The Institute at the Golden Gate hosts its second annual Turning the Tide conference April 14–16, and for those with a spare $800 lying around, this is a delicious and rare opportunity to learn how to more effectively act on behalf of the very world itself as instructed by today's top visionaries. The three-day conference at Cavallo Point begins and ends with film screenings, including Garbage Dreams and a full preview of Disneynature's new Oceans documentary, but the in-between bit is where it all happens, featuring speakers hashing out everything from personal health to ocean health to economic health to the future of cities to changing disaster-relief strategies and more. Among the confirmed speakers are natural-health specialist Dr. Andrew Weil, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Kennedy, Ocean Voyages Institute president Mary Crowley, and David de Rothschild, who will be interviewed via satellite from his Plastiki catamaran during his voyage. Nonprofits enjoy a reduced fee. www.parksconservancy.org.

Heads vs feds

Some fun! Steve Hager, editor of High Times magazine, squares off at SSU against veteran DEA officer Robert Stutman in one of the best debate-cum-stunts we've heard of in years. Students lead the discussion, asking questions about marijuana legalization, and we'll place a safe bet that Hager will find favor in legalization and Stutman not so much. Stutman has apparently arrested some 15,000 people since 1965 for drug use and feels that marijuana is too detrimental to be legal; Hager, who says he's been smoking since he was 15, equates the leafy greens with alcohol and tobacco, still legal the last time we checked. April 14 at the SSU Cooperage, 1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park. Free. 707.664.2382.

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