Peter Barnes is Senior Fellow, Tomales Bay Institute; Co-founder of Working Assets; author of Who Owns the Sky? (2001), Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons (2006) and Climate Solutions: A Citizen’s Guide (2008)

Albert Bates is author of The Financial Collapse Survival Guide and Cookbook and many other books on energy, environment and history, including Climate in Crisis (1990, foreword by Al Gore). As an environmental attorney for 20 years, he published Natural Rights, a journal that chronicled the emergence of bioregionalism, deep ecology and holistic design. He shared the Right Livelihood Award in 1980 for his work on the steering committee of Plenty, working to preserve the culture of indigenous peoples in the Americas. A founder of the Global Ecovillage Network in 1995, he is presently GEN's United Nations representative. He is also founder of Global Village Institute for Appropriate Technology at The Farm in Tennessee, site of the 2009 Bioregional Congress, and when not inventing fuel wringers for algae or pyrolizing cookstoves, teaches permaculture, village design and natural building.

Dr. James Hansen heads the NASA Institute for Space Studies in New York City; and he is an Adjunct Professor of Geology at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. He was trained in physics and astronomy in the space science program of Dr. James Van Allen at the University of Iowa, where he received his bachelor’s of arts degree with highest distinction in 1963, his masters of science degree in astronomy in 1965, and his Ph.D. in physics in 1967. Except for 1969, when he was an NSF post-doctoral scientist at Leiden Observatory under Prof. H.C. van de Hulst, he has spent his post-doctoral career at NASA. His early research on the properties of clouds of Venus led to their identification as sulfuric acid. Since the late 1970s, he has worked on studies and computer simulations of the Earth's climate, for the purpose of understanding the human impact on global climate. Dr. Hansen is best known for his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 and, in 2001, received both the Heinz Award for environment as well as the American Geophysical Union's Roger Revelle Medal. Dr. Hansen received the World Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Medal from the Duke of Edinburgh in 2006.

Widely regarded as one of America’s foremost Peak Oil (oil depletion) educators, Richard Heinberg is a journalist, educator, lecturer, and a Core Faculty member of New College of California, where he teaches a program on "Culture, Ecology and Sustainable Community." He is also a Research Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute and the award-winning author of seven books including The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies; Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World; and The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism, and Economic Collapse. His monthly MuseLetter has been published since 1992; his essays and articles have appeared widely and in many languages; and he was featured prominently in the documentary film The End of Suburbia. Since 2002, he has given over two hundred lectures on oil depletion to a wide variety of audiences including insurance executives, peace activists, and local and national elected officials.

David Johnston is a leading thinker behind the green building movement whose approach to green building has been embraced by municipalities, homeowners, building professionals and sustainability advocates nationwide. As founder and president of What’s Working, Inc., a green building consultancy that provides socially and ecologically responsible guidance to businesses, agencies and communities, Johnston is committed to radically transforming the way America builds. His latest book, Green Remodeling: Changing the World, One Room at a Time, has been hailed as the definitive guide to green remodeling techniques.

Frances Moore Lappé is author of the 1971 three-million-copy bestseller Diet for a Small Planet and its 2002 sequel, Hope’s Edge, written with her daughter Anna Lappé. Her two most recent books are Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad (May 2007) and Democracy's Edge. She has also written or co-written twelve other books and is co-founder of  two national organizations: the California-based Institute for Food and Development Policy (known as Food First) and the Center for Living Democracy, a ten-year initiative to accelerate the spread of democratic innovation. She is a contributing editor to Yes! Magazine, a founding councilor of the World Future Council, and sits on the advisory board to the Simple Living television series. Her books have been used in university courses in more than 50 countries. Her life and work have been featured in People Magazine, PBS Now, The Boston Globe Magazine, The Utne Reader, Vegetarian Times and many other outlets; and her articles have appeared in such publications as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Readers' Digest, Chemistry, Le Monde Diplomatique, National Civic Review, and Harpers. Lappé has received 17 honorary doctorates and in 1987 became the fourth American to receive the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the Alternative Nobel.

L. Hunter Lovins is President and Founder of the non-profit organization, Natural Capitalism Solutions. Ms. Lovins holds a JD, several honorary doctorates and co-founded the Rocky Mountain Institute  in 1982, where she served as CEO for 20 years. She has extensive hands-on experience with economic development, forestry, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy and construction of sustainable buildings. Ms. Lovins has lectured in more than 15 countries, including at the World Economic Forum at Davos, the International Symposium on Sustainable Development in Shanghai, the Annual General Meeting of UNIDO, the Global Economic Forum and the World Summit on Sustainable Development. She has consulted for industries and governments worldwide, as well as such multinational companies as Shell Oil, GE and the International Finance Corporation, and has also worked with many community groups, local economic development agencies and small municipal NGO's. In addition, she created the Economic Renewal Project, helping to write much of its work on sustainable community economic development, served on the State of the World Forums' Commission on Globalization and was one of four people from North America named to serve as a delegate to the United Nations Prep conference for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. She has also worked on projects in Afghanistan, including "Green Afghanistan" and the Afghan Cluster Competitiveness Project with a variety of U.S. government, United Nations and donor agencies. Hunter Lovins has co-authored nine books, including the 1999 book Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution and hundreds of papers, including briefings for President's Clinton and Bush and British Prime Minster Tony Blair.

Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris is an internationally known evolution biologist, futurist, author and professor. She teaches sustainable business and globalization as natural evolutionary processes and prepares us for a Hot Age in which much of human society will have to be reorganized for sustainability through severe climate change. She is a member of the World Wisdom Council and a fellow of the World Business Academy. Her venues include The World Bank, Boeing, Siemens, Hewlett-Packard, Tokyo Dome Stadium, Australian National Government, Sao Paulo's leading business schools, State of the World Forums (New York and San Francisco) and the World Parliament of Religion. Her books include A Walk Through Time: From Stardust to Us and EarthDance: Living Systems in Evolution . Her websites are www.sahtouris.com and www.ratical.org/lifeweb.

Woody Tasch, Chairman and President of Slow Money, was previously the Chairman of Investors' Circle, a network of angel investors, family offices and social purpose funds and foundations that has invested $133 million in over 200 early stage sustainability-promoting ventures and venture funds since 1992. Woody has also been founding Chairman of several NGOs: the Community Development Venture Capital Alliance, supporting over 100 small-scale venture funds that target economically disadvantaged regions; Sustainable Nantucket, promoting environmentally responsible growth management on Nantucket Island; and the Nantucket Education Trust, supporting affordable housing for teachers. His latest book is Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008).

Michele Weingarden became Director of Greenprint Denver in 2008.  She brings a wealth of political and environmental experience to her position.  Most recently she served as advisor to U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer on environmental issues throughout California and as the Senator’s liaison to nine northern California counties.  Prior to working for Senator Boxer, Weingarden served as Senior Account Executive for Stearns Consulting, running local political campaigns. Weingarden also spent many years with environmental non-profit organizations implementing issue campaigns for Save The Bay and the Sierra Club; and she served as a Board member of the San Francisco League of Conservation Voters.