Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Youth Talk: The Influence of Environmental Activism on Gen Z Voting Nov 25, 2023

Show notes

“The Influence of Environmental Activism on Gen Z Voting” unites four environmental leaders from a variety of backgrounds for a thought-provoking discussion about environmental activism and civic engagement. Representing the voices of student activists as well as professional environmentalists, our speakers will explore the movement’s impact on voting and youth turnout in recent elections and discuss the strength of environmental activism as a form of civic engagement. Accomplished leaders in their own right, panelists will share their personal journeys and provide key takeaways from the intersection of environmentalism and politics, to inspire the next generation of voters and citizen leaders.

This event is part of the Creating Citizens Speaker Series at UC Berkeley, a partnership between The Commonwealth Club, the Associated Students of the University of California Vote Coalition, and the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement. The series gives UC Berkeley students and community members opportunities to listen to and ask questions of leading minds in politics, media and education as they learn how to become better, more involved citizens.

We look forward to welcoming community members and students from around the Bay Area to participate in this riveting conversation and to join us for future programs in the Creating Citizens Speaker Series.

This program is part of The Commonwealth Club’s civics education

initiative, Creating Citizens.

Produced in partnership with the EAVP Vote Coalition.

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CLIMATE ONE REFRESH: Another Look at Bridging the Great American Divide Nov 24, 2023

Show notes

Most Americans support climate action, but you wouldn’t know it from Congress or the courts – or from most of the media. People on both the left and the right experience the same devastating floods, the same life-threatening heatwaves and the same catastrophic wildfires. Yet individuals tend to socialize within insulated political tribes, operate in completely different information bubbles and see the problems and solutions through different lenses. How can we learn to bridge ideological divides, develop trust, and find the common ground needed to rebuild respectful civil discourse?

Guests:

John Curtis, U.S. Rep., Utah (R)

Joan Blades, Co-founder, LivingRoomConversations.org

John Gable, Co-founder, AllSides.com

For show notes and related links, visit Climate One's website.

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Dr. Carla Hayden: Inside the Library of Congress Nov 22, 2023

Show notes

When the Library of Congress (LoC) was authorized in 1800, its first collection consisted of 740 books and three maps. Today, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world. Housing about 173 million items and employing more than 3,000 employees, the LoC is led by Dr. Carla Hayden, the first woman and first Black librarian of Congress. She assumed her position on September 14, 2016. and is only the 14th person to hold this position in 221 years.

Serving as the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and housing the U.S. Copyright Office, the LoC gets direct appropriations from Congress to fund its work. But it also receives gifts and private donations that support a broad range of activities by the library, including hundreds of projects that have been supported by the James Madison Council's philanthropic members.

Find out about this important national institution, how it works, why it receives hundreds of thousands of in-person visitors and more than 150 million online visitors a year, and the role it plays in a knowledge-based society. Join us for an inside look at the nation's library.

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Democracy at the Local Level Nov 21, 2023

Show notes

What do two of the youngest city councilmembers in California have in common? Both believe that young people belong in politics. Creating Citizens, The Commonwealth Club’s education initiative, is excited to host Oakland Councilmember Janani Ramachandran and South San Francisco Councilmember James Coleman as they talk with high school students about the role of young people in civic life.

Both city councilmembers, born and raised in the communities they now serve, find themselves as the youngest members of their respective city councils. As they work to empower their communities, they find they must constantly navigate a much older political ecosystem that isn’t always the most welcoming to young faces.

The councilmembers will be joined in conversation with Dr. Stephen Morris. Dr. Morris, the CEO and co-founder of the Civic Education Center, has spent more than 20 years working in education. Together, they will discuss local government and how everyone, from politicians to students, can work with people with whom they disagree.

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David Brooks: How to Know a Person Nov 20, 2023

Show notes

“There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.”

—David Brooks

Really knowing another person is not something people seem to do well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. David Brooks set out to help people do better, posing questions that are essential: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person’s story should you pay attention to?

Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and from the worlds of theater, philosophy, history, and education to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. He brings that message to The Commonwealth Club, to help people become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way he offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility and misperception.

How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them, and in turn, see something larger in ourselves? To find out, join us in Silicon Valley as David Brooks explains.

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After APEC: What's China's Role in California's Green Transition? Nov 18, 2023

Show notes

As government officials, diplomats and business leaders from across the Asia-Pacific converge in San Francisco for APEC 2023 Leaders Week, the question on everyone’s lips is: What next for the U.S.-China relationship? Amid the climate crisis, which necessitates urgent energy transition, how do the two largest economies work together against the backdrop of geopolitical tension? Where does California—the world’s fifth largest economy, a green energy leader and oriented toward Asia across the Pacific—fit in?

Governor Gavin Newsom’s October trip to China underscored the critical relationship between the Golden State and China. California has many trade, technology development, and business relationships with China related to clean energy. At the same time, the United States is broadly looking to reduce reliance on China for products, talent and innovations through many policy incentives for local content and domestic manufacturing and broader policy efforts. How will this trend of localization play out in California, and what does this mean for California to meet its ambitious climate and clean energy targets?

As APEC dialogues unfold, join us to analyze the degree of linkages between China and California in low-carbon energy and the implications for policy at the state, federal and multilateral levels.

Co-presented by UC San Diego's 21st Century China Center & Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California.

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The Role of Higher Education in Preserving American Values Nov 17, 2023

Show notes

Colleges and universities across the country are the scenes of controversy these days, with students, faculty, lawmakers and donors all seemingly locked in high-volume debate over campus rights, free speech, human rights and international conflicts.

Almost every institution of higher education touts its ability to set its graduates on a course for successful careers in their desired fields. Also high on the list of their brags are the cultural life and sports teams on campus. But colleges and universities have also played important roles in the curation and development of values in our society. Whether they are religious or secular institutions, public or private, their graduates go out into the world not only armed with job skills and networks of friends but also having been exposed to values instruction in many ways.

Sometimes our colleges and universities are out of step with the rest of the country in terms of the nation's values; other times, they preserve and deepen values that most Americans hold dear.

Just what is the role of these institutions when it comes to American values—in teaching, in challenging, in deepening those values? What exactly are the American values at issue here? Who's succeeding, and what still needs to be done? Join us for a special program addressing these important issues.

This program is part of our American Values Series, underwritten by Taube Philanthropies.

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CLIMATE ONE: Six People Who’ve Changed Jobs for Climate Nov 17, 2023

Show notes

One of the most common questions people ask about climate is: what can I do? Since time is one of our most valuable resources – and we spend so much of our time at work – changing jobs may be the most effective individual climate action a person can take. Those changes could be big or small: Leaving the oil and gas industry for geothermal, or helping to bring down the emissions where you already work. The truth is, almost any job can be a climate job. But how do people actually make the transition from dirty jobs to clean? What do climate positive job transitions really entail?

Guests:

Caroline Dennett, Director, CLOUT Ltd

Arvind Ravikumar, Co-Director, Energy Emissions Modeling and Data Lab, University of Texas, Austin

Jennifer Anderson, Carbon Removal Geologist, Charm Industrial

Emma McConville, Development Geoscience Lead at Fervo Energy

Nathanael Johnson, Electrician

For show notes and related links, visit our website.

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Seen and Unseen: The Stories Behind the Pictures of Japanese American Incarceration Nov 16, 2023

Show notes

A Special Program for Families

家族向け特別プログラム

“This is what we did. How did it happen? How could we?” – Dorothea Lange

「これが私たちがやったことです。なぜこのようなことが起きたのか？なぜこのようなことができたのか？」―ラング·ドロティア

Fueled by racist fears and wartime hysteria, the U.S. government incarcerated more than 120,000 Japanese Americans from 1942 to 1945, many of them families with children. Allowed to bring only what they could carry, the internees were removed from their homes and forced to live under armed guard in makeshift camps, treated with suspicion and hostility; imprisoned without evidence of any crime. Inflated claims of national security risks justified these actions and carefully curated images hid the truth; even today, the story is not well known.

人種差別的な恐れと戦時のヒステリ-に駆られて、1942年から1945年までに、アメリカ政府は12万人以上の日系アメリカ人を収容しました。その多くは子供を含む家族でした。彼らは手にもてるものしか持参できず、自宅から引き離され、武装警備の下で仮設キャンプで生活するよう強制されました。彼らは疑念と敵意をもって扱われ、犯罪の証拠もないのに収監されました。国家安全保障のリスクの主張がこれらの行動を正当化し、慎重に作られたイメージにより真実が隠されました。今日に至るまで、この事実はあまりよく知られていません。

In her new book for young readers, Elizabeth Partridge examines the reality of life in Manzanar, a camp in the California desert. Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams’s Photographs Reveal About the Japanese American Incarceration offers three photographers’ perspectives on the incarceration and illuminates the stories behind their pictures. And it invites us to consider: How could such a gross violation of civil liberties happen in a nation founded on principles of equality and justice for all? Could it happen again?

若い読者向けの新作、エリザベス・パーテリッジはカリフォルニア砂漠のマンザナー収容所での生活の現実を調査しています。『Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams's Photographs Reveal About the Japanese American Incarceration』は、この収容とその写真の裏にある真実の話を明らかにし、3人の写真家の視点を提供します。そして、私たちに問いかけます：平等と正義の原則に基づく国で、なぜこんなひどい市民権の侵害が起こったのか？それは再び起こる可能性があるのでしょうか？

Bring your family for a conversation with Elizabeth Partridge, who will share how she created her book and why it is so important for all of us to talk about this bitter chapter in American history when the country did not live up to its democratic ideals. Tickets include admission to the Japanese American Museum of San José, which provides a historical forum that stimulates present-day discussions on civil liberties, race relations, discrimination, and American identity.

あなたの家族も一緒に、エリザベス・パーテリッジとの対話の場にご参加ください。彼女は自分の本をどのように創り上げたか、そしてなぜこの苦々しいアメリカの歴史の章について話すことが非常に重要であるかを語ります。チケットにはサンノゼ日系アメリカ博物館への入場料が含まれています。この博物館は市民権、人種関係、差別、アメリカのアイデンティティに関する現代の議論を刺激する歴史的な施設になります。

This program is part of The Commonwealth Club’s civics education initiative,

Creating Citizens.

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Democracy Awakening Heather Cox Richardson Nov 15, 2023

Show notes

We've all been through a lot in the past five years, but it's difficult to figure out what it all means, and how it applies to our shared existence in this democratic experiment. Heather Cox Richardson aims to remedy that.

As a historian she has been examining and explaining modern events aided by her deep understanding of history and insight into the forces working for and against democracy. In her new book Democracy Awakening, Heather Cox Richardson looks at the state of American democracy and the forces that have been driving it toward authoritarianism. In whose interest is the obfuscation of history? Who benefits if Americans are turned off or prevented from taking part in democratic acts? Who and what can help change things and rededicate this country to its founding ideals?

Join us in person as she explains how we got to this perilous point, what our history tells us about ourselves, and what the future of democracy can be.

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