Climate One

Mark Kurlansky and Anna Lappé are two of the country’s most prolific and influential authors writing about feeding a crowded planet with a destabilized climate. The connection between global warming and the dinner table isn’t always obvious when we go to the grocery store. But our choices about how we put food on our plates, and what we do with the waste, contribute to as much as one third of total greenhouse-gas emissions. How can we continue to feed the planet without destroying it in the process? A conversation about the climate costs of global food production – and some possible solutions.

Guests:

Mark Kurlansky, Author, "MILK! A 10,000-Year Food Fracas" (Bloomsbury, 2018)

Anna Lappé, Author, "Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork" (Bloomsbury, 2011)

This program was recorded live at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on May 16, 2018.

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For fifteen years, California Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown charted a steady bi-partisan course as climate leaders. Their combined legacies include reduced carbon emissions, a clean energy economy and forward-thinking electric transportation. During that time, the effects of climate disruption -- rising seas, shrinking aquifers, wildfires and drought - have become increasingly clear. Greg Dalton sits down with three of the leading gubernatorial candidates to ask them how they plan to take on California’s biggest environmental challenge.

Guests:

Travis Allen, California State Assemblyman (R-Huntington Beach)

Gavin Newsom, California Lt. Governor; former mayor, San Francisco (D)

Antonio Villaraigosa, former mayor, Los Angeles (D)

Felicia Marcus, Chair, California State Water Resources Control Board

Portions of this program were recorded live at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco in 2018.

Over a century ago, the industrial revolution brought wealth and opportunity to a generation of American innovators. It also brought us dirty coal power and a sky clogged with carbon emissions. The good news? There’s a new generation of entrepreneurs eager to make their fortune by fighting global warming. Creative start-ups are coming up with fresh, climate-friendly ideas for getting around town, powering your cell phones, and even eating breakfast. And there is a growing number of forward-thinking venture capitalist firms eager to seek out and nurture those innovative thinkers.

A discussion about clean tech startups and how they could help save the world.

Guests:

Lidiya Dervisheva, Associate, G2VP

Davida Herzl, CEO and Co-Founder, Aclima

Gabriel Kra, Managing Director, Prelude Ventures

This program was recorded live at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on May 14, 2018.

In June 2017, President Trump announced his plan to withdraw the country from the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, claiming it disadvantaged the United States. The symbolism of the American government’s retreat overshadowed the reality that the U.S. business community has embraced a low-carbon future. “We committed under Paris to do nothing we weren’t gonna do anyway and that we aren’t doing anyway,” says former Sierra Club chairman Carl Pope. Many countries have also reaffirmed their commitments to the Paris agreement. But how much progress has really been made, both at home and abroad?

Guests:

Gil Duran, Former Spokesman for Gov. Jerry Brown and Sen. Dianne Feinstein

Bill Hare, Founder and CEO, Climate Analytics

Amy Myers Jaffe, Executive Director, Energy and Sustainability, UC Davis Graduate School of Management

Carl Pope Former Executive Director, Sierra Club

Jim Sweeney, Director, Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, Stanford University

Portions of this program were recorded at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.

Climate change isn’t just an environmental problem – it’s also a health hazard. Air pollution and changing weather patterns give rise to heat-related illnesses, asthma and allergic disorders. Disasters like Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Irma leave hospitals scrambling to save patients without power and resources. According to the Centers for Disease Control, insect-borne diseases have tripled in the United States in recent years – and warmer weather is largely to blame.

Guests:

Jonathan Patz, Director, Global Health Institute

Su Rynard, Filmmaker, Mosquito

Chuck Yarling, Engineer, Triathlete

Jessica Wolff, U.S. Director of Climate and Health, Health Care Without Harm

This program was recorded at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.

The scientific consensus is that human activity is cooking the planet and disrupting our economies. Yet many people still don’t believe that climate change will affect them personally, or they deny the urgency of the problem. Can better communication help sell the science of climate change? “Only the repetition of simple messages changes public opinion and affects the brain,” says David Fenton, a four-decade veteran of PR campaigns for the environment, public health and human rights. “If you are not using effective messages that you repeat, repeat, repeat and are simple, then you get nowhere.”

Guests:

David Fenton, Founder and Chairman, Fenton Communications

Renee Lertzman, Climate Engagement Strategist, Author and Speaker

Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Meteorology, Penn State University

Cristine Russell, Freelance Science Journalist

Portions of this program were recorded at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.

In 1968, the best-seller “The Population Bomb,” written by Paul and Anne Ehrlich (but credited solely to Paul) warned of the perils of overpopulation: mass starvation, societal upheaval, environmental deterioration. The book was criticized at the time for painting an overly dark picture of the future. But while not all of the Ehrlich’s dire predictions have come to pass, the world’s population has doubled since then, to over seven billion, straining the planet’s resources and heating up our climate. Can the earth continue to support an ever-increasing number of humans? On its 50th anniversary, we revisit “The Population Bomb” with Paul Ehrlich.

Guest:

Paul R. Ehrlich, President, Center for Conservation Biology, Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University; co-author, “The Population Bomb” (Ballantine, 1968)

This program was recorded at Stanford University.

In an emergency, we’re told to “break the glass” and grab the fire extinguisher. If we’re in the midst of a climate emergency, is there a firehose we could spray into the sky to cool down our atmosphere? It may sound like science fiction, but some climatologists endorse research into such techniques known as geo-engineering. But could tinkering with the stratosphere in this way lead to a new ice age – or worse? What group of people could be trusted with such God-like powers? Join us for a discussion of the scientific, moral, economic and technological dimensions of geo-engineering.

This program was recorded live at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco.

As the planet gets hotter, it’s affecting many of the foods we love – when and where they’re grown, how they get to the grocery store and how much we pay for them. On today’s program, we’ll talk about migrating crops, shrinking grasslands, and how food producers and restaurants are using technology to better predict and adapt to the new food normal.

Ashley Allen, Senior Manager, Climate and Land, Mars Corporation

Jason Clay, Senior Vice President, Food & Markets; Executive Director, Markets Institute, World Wildlife Fund

Annie Cull, Director of Communications, The Good Food Institute

Portions of this program were recorded live at Duke University in Durham, NC on March 22, 2018 and at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco.

Volkswagen’s brazen cheating on air pollution rules rocked an industry with a history of skulduggery. The scandal has now cost the company $30 billion plus jail time for one. Furthering chaos in the auto industry is a Trump administration looking to roll back emissions standards while California and 12 additional states, making up 36% of the auto market, threaten to maintain theirs.

Alberto Ayala, Air Pollution Control Officer, Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District

Edward Niedermeyer, Auto Industry Analyst and Commentator, Autonocast

Margo T. Oge Former Director, Office of Transportation and Air Quality, U.S. EPA

This program was recorded live at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on March 27, 2018