The world is changing radically, at lightning speed, on every level. We face a host of urgent problems - terror, poverty, illness, hunger, and war. Yet there is another newly emerging threat that makes these and every other human crisis pale in comparison: Life itself is vanishing. All over the world, animal and plant species are disappearing at an unprecedented and alarming rate. This accelerating loss of life has become so acute that scientists are now calling it a mass extinction event. Experts predict that half of all species on Earth may become extinct within the next 50 to 100 years. No one can know for sure what this will mean for humanity, but the implications are shocking - and difficult to accept.
Species Alliance is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization formed in 2005. Our mission is to raise public awareness of the impending mass extinction and the threat to Earth's life support systems due to this loss of biodiversity. Through our films and other media, website, and outreach, we seek to ignite a new sense of community empowerment and purpose, in order to stimulate creative and effective changes in public policies and human behavior that will assure a healthy future for all life on Earth.
(Executive Director, Film Producer) is a psychologist, professor, consultant, business executive, and filmmaker. In each of these roles, she focuses on understanding the interconnection between psychology, culture, and the environment. She has consulted with executive leadership teams, including Sun Microsystems, Kodak, and Lucent Technologies, utilizing a systems theory model and an eco-psychology perspective. She has taught psychology courses at the University of California at Davis, Stanford University, and Skidmore College. She also co-founded a software development company that created multimedia educational tools and started a film production company in 1998. Her films have been shown at film festivals and educational conferences worldwide, most recently at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in September 2007.
Chera 'at' speciesalliance.org
(Founder, Executive Film Producer) is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is the creator and webmaster of massextinction.net, the Web's oldest and most comprehensive source of information on the current mass extinction crisis. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Boston University, Barnard College (Columbia University), the University of Vermont, and Princeton University. He is the author of The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries (Oxford University Press), and has published articles in Scientific American and numerous other scholarly journals.
David 'at' speciesalliance.org
(Creative Director, Film Director) has been working professionally in video production since 1983. For ten years he was on staff at San Francisco Production Group, an award-winning design and post-production company, where as senior designer/director he created video communications for a wide variety of broadcasters, ad agencies, corporations, and independent producers. In 1997 he opened his own motion graphics and effects shop. He has worked with national and international clients such as J. Walter Thompson, McCann Erickson, MTV, Warner Bros., Visa International, the California Academy of Sciences, and Stanford University.
Monte 'at' speciesalliance.org
(Co-Producer, Production Manager) has ten years experience in film and television production. Professionally, Ms. Nicholson has fulfilled numerous production roles including Producer, Writer, Assistant Director, and Production Coordinator. She has worked with major studios and networks including Warner Brothers, Universal Studios, HBO, MTV, TNT and the SciFi Channel. In addition, Ms. Nicholson has been involved with numerous small independent production companies. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and a Masters in Philosophy and Religion from the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Kelleen 'at' speciesalliance.org
(Film Editor, Co-Producer) has 17 years experience in film, television, and video. He has worked on independent features, cable movies, documentaries, educational films, corporate videos, and television commercials as a writer, director, producer, editor, cinematographer, assistant director, assistant editor, grip, and electrician. His feature-length drama "The Distraction" is available on DVD and has been distributed internationally. He holds degrees in cinema production from the University of Southern California and in philosophy and religion from the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Greg 'at' speciesalliance.org
(Art Director) has worked professionally as an art director, designer and motion graphics artist for 25 years, and presently runs her own design firm, Hive Studio. For over 13 years Ms. Hoppe has worked on a wide variety of projects, taking creative responsibility from initial conceptual design through to completion. Ms. Hoppe has both designed and collaborated to create shows and graphics for broadcast, print, online, interactive media, and performance. Clients include Bank of America, Eye Games, Fox Network, PG&E, Sun Microsystems, Scripps Institute, TechTV, WalMart, and the Tibetan Nuns of Katmandu. For eight years prior to her own design studio, Ms. Hoppe was Senior Graphic Designer for the San Francisco CBS affiliate KPIX. There she was awarded multiple Broadcast Designers Association Awards and shared an Emmy Award for the show 'Freedom'.
Maggie 'at' speciesalliance.org
(Associate Producer) comes from a family of political activists dating back to the Boston Tea Party. She has worked in the photography industry for 20 years. As a digital artist she works with such photographers as RJ Muna and Bart Nagel and agencies such as Team One, Saatchi & Saatchi, Cutwater and Young & Rubicam on national campaigns for Tesla electric cars, Honda Hybrid, United Healthcare, Nautilus, Dwell Magazine, Oberlin Dance Company and San Francisco Ballet. As a photographer she has done work for writers, musicians and artists. Her fine art photography has been shown in galleries and museums and is collected worldwide.
Susan 'at' speciesalliance.org
(Webmaster) began designing and coding websites in 1997 and has since focused her work on sites for educational institutions, artists, and non-profits. Her current clients include the Student Alliance at CIIS, saciis.org where she studies Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness, as well as her department's website, pcc.ciis.edu. She holds a Bachelor's of Science in Mathematics from Mary Baldwin College and has taught high school mathematics, grade school theatre, preschool Spanish and yoga, and at a Montessori school. Mary's interests include the nature of reality, painting, ecstatic dance, and bridging the gap between science and spirituality.
Mary 'at' speciesalliance.org
(Director of Development, Special Projects) has worked in the New York media and fashion industries for 18 years and has extensive experience both in front of the camera as a celebrity spokesperson and behind it as a producer, editor, and stylist for print and television, including work for Lifetime Television, The Disney Channel, and The Rosie O'Donnell Show. She has also done fundraising and other volunteer work with numerous non-profits including The Hunger Project, Youth at Risk, and various animal rescue organizations, and also volunteers with her dogs for Therapy Dogs International.
Rhea 'at' speciesalliance.org
(Web Developer) has been a web designer, developer and educator in the San Francisco Bay Area for over eight years. His focus is information and communications technology for ecological and sociological sustainability, with an emphasis on interface design, rich content, and interactive motion graphics for the web. His clients include Earthdance International, Planetwork, G-TV, Autodesk, the California Institute of Integral Studies, the Institute of Noetic Sciences, the Buckminister Fuller Institute, UN World Environment Day, and a recent film on Zorastrianism. He has instructed web design at the Center for Electronic Arts, and is currently a graduate student at California Institute of Integral Studies.
Michael 'at' speciesalliance.org
(Curriculum Director) has a PhD from CIIS in Philosophy and Religion. His dissertation was on the use of machine metaphor in evolutionary biology. He is a former high school biology teacher with experience in public, private, and charter schools. He has focused both his teaching and his master's thesis on using the mass extinction as a guiding theme for high school biology. He currently teaches environmental science and world conflict at the Art Institute of California, San Francisco.
John 'at' speciesalliance.org
(Outreach Coordinator, Associate Producer) is a life-long activist and educator. As part of an activist theatre troupe Vox Femina, she shared in the writing, directing, and performing of shows that consistently packed the Boulder Theater in Colorado. There she also hosted a radio show on social and environmental justice (Making Waves) and helped create an award-winning regional newspaper focused on similar issues (The Silverton Mountain Journal). After coming to California she played a key role in building the 1500-member Marin Peace and Justice Coalition and served as its elected secretary for two years. She is a skilled facilitator, with experience guiding up to 100 people at a time in decision-making by consensus. She is currently helping Charlene Spretnak, co-founder of the Green Party, with research and editing for her upcoming book on the sustainability movement. She also teaches part time at an environmental charter school.
Kelly 'at' speciesalliance.org
(Researcher) is from Kentucky and Indiana
and is currently studying for an M.A. in Integral Counseling Psychology at CIIS. He is concerned with the relationship between the mental health fields, nature, and industrial collapse.
Shane 'at' speciesalliance.org
(General Consultant) is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies and Director of the program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness. He has taught religious studies at the University of Windsor, the University of Ottawa, and Carleton University (Canada). He has published numerous journal articles in the areas of transpersonal psychology and integral theory and is the author of Individuation and the Absolute: Hegel, Jung, and the Path Toward Wholeness and co-translator of Edgar Morin's Homeland Earth: A Manifesto for the New Millennium.
Sean 'at' speciesalliance.org
(Researcher) has been involved with food justice and sustainability issues for the past ten years. As the founder/owner of a small organic pastry company, she has always been fascinated by the powerful ways that people connect through food, ritual, and celebration. Clara received her Masters degrees in East West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, where her focus was on social and environmental activism as a spiritual practice. She has co-taught a course on economic globalization and its impact on agriculture, indigenous populations, and local food systems, and speaks to groups about the health and economic hazards of genetically engineered foods. Clara currently works as the educational outreach coordinator for a Marin county dairy that is the first non-GMO certified business in the United States and is committed to alternative and sustainable models of farming. Her passions include connecting people to their food sources, to the land, and to each other.
Clara 'at' speciesalliance.org
We gratefully acknowledge the photographic contributions to our site. The generosity of the photographers, as well as their insightful imagery of the creatures with whom we share this planet, provide an endless source of remarkable joy and surprise. We offer our utmost admiration and appreciation to:
And the photographers of the website, onsafari.info: