Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Latest Episodes:

CLIMATE ONE: Cow Poop and Compost: Digesting the Methane Menace Feb 25, 2022

Show notes

In a 20-year time frame, methane is 80 times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide. Nationally, 37% of methane emissions come from cows. 17% of all US methane emissions come from food waste rotting in landfills. More than 100 countries, including the US, signed The Global Methane Pledge, promising to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030.

In California, a new law went into effect directly addressing the state’s methane emissions from organic waste and dairy farms. The law targets a 40% reduction in the same time frame. That’s ambitious. What effect will this law have on industrial agriculture, and the general population?

Guests:

Neil Edgar, Executive Director, California Compost Coalition

J Jordan, Policy Coordinator,Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability

Michael Boccadoro, Executive Director, Dairy Cares

Monique Figueiredo, Chief Executive Officer / Founder / Co-Owner, Compostable LA

Allen Williams, Understanding Ag

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Black Women Lead: Stories From the Bay Area Feb 25, 2022

Show notes

As we celebrate Black History Month, we honor the leadership of Black women from the Bay Area, including congresswoman Barbara Lee and Vice President Kamala Harris. Today, a historic number of Black women are serving on school boards, transit agencies, and city councils—and blazing the trail for the next generation of diverse civic leaders in this region. What’s more, an impressive cohort of Bay Area Black women are running for local and statewide office in the upcoming midterm elections.

Join the San Francisco Foundation and The Commonwealth Club of California to learn about the leadership journeys of Black women from the Bay Area who are either serving in or running for public office. Speakers include BART Board Director Lateefah Simon, Emeryville City Councilmember Courtney Welch, California Assembly District 20 candidate Jennifer Esteen, and Oakland mayoral candidate Allyssa Victory.

NOTES

This program is made possible by San Francisco Foundation's Bay Area Leads donors.

SPEAKERS

Jennifer Esteen

California Assembly District 20 Candidate; Trustee, Alameda Health System

Lateefah Simon

Board Director, BART

Allyssa Victory

Oakland Mayoral Candidate; Staff Attorney, Criminal Justice Program, ACLU of Northern California

Courtney Cecelia Welch

Emeryville City Councilwoman; Director of Policy and Communications, Bay Area Community Land Trust

Brandi Howard

Chief of Staff, San Francisco Foundation—Moderator

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 February 17th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Amy Zegart: Spies, Lies and Algorithms Feb 24, 2022

Show notes

Amy Zegart is one of America’s leading intelligence experts, but she recognizes that few people understand the world of spying, at a time when it has never been more ubiquitous, particularly using technology. She hopes to change this situation.

In Spies, Lies, and Algorithms, Zegart separates fact from fiction on spying and offers an account of the past, present and future of American espionage as it faces a revolution driven by digital technology. Zegart explores the history of U.S. espionage, from George Washington’s Revolutionary War spies to today’s spy satellites; examines how fictional spies are influencing real officials; gives an overview of intelligence basics and life inside America’s intelligence agencies; explains the deadly cognitive biases that can mislead analysts; and explores the complicated issues of traitors, covert action and congressional oversight. Zegart also provides an important description of how technology is empowering new enemies and opportunities, and creating powerful new players, in espionage—including private citizens using their home computers and sophisticated technology available by a click.

Zegart will discuss these topics and more when she returns to The Commonwealth Club.

Please join us for an important conversation on a critical national security subject that many discuss, but few understand.

SPEAKERS

Amy Zegart

Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Author, Spies, Lies and Algorithms

Quentin Hardy

Head of Editorial, Google Cloud

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 February 16th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Michael Dine: This Way to the Universe Feb 22, 2022

Show notes

Professor Michael Dine is renowned in his field of physics. Dine is widely recognized as having made profound contributions to our understanding of matter, time, the Big Bang, and even what might have come before it, and he wants to share it with people like you.

His new book This Way to the Universe touches on many emotional, critical points in his extraordinary career while presenting mind-bending physics, such as his answer to the dark matter and dark energy mysteries, as well as the ideas that explain why our universe consists of something rather than nothing. Dine helps to celebrate the astounding, ongoing scientific investigations that have revealed the nature of reality at its smallest, at its largest, and at the scale of our daily lives.

Join us as Professor Michael Dine takes us through the exciting world of physics.

SPEAKERS

Michael Dine

Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz; Author, This Way to the Universe: A Theoretical Physicist's Journey to the Edge of Reality

In Conversation with Adam Becker

Astrophysicist; Science Writer, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Author, What is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics; Twitter @FreelanceAstro

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The Economic State of Latinos in America Feb 18, 2022

Show notes

In a new report, McKinsey & Company finds that Latinos increasingly embody the American Dream----from starting more businesses, seeing higher rates of intergenerational mobility, and achieving a larger share of skilled and higher-paid occupations in the past 10 years when compared to previous decades. Yet America’s contribution to that dream is uneven, according to the new McKinsey report, "The Economic State of Latinos in America: The American Dream Deferred."

The new McKinsey report finds that Latinos born in the United States enjoy higher wages and intergenerational mobility than foreign-born Latinos—suggesting Latinos may overcome the hurdles to full participation in their adopted country over time. Yet both US- and foreign-born Latinos remain far from equal with non-Latino white Americans. Latino Americans make just 73 cents for every dollar earned by white Americans. They face discrimination when it comes to securing financing to start and scale businesses. Latinos struggle with access to food, housing and other essentials. And their level of household wealth—which directly affects their ability to accumulate and pass on wealth from generation to generation—is just one-fifth that of white Americans. Furthermore, the pandemic continues to have a disproportionate impact on Latinos.

McKinsey says there’s no doubt Latinos are slowly being more fully integrated into the U.S. economy. Yet there’s also no doubt there’s a long way to go, especially for first-generation Latino immigrants. Please join us as we discuss this important report with two of its authors and other prominent Latinos, and focus on the opportunity we have to make the U.S. economy more robust for everyone.

NOTES

This important community program is made free to the public thanks to McKinsey & Co.

SPEAKERS

Jacqueline Martinez Garcel

CEO, Latino Community Foundation

Bismarck Lepe

President and CEO, Wizeline

Lucy Pérez

Senior Partner, McKinsey & Co.

Bernardo Sichel

Partner, McKinsey & Co.

Damian Trujillo

Reporter, NBC Bay Area—Moderator

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 February 14th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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The History of Free Speech from Socrates to Social Media Feb 18, 2022

Show notes

Hailed as the “first freedom,” free speech is one of the bedrocks of democracy. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of fear and upheaval. Today, both in democracies and in authoritarian states around the world, it appears to be on the retreat.

Jacob Mchangama traces the fascinating legal, political and cultural history of this idea by telling stories of free speech’s many defenders—from the ancient Athenian orator Demosthenes and the ninth-century freethinker al-Rāzī, to the anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells and modern-day digital activists. Mchangama describes how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide. Yet the desire to restrict speech is also a constant, and he explores how even its champions can sometimes be led down an authoritarian, restrictive path when the rise of new and contrarian voices challenge power and privilege of all stripes.

Mchangama's Free Speech demonstrates how much we have gained from this principle—and how much we stand to lose without it.

NOTES

MLF: Humanities

SPEAKERS

Jacob Mchangama

Founder and Executive Director, Justitia (Danish think tank); Host, "Clear and Present Danger: A History of Free Speech" Podcast; Author, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media

In Conversation with George Hammond

Author, Conversations With Socrates

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CLIMATE ONE: Our Greatest Unintended Experiment Feb 18, 2022

Show notes

For years, scientists, activists, and politicians have tried to warn the world of the potential catastrophic consequences of dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere: Think of An Inconvenient Truth in 2006. Or NASA scientist James Hansens’ testimony before the U.S. Senate in 1988, in which he said that “the greenhouse effect has been detected and it is changing our climate now.” Or go all the way back to 1856, when Eunice Newton Foote first warned the world that an atmosphere heavy with carbon dioxide could send global temperatures soaring.

Writer and climate campaigner Alice Bell lays out the history of evolving climate science and our forays into different energy technologies in Our Biggest Experiment: An Epic History of the Climate Crisis. Despite our current emissions trajectory, Bell says there’s still reason to hope: “We have been left a lot of opportunities and we still have got some time to seize them.”

Guests:

Alice Bell, climate campaigner, author, Our Biggest Experiment: An Epic History of the Climate Crisis

Meera Subramanian, environmental journalist

Katerina Gonzales, climate scientist

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Catherine and Tobias Wolff: Imagination, Creativity and Beyond Feb 17, 2022

Show notes

When our imaginations speculate about the afterlife that most of us believe in, they are probably less effective (as Sir Thomas Browne pointed out) than two infants still in the womb trying to describe our far more mundane adult human reality. But as Catherine Wolff demonstrates in Beyond, that does not stop us from trying. Over and over again. Autobiographical storytelling is a similar act of our imaginations’ desire to understand reality by editing it vigorously.

Join us to discuss how we think about the beyond with Catherine Wolff, and with her husband Tobias Wolff, a master of that autobiographical art. We will delve into the overlapping boundaries of our imaginations, our creativity, our dreams, and what comes next. If anything.

MLF ORGANIZER

George Hammond

NOTES

MLF: Humanities

This program is part of The Commonwealth Club's Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.

SPEAKERS

Catherine Wolff

Former Director, the Arrupe Center for Community-Based Learning, Santa Clara University; Author, Beyond: How Humankind Thinks About Heaven

Tobias Wolff

Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor, Emeritus, Department of English, Stanford University; Author, This Boy’s Life and In Pharoah’s Army

In Conversation with George Hammond

Author, Conversations With Socrates

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 February 15th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Immigrants: One Quarter of the Nation Feb 17, 2022

Show notes

Nearly 86 million Americans are immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants. Though many authors have looked at how America changes immigrants, Nancy Foner focuses more on how immigrants have changed America. She reminds us that immigration has long had an important influence on American culture.

Today the advantages of immigration continue: rejuvenating our urban centers as well as some rural communities, strengthening the economy, fueling the growth of old industries, spurring the formation of new ones, and refining how Americans perceive race, all while playing a pivotal role in reshaping electoral politics and party alignments. Immigrants affect virtually every facet of American culture, from the music we dance to and the food we eat to the films we watch and the books we read.

The impact of immigrants over the past half century has become so much a part of everyday life in America that we sometimes fail to see it. Foner makes sure we don't forget all the positive ways in which immigrants continue to change our country.

MLF ORGANIZER

George Hammond

NOTES

MLF: Humanities

SPEAKERS

Nancy Foner

Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York; Author, One Quarter of the Nation: Immigration and the Transformation of America

In Conversation with George Hammond

Author, Conversations With Socrates

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Humanities West Presents Shah Jahan's Taj Mahal Feb 17, 2022

Show notes

The most famous and most beautiful tomb in the world was born in the broken heart of Shah Jahan, when his wife Mumtaz Mahal died at 38 giving birth to their 14th child. The riches of the Mughal Empire were poured into this testament to his grief and to his love, as thousands of artisans labored between 1632 and 1643 to construct it, along with multiple other projects, including gardens, palaces and mosques. The expenditure was immense, even by today’s standards. The Taj Mahal and these other marble monuments were intended to serve the deceased and the living as well as the future of the Mughal house. Shah Jahan ruled until 1658, when he became seriously ill and was overthrown by his sons, each wishing to succeed him. He spent the last years of his life imprisoned and as disheartened as King Lear.

Join Humanities West in person at The Commonwealth Club, or via live stream, to gain a deeper understanding of the Mughal dynasty that created the Taj Mahal and what went into the construction of one of the most visited architectural wonders in the world—which never fails to impress visitors, no matter how high their expectations were. Fortunately, unlike the Egyptian pyramids, we actually know from Mughal records how and why the Taj Mahal was constructed. The story of the Taj Mahal is indelibly intertwined with the story of Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal Emperor, who ruled a vast empire on the Indian subcontinent from 1628–1658. His many architectural achievements, in addition to the Taj Mahal, were made possible because of his extraordinary wealth.

Catherine Asher will focus on the artistic achievement itself: how the Taj Mahal became reality from its inception to its completion, with attention to its remarkable artistic details. She will set this achievement in the context of that time—the previous Mughal artistic developments that had led to the training of so many skilled craftsmen who built not only the Taj Mahal but also the Red Fort and Jama Masjid in Delhi, the Moti Masjid in Agra, and the renovation of Agra Fort (and much more). All this was accomplished during Shah Jahan’s reign. Throughout her discussion she will interweave the Mughals' concept of state with architectural construction.

Note: Both speakers will be participating remotely.

MLF ORGANIZER

George Hammond

NOTES

MLF: Humanities

SPEAKERS

Catherine Asher

Professor Emerita, Department of Art History, University of Minnesota, Specialist in Indian, Muslim and Mughal Dynasty art and architecture; Author, The Architecture of Mughal India

George Hammond

Author, Conversations With Socrates

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 February 11th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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