Expert Speaker Series

Past Speakers

The long (and growing!) list of amazing speakers we've had join us for Climate Ride in the past includes activists, athletes, politicians, businesspeople, authors, and visionaries of all kinds. Please read below to see a list of the interesting people who have given their time to delight, challenge, and inspire the Climate Riders.

Bill McKibben
Environmentalist and writer, author of “The End of Nature” and “Deep Economy,” founder of 350.org

Mike Eckhart
President, American Council on Renewable Energy

Alison Gannett
Founder Save Our Snow Foundation, US Champion Freeskier

Janet Larsen
Director, Earth Policy Institute

Keith Laughlin
President, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

Roz Savage
Ocean rower, author, motivational speaker, and environmental campaigner

Temra Costa
Nationally recognized sustainable food and farming advocate, and author of Farmer Jane: Women Changing the Way We Eat

Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Ohio

Congressman Earl Blumenauer
Oregon

Senator Jeanne Shaheen
New Hampshire

Senator Benjamin Cardin
Maryland

Congressman Lloyd Doggett
Texas

Congressman Edward Markey
Massachusetts

David Arkin
AIA, LEED AP. A leader in straw-bale construction.

Colin Beavan
aka NO IMPACT MAN, lived one year with zero carbon impact

Adrien Benepe
NYC Parks and Recreation Commissioner

Brendan Brazier
Vegan, ultra-marathoner, author and expert on plant-based nutrition for athletes

Garett Brennan
Artist for 1% for the Planet and Clif Green Notes, Executive Director, Focus the Nation.

Rebecca Calahan Klein
Vice President, Organizational Development at 1% For the Planet

Dave Campbell
Program Director for the East Bay Bicycle Coalition

Zoë Chafe 
MPH, UC Berkeley Energy and Resources Group. Human health and climate change mitigation.

David Coale
Acterra's home energy audits to reduce energy use and GHG emissions in the home

Steve Cochran
Vice President of Climate and Air at the Environmental Defense Fund

Mikael Colville-Andersen
Denmark's leading bicycle ambassador and advocate

Josh Dorfman
Director, The Lazy Environmentalist

Dr. Philip Duffy
Chief Scientist at Climate Central, Inc. and visiting scholar at Stanford University and at the Carnegie Institution for Science.

Amanda Eaken
Deputy Director of Sustainable Communities with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

Keegan Eisenstadt
President and CEO of ClearSky Climate Solutions

AshEL Eldridge 
Lead Educator, Alliance for Climate Education - A peek into ACE's award-winning, high-energy multimedia assembly that teaches high school students about climate science.

Gary Fisher
Inventor of the mountain bike

Jenn Fox
Director of Strategic Planning at ClimateWorks

Adam Garcia 
Policy Researcher, Greenbelt Alliance

Dan Garofalo
Sustainability Coordinator for the University of Pennsylvania, LEED-certified architect

Guillaume Gauthereau
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of TOTSY and Founder of Sequoia Lab

Alisa Gravitz
Executive Director, Green America

Susan Green
Director of Finance, Working Assets/Credo Mobile. Green business and social activism.

Brad Heavner
Director of Development, Climate Protection Campaign

David Helvarg 
President, Blue Frontier Compaign; author of “50 Ways to Save the Ocean” and other books

Bracken Hendricks
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress

Jamie Henn
350.org Communications and Development Director

Øystein Hjelm
Design Manager at Cambi (working on biogas plant at the Blue Plains WWTP in Washington DC)

Brad Jacobson
AIA, LEED® AP BD+C, Senior Associate, EHDD. A peak at leading sustainable buildings including the new net zero energy and LEED Platinum headquarters for the David & Lucile Packard Foundation.

Chris Jordan
Photographer and social activist

Rosi Kerr
Director of Sustainability at Dartmouth College

Jason Kowalski
Policy Coordinator, 1Sky campaigns for energy and climate legislation

Selena Kyle 
Staff Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council. The litigation aspect of sustainability.

Josh Lasky 
Sustainability Manager and Adjunct Professor at the University of the District of Columbia

Peter Lehman
Founding Director of Schatz Energy Research Center and Professor of Environmental Resources Engineering at Humboldt State University

Michael Lemonick
Senior writer, Climate Central and former senior science writer at Time Magazine

Jeff Lesk
Managing Partner, LEED AP, Nixon-Peabody Washington DC. A talk about applying sustainable development and financing techniques to affordable housing and community development transactions and on educating developers, investors, and government agencies about green development and finance.

Keith Laughlin
President, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC), the nation's largest trails organization with more than 100,000 members and supporters.

Alvin Lin
China Climate and Energy Policy Director at Natural Resources Defense Council, Beijing

Eugene Linden
Acclaimed journalist and environmental writer for National Geographic, Time, and others, author of "Ragged Edge”

Ruthie Matthes
Road and mountain biking champion and Olympian, cycling advocate and spokesperson

Cy Maramangalam
Alliance For Climate Education - Lead DC Educator - A peek into ACE's award-winning, high-energy multimedia assembly that teaches high school students about climate science.

Daniel Mira Salama
Sustainable Development Network at the World Bank

Nils Moe
Mayor's Sustainability Advisor for the City of Berkeley

Johanna Gregory Partin
Director of Climate Protection Initiatives, Office of San Francisco Mayor Edwin M. Lee

Friis Arne Petersen
Denmark's Ambassador to the US, host of the COP15 UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen Dec. 2009

Ray Porfilio
Architecture 2030

Nicole Rom
Executive Director, Will Steger Foundation. A presentation on polar exploration.

Hardik Savalia
Head of ratings at B-Lab, helping corporations improve social and environmental performance

Leah Shahum
Executive Director, San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

Elizabeth Shope
Advocate, International Program, Tar Sands/Keystone XL & Global Safe Drinking Water Project at Natural Resources Defense Council

Ben Sollee
Cellist, vocalist and bike touring musician

Ben Strauss
Associate director at Climate Central, founding board member of Grist.org and founding director of the Environmental Leadership Program

Randy Swisher
Executive Director, American Wind Energy Association

Carolyn Szczepanski
Communications Coordinator, Alliance for Biking and Walking

Betsy Taylor
Adviser to several climate donors and foundations and advisory board member of 350.org. Co-founder and Board President of 1Sky and Founder and former president of the Center for a New American Dream.

Mike Tidwell
Executive Director, Chesapeake Climate Action Network. Activist, writer, and documentary filmmaker.

Harriet Tregoning
Director of the Washington DC Office of Planning, where she works to make DC a walkable, bikeable, eminently livable, globally competitive and sustainable city.

Wood Turner
Executive Director, Climate Counts

Lauren Van Ham
Interfaith Eco-Chaplain and Sustainability Consultant

Derek Walker
Director of Strategic Climate Initiatives at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Climate policy in California and the US.

Marian Westley
A presentation from NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) at Princeton University