2001), as well as Gene Traders: Biotechnology, World Trade and the Globalization of Hunger (Toward Freedom, 2004). Brian has lectured throughout the U.S., as well as internationally, and is acclaimed as a passionate advocate of grassroots action for ecological sanity and global justice. His articles on environmental issues and emerging ecological movements appear in Z Magazine, Earth Island Journal, and on websites such as Counterpunch, Toward Freedom, ZNet, Truthout, and WW4Report. Brian holds concurrent degrees from MIT in biology and physics, and a Masters degree in biophysics from Harvard University.

Brendan I. Koerner - Technology and environmental journalist.
“Transforming the Grid, Transforming America”
A whopping 40 percent of all the energy used in the US—be it oil, gas, wind, or solar—travels along the wires that comprise our electric gird. Yet this keystone of our 21st-century economy has yet to advance much beyond its 19th-century roots. Considering how wasteful, unresponsive, and just plain dumb the grid is, it isn't surprising that outages—which have been increasing steadily over the past quarter century—cost us $150 billion a year. The real shock is that the damn thing works at all.
Now consider what we will ask the grid to handle in the near future: Demand for electricity is expected to increase by as much as 40 percent in the next two decades—more than twice the population growth rate. To meet that need, we will have to generate an additional 214 gigawatts, a feat that would require the construction of more than 357 large coal plants. We also want to plug in dozens, if not hundreds, of gigawatts of wind and solar power harvested from the most remote corners of the country. And we will want to recharge millions of electric vehicles every night, without fail.
That is why we must fix the grid—reinvent it to be reliable, efficient, responsive, and smart. Unfortunately, technology alone can't solve this mess. Political gridlock, broken markets, and shortsighted planning have created a slew of bottlenecks that can't be solved with a bunch of smart meters and fancy routers.
If we're serious about remaking our energy infrastructure, we'll need to replace our current system of misplaced incentives, which does little but encourage both customers and private industry to neglect the grid. We have to give those stakeholders new reasons to turn on, engage, and transform. Because until we do so, none of our clean-energy dreams can come true.

Biography
One of America’s leading technology and environmental journalists, Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and the founder of Slate’s eco-themed “The Green Lantern” column. He was previously a product-design columnist for The New York Times, as well as the Village Voice’s “Mr. Roboto” tech-advice columnist. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Spin, Details, Popular Science, Mother Jones, The New Republic, the Village Voice, and numerous other publications. Koerner’s first book, Now the Hell Will Start, was published in 2008, and was hailed as “remarkable” by The Washington Post; he is currently adapting the book for Spike Lee’s 40 Acres and a Mule production company. Koerner was named one of Columbia Journalism Review’s “Ten Young Writers on the Rise,” and he won the 2003 National Headliner Award for feature writing. A native of Los Angeles, he currently lives in New York City with his wife and son.