Healing the planet and halting climate change do not have to be about strident political fights, according to dozens of scientists, artists, writers, environmental activists, poets and peace makers who gathered this weekend at The Bioneers 2010 Conference in San Rafael.

It can be about using poetry and rap to convince people to change their carbon producing ways, as rapper Olandis "O-Zone" Walker of Oakland and other artists said. It can be about youth reaching out to youth in nations across the globe to jointly agree on action plans since their political leaders failed to do so in Copenhagen last year, according to Anisha Desai of Earth Island Institute in Berkeley and Jess Rimington of One World Youth Project.

Those tools along with community organic farming, sustainable building and business practices, pursuing green chemistry instead of plastics and more can be the answer.

It can be done by inspiring rather than scaring.

“This moment beckons us all to think big,” said Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons. “To match all we are each capable of with the needs of a (hurting) planet’’ 

But this is not a moment to be complacent and procrastinate, she and others said.

James Hansen - the eminent climate scientist who is credited with being among the first to call attention to global warming when he testified before Congress as a NASA scientist in the 1980s - said the warming atmosphere around earth has already caused the ice shelves that once surrounded and protected the arctic ice sheets to melt. That leaves the arctic ice sheets themselves vulnerable to floating away from their arctic anchors and melting, which in turn would “cause our oceans to rise substantially.” 

Rising oceans, as we all know, means floods that wipe out islands and coastal lands, leaving seacoast communities without homes or livelihoods. As of this summer, the earth had 30 percent less sea ice than it did a few decades ago, said Hansen who now teaches at Columbia University in New York.

Warming oceans and land also means disappearing species, Hansen said. As temperatures rise, what was once suitable habitat for any given species becomes too hot, forcing them to move.  

 “Some species cannot migrate that fast, so they will die off,” Hansen said. The loss of distinct species will affect the whole ecosystem because of the interdependence of species. “We will have a much more desolate planet."

But as a ray of hope, he displayed photos of his grandchildren and talked about how they inspired him to act; Hansen is author of "Storms of My Grandchildren."

The atmosphere around the earth has already passed the tipping point of 350 parts per million of how much carbon dioxide it can hold without causing change. It is now at 389 parts per million, Hansen said.

But further change can be halted, he said. 

“We really are at a critical point, we have to make some changes quickly,” he said, with an urgency that caused his audience of a 1,000 plus to hush.

With lessons on growing bountiful, organic food in any community to lessons in green chemistry and engaging corporations to work jointly on sustainable practices with local communities rather than against them, Bioneers offered ways people can make those changes to produce less carbon gas emissions in every day lives and commerce and transportation and agriculture.

“Bioneers inspires a shift to live on earth in ways that honor the web of life, each other and future generations,” the organization says as a way of explaining itself.

O-Zone, Olandis Walker and others from the Oakland Green Youth Media Arts Center performed Sunday afternoon and inspired a dozen young people to bring their strengths to the cause.

“My story is about just breathing,” Walker said, describing his narrow escape with death in violence plagued East Oakland. "But it goes also to social and environmental justice,” because his neighborhood was home to a plastics incinerator that made many people sick.

“Green is also about having a right to live without the asthma and cancer rates,“ said Simi Makhijani, also of the Oakland Green Youth Media Arts.

Also participating in the event was Jakada Imani of the Ella Baker Center, Paloma Pavel of the Earth House Inc., Dori Maynard of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, Kate Gordon of the Apollo Alliance, Kelley Gulley of National Community Development Institute, Aimee Allison of KPFA/Oaklandseen., Dawn Phillips of Just Cause Oakland spoke while dancer Javier Santos and writer Aya de Leon inspired.  

“We can shape the conversation going on,” about climate or politics or the future, said Dori Maynard, president of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education in Oakland.  It’s just about using your talents and the tools in front of you to speak.