Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Latest Episodes:

CLIMATE ONE: REWIND: Climbing, Conservation and Capitalism Aug 05, 2022

Show notes

Rick Ridgeway estimates he’s spent about five years of his life sleeping in tents, often in the world’s most remote places alongside fellow outdoor adventure luminaries. Ridgeway worked for Patagonia for 15 years and was behind the company’s infamous “Don’t Buy This Jacket” ad campaign, which paradoxically advocated sustainability and increased sales.

Outdoor companies like Patagonia may push for sustainability, but they largely still present a mostly white, wealthy experience with nature, which can be off-putting for people of color. “You know if you can't see yourself in those spaces then it’s hard to feel invited or welcome in that movement,” says writer and social justice facilitator Amanda Machado.

What is the role of corporations in conservation? And how can the outdoor industry help make nature more safe, accessible and welcoming for all?

Guests:

Rick Ridgeway, former Vice President of Public Engagement, Patagonia

Amanda Machado, writer and social justice facilitator

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Humankindness and Health Justice Series: The Intersection of Mental Health and Equity Aug 03, 2022

Show notes

COVID-19 illustrated to the nation the need to address disparities that exist in our communities, especially as they relate to mental health. These disparities are chronic, with intergenerational health impacts that also affect employment and create socioeconomic racial inequities. The direct result of all these inequities is that people of color die at a rate 3.6 times higher than that of the overall general population. Eliminating persistent disparities and stigma in mental health will require correcting the systemic barriers created over generations.

Join us for a conversation on ways to overcome these barriers at the intersection of mental health and equity with the Honorable Patrick J. Kennedy, former congressman from Rhode Island and one of the world’s leading voices on mental health and addiction, and Paul Rains, system senior vice president for behavioral health for CommonSpirit Health and president at St Joseph’s Behavioral Health Center in Stockton, California. Leading the discussion will be Janet Reilly, co-founder and board president of Clinic by the Bay, a free, volunteer-powered health clinic for the working uninsured in San Francisco and San Mateo Counties.

NOTES

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

SPEAKERS

Hon. Patrick Kennedy

Former U.S. Representative (D-RI) and Founder of The Kennedy Forum

Paul Rains

Senior Vice President of Behavioral Health, CommonSpirit Health; President, St. Joseph’s Behavioral Health Center

Janet Reilly

Co-founder and Board President, Clinic by the Bay

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 July 27th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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The Human Rights Foundation and Justice in Syria Show editorially warningPlay Aug 02, 2022

Show notes

Roberto González will discuss the important work the Human Rights Foundation has done since its inception in 2005, including its project Defund Dictators Too. The HRF is a nonprofit that defends and promotes freedom and justice throughout the world. He will likely include the recent Oslo Freedom Forum. Malaak Jamal will concentrate on HRF's 2022 report, "Framing Justice in Syria."

Roberto González is an attorney admitted to practice in the State of New York. He graduated cum laude from Rafael Landívar University, where he earned a Bachelor of Laws degree. He also holds a master’s degree in International Law and Justice from Fordham University School of Law. As a part of HRF’s Center for Law and Democracy, González’s research focuses on comparative constitutional law and international law. Malaak Jamal oversees HRF research and analyzes political regimes in countries under authoritarian rule. She received her M.A. in diplomacy and international relations from Seton Hall University, with specializations in human rights, international law, post-conflict state reconstruction and sustainability. Malaak has a minor in Middle Eastern studies at the American University in Dubai. Malaak’s opinions have been featured in Time, The Washington Post ,CNN, and other media outlets.

MLF ORGANIZER

Celia Menczel

SPEAKERS

Roberto González

Chief Advocacy Officer, Human Rights Foundation

Malaak Jamal

Director, Policy and Research, Human Rights Foundation

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 July 21st 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Larry Baer: The San Francisco Giants' 2022 Season Jul 29, 2022

Show notes

As the San Francisco Giants gear up after the All-Star break, what can we expect from this team in 2022? It is the 140th season for the franchise in Major League Baseball, its 65th year in San Francisco, and its 23rd at Oracle Park. This is also the third season under manager Gabe Kapler, and perhaps more important, the first season since 2008 without longtime catcher Buster Posey, who retired in November.

With three World Series titles in the last 12 years, and last year’s all- time franchise record of 107 winning games and the National League West title, can the Giants make another run for the pennant this year? Who better to ask than Larry Baer, president and CEO of the SF Giants franchise?

A fourth-generation San Franciscan, Larry Baer has gained a national reputation as one of professional sports’ leading visionaries. Baer joined the team in 1992 as the executive vice president after he and Peter Magowan led the effort to assemble a new ownership group that kept the Giants in San Francisco. A limited partner and board member of the ownership group, Baer was named CEO on January 1, 2012. In his first year as president and CEO, the Giants won their second World Series Championship in three years. In 2014, the Giants won their third World Series title in five years. Baer is responsible for the overall day-to-day operations of the organization and serves as a key strategist and negotiator of the club’s major transactions.

Join us at The Commonwealth Club to hear firsthand from Larry Baer on how the Giants are doing this season and what we can hope to see from the team in the second half of the season.

SPEAKERS

Larry Baer

President and CEO, San Francisco Giants

Raj Mathai

Anchor, NBC Bay Area KNTV—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 July 25th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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CLIMATE ONE: Patti Poppe: Reinventing Utilities During a Climate Emergency Jul 29, 2022

Show notes

As the CEO of the California utility giant PG&E, Patti Poppe is charged with navigating the company through massive wildfires, disrupted energy markets, and lingering public distrust of the utility. The company is undergrounding 10,000 miles of electric lines, working with GM and Ford on incorporating power from electric vehicles into homes and the grid, deploying batteries at large power plants, and pushing to change net metering rates that pay homeowners for electricity generated on their roofs. How can utilities like PG&E reinvent themselves and modernize the electric grid to deliver renewable power when their own systems are threatened by catastrophic climate change?

Guests:

Patricia Poppe, CEO, PG&E

Katherine Blunt, Reporter, Wall Street Journal

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Katie Hafner, Author of ""The Boys"" Jul 28, 2022

Show notes

Katie Hafner is a technology, health care, and society journalist who wrote on staff for The New York Times for 10 years and remains a frequent contributor. She has also worked at Newsweek and BusinessWeek and has written for many major publications, including The Washington Post and Oprah Magazine. She is the author of five previous works of nonfiction covering a range of topics, including the origins of the Internet, computer hackers, German reunification, and the pianist Glenn Gould.

Hafner’s first novel, The Boys, writes a charming narrative about love and the yearning for connection. The story follows Ethan Fawcett, an introvert who marries the vivacious Barb. One day Barb brings home two young brothers, Tommy and Sam, for them to foster, and when the pandemic hits, Ethan becomes obsessed with providing a perfect life for the boys. The introduction of the boys into their household drives a wedge between Ethan and Barb. Ethan decides to take the boys on a biking trip in Italy on a misguided quest for love and connection, and expectedly discovers what it will take to repair his marriage.

Join us to as Katie Hafner takes us through her reflections on loneliness and community.

NOTES

This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.

SPEAKERS

Katie Hafner

Journalist; Host and Co-Executive Producer, "Lost Women of Science" Podcast; Author, The Boys

Carol Edgarian

Co Founder, Narrative; Author, Vera—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 July 18th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Mark Leibovich: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission Jul 27, 2022

Show notes

The Republican Party used to stand for individualism, and according to journalist and author Mark Leibovich, it now largely answers to the whims of one man: former president Donald Trump. Tracing Trump’s ascent to the top of a party that in the early months of his candidacy viewed him with contempt, Leibovich brings answers to the massive question of “what happened?”

Mark Leibovich is an award-winning journalist and writer for The Atlantic. Called the “reigning master of the political profile” by Washingtonian magazine and named one of “Washington's 25 Most Powerful, Least Famous People” by The New Republic, Leibovich has decades of journalistic experience, including previously writing for The New York Times for 15 years.

In his latest book Thank You For Your Servitude, Leibovich retells how figures like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham went from vocal Trump critics to loyal soldiers. With shocking honesty from some of Trump’s biggest supporters admitting they are “in on the joke,” Leibovich uses interviews, news media and an incisive, brutally honest investigation to tell how Trump remade the GOP in his own image—and how far his politicians are willing to go to stay relevant.

Join us, as Leibovich recounts the transformation of the American political right, and how it gave hints of the events we see unfold today.

SPEAKERS

Mark Leibovich

Staff Writer, The Atlantic; Former Chief National Correspondent, The New York Times Magazine; Author, Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission; Twitter @MarkLeibovich

In Conversation with Tim Miller

Writer-at-large, The Bulwark; Political Analyst, MSNBC; Host, "Not My Party" on Snapchat; Communications Director, Jeb Bush 2016; Author, Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell; Twitter @timodc

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 July 20th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Malcolm Nance: Behind the Ideology of the Trump Insurgency Jul 25, 2022

Show notes

In the post-2020 world, Americans, having faced the controversies of the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection, may be tempted to do their best to forget these events and move on — yet to bestselling author Malcolm Nance, this is the worst thing they can do. As the country is experiencing a sharp rise in radicalism and hostility toward democracy, Nance argues that it is more important than ever to be actively confronting the rise of a new threat to democracy from within.

Malcolm Nance is a leading expert in counter-terrorism studies, as well as an intelligence analyst, cryptologist, former senior chief petty officer in the United States Navy and founding executive director of the New York-based think tank Terror Asymmetrics Project on Strategy, Tactics and Radical Ideologies. Nance has written at length on the dangers posed by major terrorist groups, such as ISIS and al-Qaeda.

In his latest book, They Want to Kill Americans, Nance explains how conspiracy theories, white privilege and increasing hostility toward democracy has contributed to the rise of what he calls a “Trump Insurgency in the U.S.,” or TITUS. Having forewarned of divisions in America turning into fractures in our country months before the January 6 insurrection, Nance warns that the rising generational threat may rival the Islamic State or al-Qaeda, and that immediate action is necessary to address this growing unrest before it is too late.

Join us as Nance explains how such a destructive force has sprung up in our own backyard, and what can be done to quell its growth.

SPEAKERS

Malcolm Nance

Retired Intelligence Officer; Author, They Want to Kill Americans: The Militias, Terrorists, and Deranged Ideology of the Trump Insurgency

In Conversation with Pat Thurston

Host, “The Pat Thurston Show,” KGO-AM

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 July 19th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Craig McNamara: Because Our Fathers Lied Jul 23, 2022

Show notes

The Greatest Generation, having faced the Great Depression and fought World War II with a clear goal and responsible leadership, ended up enduring a generational divide with their Baby Boom children, because their continuing trust in American political leadership did not erode as quickly as their children’s did during the 1960s. The Vietnam War’s lies, deaths, destruction and deteriorated goals, arriving at the same time as political assassinations and the ongoing cultural violence in reaction to a seemingly simple plea for racial equality, undermined many a family’s intergenerational communications.

Prior to serving as secretary of defense in JFK’s cabinet of “the best and the brightest,” Robert McNamara was a skilled executive who had helped turn around the Ford Motor Company. Craig, his youngest child and only son, came of age in the political tumult and upheaval of the late 1960s and took part in anti-war demonstrations in direct conflict with his father’s policies. Then he traveled by motorcycle across Central and South America to learn the art of agriculture so that he could make “an honest living”.

Because Our Fathers Lied tells the story of a father and son at a pivotal period in American history. Join us to discuss the issues of the 1960s all over again with someone who lived the generational conflict more intimately than almost anyone else.

MLF ORGANIZER

George Hammond

SPEAKERS

Craig McNamara

Founder and President, Center for Land-Based Learning; Owner, Sierra Orchards; Author, Because Our Fathers Lied: A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today

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

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Ian Morris: Geography Is Destiny Jul 22, 2022

Show notes

Ian Morris returns to The Commonwealth Club for an online discussion of his latest research into the deep history of the human race. In the wake of Brexit, Morris now tackles the 8 millennia history of Britain's relationship to Europe as that relationship keeps changing in the context of a continually globalizing world.

When Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016, the 48 percent who wanted to stay and the 52 percent who wanted to go each accused the other of stupidity, fraud and treason. But the Brexit debate merely reran a script written 8,000 years earlier, when rising seas physically separated the British Isles from the European continent.

Morris describes how technology and organization have steadily enlarged Britain's arena, and how its people have turned this to their advantage. For the first 7,500 years, the British were never more than bit players at the western edge of a European stage, struggling to find a role among bigger, richer and more sophisticated continental rivals. By A.D. 1500, however, new kinds of ships and governments had turned the European stage into an Atlantic one. With the English Channel now functioning as a barrier, England transformed the British Isles into a United Kingdom that created a worldwide empire. Since 1900, however, Britain has been overshadowed by American, European and Chinese actors. But Morris says that in trying to find its new place in a global economy, Britain has been looking in all the wrong places. The great question for the 21st century is not what to do about Brussels, but what to do about Beijing.

MLF ORGANIZER

George Hammond

SPEAKERS

Ian Morris

The Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and Professor in History, Stanford University; Author, Geography is Destiny—Britain's Place in the World: A 10,000 Year History

In Conversation with George Hammond

Author, Conversations With Socrates

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