Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Jane McGonigal: How to See the Future Coming Apr 10, 2022

Show notes

In the fickle age of COVID-19, it is harder than ever to have assuredness, and confidence. A solution? "Radical imagination"—and with it the power to transform our present and see our future. Game-designer turned author Jane McGonical, wants to give people the key to unlock their imagination potential and in doing so design their own futures with limitless possibilities and creative certainty.

In her newest book, Imaginable, McGonigal coaxes audiences to dive into the unimaginable as a way to problem solve, future-plan, and find transformative fulfillment. She uses psychological research to embolden readers and make real the possibilities that are unfathomable—but not for long.

At INFORUM, the renowned future forecaster will invite audiences into her mind and lay out the daring vision necessary to give life to a book about imagination. McGonigal answers the age-old question, “How do we learn to feel at peace with the unknown?” and teaches how mental, imagination training can reduce anxiety and boost tenacity.

SPEAKERS

Jane McGonigal

Future Forecaster; Game Designer; Author, Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything—Even Things that Seem Impossible Today; Twitter Twitter @avantgame

In Conversation with Roy Bahat

Head, Bloomberg Beta; Twitter @roybahat

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 30th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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CLIMATE ONE: Can We Get Clean Energy Without Dirty Mines? Apr 09, 2022

Show notes

Global sales of electric vehicles more than doubled in 2021. Projections for this year are for another huge gain as more automakers introduce more models with increasing range. This is all good news for transitioning to a clean energy economy. But sourcing the materials needed for clean energy might not be so clean. Mining is the leading industrial polluter in the U.S., but the climate crisis demands a transition to technologies that require raw materials to be extracted. How can the world get the minerals it needs to mitigate the climate crisis without creating other ecological disasters in the process?

Guests:

Morgan Bazilian, Director, Payne Institute, Colorado School of Mines

Payal Sampat, Mining Program Director, Earthworks

Maureen Penjueli, Coordinator, Pacific Network on Globalisation

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The Art of Disability Culture Apr 09, 2022

Show notes

Despite the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and small signs of progress here and there, artists with disabilities still face discrimination and prejudice in the arts arena. Disability culture is still marginalized, and access features are not always offered as standard practice in exhibitions.

Join us as we tease out some of these issues and why they matter, with an accessible introduction to disability culture and a dynamic conversation between photographers Nolan Trowe and Anthony Tusler. We’ll consider how representation and visibility is integral to their work, and how their work also advocates for a more radically inclusive and accessible arts and culture landscape.

MLF ORGANIZER

Robert Melton

NOTES

MLF: Arts

SPEAKERS

Nolan Ryan Trowe

Photographer; Writer, Focuses on Stories Around Disability

Anthony Tusler

Writer; Photographer; Consultant; Trainer; Advocate on Disability Issues

Fran Osborne

Museum Consultant; Specialist in Accessible Exhibitions; Independent Curator and Lecturer, Museum Studies Program at San Francisco State University—Moderator

Robert Melton

Freelance Curator; Community Events Arts Organizer; Co-Chair, Arts Member-Led Forum, The Commonwealth Club of California—Host

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 29th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Humankindness and Health Justice: Creating a More Equitable World Apr 08, 2022

Show notes

Health justice is one of the most important yet complicated issues facing American society. Environmental factors, policies and even systems create societal disparities that affect a person's ability to achieve their best possible health.

To ensure justice and equity in health, advocates say the country needs to address community-specific disparities, dismantle systems, and end policies that drive poor health outcomes. One way to start this important justice work is to dramatically increase access to education and overall literacy. Efforts such as addressing the increasing economic fragmentation of education, divisions of income along racial lines, and providing pathways to financial literacy serve as a foundational element in the overall health justice work ahead. Failure to address this separation and fragmentation could make health justice for our nation an elusive goal.

To address this often-overlooked connection between financial literacy and health justice, The Commonwealth Club of California and CommonSpirit Health are pleased to bring together Mellody Hobson, a highly prominent financial executive who is president and co-CEO of Ariel Investments and chair of the board of directors of Starbucks Corporation, and Lloyd Dean, CommonSpirit Health CEO and a nationally recognized leader in health care and and recognized voice for health justice.

Please join us for this rare conversation between two leading voices in health care and business about addressing health justice.

NOTES

This program is part of the Humankindness & Health Justice series, generously underwritten by CommonSpirit Health Foundation.

SPEAKERS

Mellody Hobson

President and co-CEO, Ariel Investments; Chair of the Board of Directors, Starbucks Corporation

Lloyd Dean

CEO, CommonSpirit Health—Moderator

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Alan Dershowitz on the Human Rights Tragedy in Ukraine Apr 07, 2022

Show notes

The Ukrainian people are paying a high price for the massive and costly resistance they are putting up to Russian aggression. Refugees fleeing Ukraine already number in excess of 2 million and counting. Many are Ukrainian Jews. Those who are unable to leave or are engaged in the fight to slow the advance of Russian forces are subject to increasingly indiscriminate bombing and the threat of using more extreme military weaponry. Reports of targeting and killing civilians, including the bombing of hospitals and schools, raise serious questions about human rights violations and war crimes.

We invite acclaimed attorney, civil liberties defender and constitutional scholar Alan Dershowitz to discuss the actions of Russian forces in Ukraine and the potential case against Russia’s military leaders and in particular President Vladimir Putin. Are there legal avenues to pursue in the International Criminal Court or other international bodies, and how might such cases be brought?

What other avenues might we explore to tackle this human rights tragedy unfolding on multiple fronts? At this critical moment, Ukraine’s President Zelensky is standing up and defending his country and his people. Professor Dershowitz recently has made the case that Zelensky should be recognized immediately on the international stage for his commitment. As an emeritus professor of public law, Dershowitz will be nominating President Zelensky for this year's Nobel Peace Prize and urging the Committee to award it now. As Rabbi Hillel once said: "If not now, when?”

Please join Alan Dershowitz, New York Times bestselling author and Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School, in conversation with Dan Ashley, news anchor at ABC7 KGO Bay Area, about Ukraine as well as other key civil liberties and human rights issues.

SPEAKERS

Alan Dershowitz

Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus, Harvard Law School

In Conversation with Dan Ashley

News Anchor/Reporter, ABC7 News, KGO-TV Bay Area

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 25th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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George Hammond: More Confidence than You Can Imagine Apr 06, 2022

Show notes

It is hard for most of us to even imagine the confidence Socrates had. Or that Alexander or Mozart had. Much less live it. It is much easier, though, for us to imagine a top saleswoman’s confidence, even if we are inclined to blame it all on her over-praising mother. But there are patterns in the emotion we call confidence that make it clear this is not an unsolvable mystery—patterns that explain both the ephemeral confidence that leads to sales success and the seemingly unshakeable confidence that leads to political, military, artistic, scientific and intellectual high-end achievements.

But even when the elements of this emotion are parsed (it is caused by perceiving oneself as virtuous), it is still not immediately obvious how to achieve it in daily life, due to the subtleties of both the process of perceiving oneself and the definition of virtue (using the ancient understanding of virtue as strength or skillfulness). George Hammond will clarify those subtleties so that you can shift how you perceive yourself sufficiently to immediately feel more confident. And to understand how to keep that trend going by shedding the habitual thinking patterns that usually undermine confidence—until you have developed more confidence than you can currently imagine.

MLF ORGANIZER

George Hammond

SPEAKERS

George Hammond

Author, Conversations With Socrates

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Rick Hasen: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics Apr 06, 2022

Show notes

Misinformation and disinformation, both domestic and international, have become global issues that are impacting elections and other aspects of geopolitics. These issues have become tremendously important in the United States, and as the country enters another election year, understanding the impact of these issues, and the role of technology and social media, is critical to a functioning democracy.

In this election year, with control of Congress at stake, what can be done consistent with the First Amendment to ensure that American voters can make informed election decisions and hold free elections amid a flood of virally spread disinformation and the collapse of local news reporting? How should American society counter the actions of people who use social media to undermine U.S. elections? What can we do to minimize disinformation campaigns aimed at suppressing voter turnout?

Elections expert Richard Hasen has some answers. In his new book Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics—and How to Cure It, Hasen provides a practical road map for controlling disinformation, embracing free speech, saving American elections, and protecting democracy. He provides insight into the current debates over free speech, censorship and Big Tech’s responsibilities.

Please join us for a discussion about ways to ensure Americans have access to the reliable information on which democracy depends.

SPEAKERS

Rick Hasen

Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science, University of California-Irvine; Author, Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics—and How to Cure It

In Conversation with Erwin Chemerinsky

Dean, University of California Berkeley Law School

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States of Liberation: Gay Men in Cold War Germany Apr 05, 2022

Show notes

After the fall of Nazi Germany and the onset of the Cold War, gay men in the now-divided Germany underwent a historic change in their status and visibility and influence.

George Mason University history professor Samuel Clowes Huneke joins us to talk about this time of momentous transition. It's the subject of his first book, States of Liberation, which traces the paths of gay men in East and West Germany from the violent aftermath of the Second World War to the thundering nightclubs of present-day Berlin. Following a captivating cast of characters, from gay spies and Nazi scientists to queer politicians and secret police bureaucrats, Dr. Huneke tells the remarkable story of how the two German states persecuted gay men—and how those men slowly, over the course of decades, won new rights and created new opportunities for themselves in the heart of Cold War Europe. Relying on untapped archives in Germany and the United States as well as oral histories with witnesses and survivors, Huneke reveals that communist East Germany was in many ways far more progressive on queer issues than democratic West Germany.

Join us for an online discussion about the history of gender, sexual history, the law, and politics.

SPEAKERS

Samuel Clowes Huneke

Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Modern German History, George Mason University; Author, States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany

Michelle Meow

Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show" on KBCW/KPIX TV and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors; Twitter @msmichellemeow—Co-Host

John Zipperer

Producer and Host, Week to Week Political Roundtable; Vice President of Media & Editorial, The Commonwealth Club—Co-Host

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on March 24th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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A Conversation with Chairman of the National Governors Association Asa Hutchinson Apr 04, 2022

Show notes

The Commonwealth Club is pleased to welcome Asa Hutchinson, Republican governor of the state of Arkansas, and the current chair of the National Governors Association (NGA).

Governor Hutchinson will discuss the critical role he has played in workforce training, infrastructure and new economy jobs not only in his state, but also across the country, leading the bipartisan National Governors Association. The NGA works alongside governors in their efforts to restore public health and continue a robust, sustainable economic recovery. When he became chairman of the NGA last year, Hutchinson pledged “to build on the areas where Republicans and Democrats agree and work to remove the obstacles in Washington where we can.” As chairman, Hutchinson has focused on K–12 computer science education, promoting his state’s best practices, in addition to engaging other governors on their strategies for success, to help increase computer science literacy needed for the jobs of the future.

A dedicated public servant, Governor Hutchinson was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas. In 1996, he won the first of three successive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. During his third term in Congress, President George W. Bush appointed him director of the Drug Enforcement Administration and later as an undersecretary in the newly created Department of Homeland Security.

His experience has established him as a national resource for his expertise on trade, energy, national security, and education. The governor has been invited to the White House several times to join discussions about health care, Medicaid and education issues.

The governor is the former co-chair of the Council of Governors and the former chairman of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, Southern States Energy Board, and the Southern Regional Education Board.

SPEAKERS

Asa Hutchinson

Governor of Arkansas; Chairman, National Governors Association

Scott McGrew

News Anchor, NBC Bay Area

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded Live In San Francisco March 28th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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CLIMATE ONE: Solar Flare-ups Apr 01, 2022

Show notes

Earlier this year, California regulators were set to propose significant changes to the incentives that drive rooftop solar installations. After widespread opposition from industry and climate advocates, the California Public Utilities Commission paused the effort. The issue centers on how much rooftop solar customers pay to use the grid and what rewards they get for selling their excess power.

But California is far from the only state where net metering is a hotly contested issue. While utility-scale projects may offer more bang for the buck in some contexts, rooftop solar offers distributed generation and a tool for resilience. This week, we explore the debate between rooftop and utility-scale solar.

Guests:

Adam Browning, Co-Founder and Executive Director Emeritus, Vote Solar

Bernadette Del Chiaro, Executive Director, California Solar and Storage Association

Tom Beach, Principal Consultant, Crossborder Energy

Emily Sanford Fisher, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, Sr. Vice President, Clean Energy, Edison Electric Institute

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