Videos: Eco Heroes Season 2

A professor at the Mailman School of Public Heath at Columbia University, Dickson Despommier knows there's a problem with current farming practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster? His solution is Vertical Farming. The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes, a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.

Sarah Jones is a Tony Award winning playwright, performer and activist. Called "a master of the genre" by The New York Times, Jones has written and performed four multi-character solo shows, including the critically acclaimed Bridge & Tunnel, which was produced Off-Broadway in 2004 by Oscar-winner Meryl Streep, and then on to Broadway in 2006 where it received a special Tony Award Jones recently returned to her UN School roots by becoming an Ambassador for UNICEF as its first ever Official Spokesperson on Violence Against Children, traveling and performing for audiences from Indonesia to Ethiopia, the Middle East and Japan.

Robert Redford is somewhat of an anomaly in the entertainment industry. Though he has been world-famous for some 30 years, he remains a highly private individual. He is an ardent conservationist and environmentalist, a man who stands for social responsibility and political involvement and an artist and businessman who is a staunch supporter of uncompromised creative expression. His life-long passion for nature and issues of justice has resulted in Redford being widely acknowledged as a highly effective and dedicated political and environmental activist.

Kevin is the CEO of Serious Materials, the maker of serious soundproofing technologies and the soon-to-be-launched EcoRock low-carbon drywall. His mission is to reduce CO2 output by a billion tons per year, three percent of all the CO2 produced by mankind. He says he can do it because the built environment is the play. 52% of all CO2 comes from building: 40% for heating and cooling buildings, and 12% for construction.

Dr. Nadkarni is a Member of the Faculty at The Evergreen State College, in Olympia, Washington, where she teaches in the Environmental Studies program. Her research is focused on the ecology of tropical and temperate forest canopies, particularly the role that canopy-dwelling plants play in forests at the ecosystem level. She carries out field research in Washington State and in Monteverde, Costa Rica with the support of the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society.

This former blogger from Madagascar decided he needed to do more than type to improve the standard of living and reforest in Madagascar. He cofounded MEGASEEDS, a social venture capital which contributes to harnessing natural resources of the planet and ameliorating exploited habitats.