Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Suneel Gupta: Everyday Dharma Oct 14, 2023

Show notes

Bestselling author and popular speaker Suneel Gupta knows what it's like to fail and to succeed. He's done both, and he says the key to creating a balanced, joyous life that integrates ambition, work and well-being is to find your dharma—your inner calling.

He says we’ve been conditioned, from an early age, to believe that one day we’ll reach a moment of “arrival.” But no matter how much we achieve or acquire we still don’t feel as satisfied or as fulfilled as we thought we would be. Exhausted, we become burned out and cynical, questioning the purpose of it all.

An expert on happiness and work, Gupta argues that for too long we have compartmentalized work and well-being and ignored the fact that both are essential for sustained success. We’ve assumed that outer success leads to inner well-being, despite history showing us otherwise.

In his latest book, Everyday Dharma, Gupta weaves personal stories, history, science, Eastern philosophy, and Western modalities in this prescriptive book.

Gupta, a visiting scholar at Harvard Medical School, will share his ideas for empowering people to let go of anxiety, follow their ambitions, produce their life’s work, and experience true joy.

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CLIMATE ONE: Ken Burns, Rosalyn LaPier and The American Buffalo Oct 13, 2023

Show notes

For thousands of years, the American buffalo evolved alongside Indigenous people who relied on them for food and shelter, and, in exchange for killing them, revered the animal. For millennia, this totemic animal lived in symbiotic relationship with grasslands throughout North America, then – in less than 100 years – new settlers and hunters brought their numbers from 30 million to the mere hundreds, while in the same era glorifying them as our iconic national animal. It’s a classic and cautionary tale of our ability to destroy the natural world – and potentially, to bring it back.

Guests:

Ken Burns, Director, The American Buffalo

Rosalyn LaPier, Indigenous environmental historian and ethnobotanist

For show notes and related links, visit our website.

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Empty Spaces and Hybrid Places: The Pandemic's Lasting Impact on Real Estate Oct 11, 2023

Show notes

The past three years of the pandemic and the widespread practice of working from home have had a huge impact on our cities, businesses, individuals, and real estate of all types around the world. What will the future look like when considering long-term trends in population, employment, office attendance, housing prices, and other factors?

Join us for a special presentation featuring the results of a new McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) report, "Empty spaces and hybrid places: The pandemic’s lasting impact on real estate." MGI Director Jonathan Woetzel will take the lead in a discussion of the report's findings and implications, such as the ripple effects of hybrid work on the way we live, work, and shop; the resulting impact on demand for office, residential, and retail space in cities; and how urban stakeholders can adapt to the new reality. He will be joined by Peter Calthorpe, urban design and planning principal at HDR.

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Franklin Foer: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future Oct 09, 2023

Show notes

When Joe Biden took his oath of office, the trajectory of his presidency—and the fate of our nation—remained unknown. Thousands of Americans were still sick with COVID, former presidents and first ladies sat masked on the balcony of the Capitol building—while Biden’s predecessor was notably absent. Just two weeks prior, the same building was under siege by a group of insurrectionists who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election. On top of it all, suffering from the many unforeseen consequences of the pandemic, the American economy faced a looming economic crisis.

As a staff writer for The Atlantic, Franklin Foer had exclusive access to Biden and his inner circle. Foer revisits the challenging and consequential formative years of the Biden presidency from an insider’s perspective in his forthcoming book, The Last Politician.

Join us for a conversation with one of our nation’s leading political journalists as we cover topics ranging from the withdrawal of the last troops from Afghanistan, to the war in Ukraine, to covering politics at a time when the stability of American democracy remains imperiled.

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CLIMATE ONE: Rep. Ro Khanna on AI, Misinformation and Holding Big Oil Accountable Oct 06, 2023

Show notes

Congressman Ro Khanna has made a name for himself as a pragmatic progressive and critic of Big Oil. He grilled oil company CEOs under oath and helped negotiate with Senator Joe Manchin to keep climate policy in the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest piece of climate legislation ever passed in the United States.

Despite being one of the more progressive voters in Congress, Khanna has a reputation for coalition building; he got more bills passed than any other Democrat during the previous administration. Now that Republicans control the House of Representatives and are looking to claw back climate provisions of the IRA, what levers can he still pull to address the climate crisis?

Guest:

Ro Khanna, U.S. Congressman

For show notes and related links, visit our website.

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Kashmir Hill: Clearview AI, Facial Recognition Technology, and Threats to Our Privacy Oct 04, 2023

Show notes

Are you one in a million? One in a billion? What if an app could pick you out of a crowd based on your face alone?

New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill was skeptical when she got a tip about a mysterious app called Clearview AI that claimed it could, with 99 percent accuracy, identify anyone based on just one snapshot of their face. The app could supposedly scan a face and, in just seconds, surface every detail of a person’s online life: their name, social media profiles, friends and family members, home address, and photos that they might not have even known existed. If it was everything it claimed to be, it would be the ultimate surveillance tool, and it would open the door to everything from stalking to totalitarian state control. Could it be true?

Hill tracked the improbable rise of Clearview AI and its astounding collection of billions of faces from the internet. Google and Facebook decided that a tool to identify strangers was too radical to release, but Clearview forged ahead, sharing the app with private investors, pitching it to businesses, and offering it to thousands of law enforcement agencies around the world.

Join us for a surprising look at the rise of a technological superpower and an urgent warning that, in the absence of vigilance and government regulation, Clearview AI is one of many new technologies that challenge what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called “the right to be let alone.”

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Amy Schneider: In the Form of a Question Oct 02, 2023

Show notes

Who is the most successful woman ever to compete on "Jeopardy"?

Amy Schneider’s impressive 40-game winning streak was accompanied by an even greater prize—the joy of being herself on national television and blazing a trail for openly queer and transgender people around the world.

Her new memoir, In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life explores some of the innumerable topics that have fascinated Amy throughout her life—books and music, Tarot and astrology, popular culture and computers, sex and relationships—but they all share the same purpose: to illustrate, and celebrate, the results of a lifetime spent asking, why?

Join Amy as she returns to The Commonwealth Club and shares her singular journey that led to becoming an unlikely icon and hero to millions.

NOTES

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

See more Michelle Meow Show programs at The Commonwealth Club of California.

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CLIMATE ONE: Jane Fonda: A Lifetime of Activism Sep 29, 2023

Show notes

Jane Fonda has spent the last several decades fighting for Indigenous peoples' rights, economic justice, LGBTQ rights, peace, gender equality and more. Now, she is devoting herself to the climate emergency, beginning with Fire Drill Fridays, the national movement to protest government inaction on climate change she started in October 2019.

Now, through the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, she is focused on defeating political allies of the fossil fuel industry. At 85, Fonda continues to fight for the most vulnerable among us, consistently pointing out the intersection between the myriad of causes. What keeps the iconic Jane Fonda going strong?

Guest:

Jane Fonda, actor, activist

For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/audio/jane-fonda-lifetime-activism

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100 Years to Thrive: Designing Longer and Wealthier Lives Sep 25, 2023

Show notes

Feel like you are always running out of time? What would you do differently with an extra 25 years of longevity to build a fulfilled life?

Please join us for a conversation on making the most of our increased longevity and designing lives with greater well-being, meaning and purpose. Dr. Laura Carstensen and Mark T. Johnsen will touch on the multiple facets of building a wealthier life with increased life spans.

Health—align health spans to life spans: One-hundred-year lives are quickly becoming commonplace, but healthy long lives require us to consider what we should be doing at all life stages to promote well-being.

Career—working more flexible years to provide well-being beyond just financial stability: Having a fulfilling career helps give us a sense of purpose but can also be taxing on us in this fast-paced world, particularly when we have so many obligations to our families, friends and communities. How should we be thinking of education and work in order to foster meaningful and healthy career spans?

Building Financial Stability—assessing the risks and rewards of a 100-year life span: Supporting 100-year lives requires creative and flexible roadmaps at all stages of life from early education for children and teaching financial literacy at an early age to re-thinking the safety nets of Medicare and Social Security.

Family and Friends—multigenerational families and communities: The energy and curiosity of youth combined with wisdom and life experiences of older generations creates opportunities for families, friends and workplaces to reap the benefits of age diversity.

Life Transitions—opportunities to reset: One-hundred-year lives can present multiple transitions, such as retirement, birth of a child, divorce, death of a loved one, and provide us with lifelong learning opportunities and ways to discover and pave a new path, course-correct, and find purpose.

MLF ORGANIZER

Denise Michaud

NOTES

A Grownups Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums.

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CLIMATE ONE: Naomi Klein and Carolyn Beeler: Covering Big Ideas and Personal Stories Sep 22, 2023

Show notes

The climate crisis can be difficult to cover in a way that most people can relate to. The mechanism of harm goes from a person's gas car or stove to the Earth's atmosphere and back again in the form of floods and fires. That's why true stories of individuals and families experiencing the fallout of the climate crisis can be so impactful. They help us relate to each other on a more direct level, the way humans naturally do: person to person. Covering Climate Now Journalism Award winners Naomi Klein and Carolyn Beeler bring those stories to light.

This episode was produced in collaboration with Covering Climate Now.

Guests:

Carolyn Beeler, Environment Reporter, Editor, The World

Naomi Klein, author, social activist

For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/audio/naomi-klein-and-carolyn-beeler-covering-big-ideas-and-personal-stories

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