Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

By Commonwealth Club of California

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What's Commonwealth Club of California Podcast about?

The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Please click the link below and visit our website to learn more about The Commonwealth Club and don't forget to become a member!

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Superpower: How Wind Is Tra...

08.20.2019

Nearly 25 percent of America’s electricity now comes from renewables, surpassing coal for the first time. Ten states, and Puerto Rico and Washington DC, have policies in place to run on 100 percent clean power in coming decades. But achieving ...

Commonwealth Club of California Podcast episodes:

08.20.2019 Superpower: How Wind Is Transforming America’s Energy Future Nearly 25 percent of America’s electricity now comes from renewables, surpassing coal for the first time. Ten states, and Puerto Rico and Washington DC, have policies in place to run on 100 percent clean power in coming decades. But achieving ...
08.16.2019 The Fast Evolution of Gene Editing and Its Implications for Society Jennifer Kahn will update attendees on gene editing and gene drive technologies, which are quickly evolving. She will also discuss their implications for society, extending from their use in areas such as human fertility, agriculture and pharmaceuticals. Recent developments in ...
08.16.2019 Californians at Work: Advancing Dignity, Respect and Opportunity This program is generously supported by The James Irvine Foundation. The private, San Francisco-based foundation has $2.3 billion in assets and makes annual grantmaking of nearly $100 million. The Irvine Foundation’s singular goal is a California where all low-income workers ...
08.15.2019 Destination Health: Solving Homelessness This event is the first in The Commonwealth Club's Thought Leadership series on the future of health, featuring in-depth conversations on the challenges driving physical, mental and social health. Homelessness is one of the most critical health issues of our ...
08.13.2019 How Public Policy Became War FDR's New Deal is widely recognized as a turning point in American history, but David Davenport and Gordon Lloyd go even further, calling it “America’s French Revolution.” Refashioning American government and public policy in ways that have grown to epic ...
08.13.2019 Motecuzoma Sanchez: How Much Progress Has Stockton's Youngest-Ever Mayor Made? Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs has received a lot of attention for his announcement of innovative approaches to dealing with the California city's problems—such as a universal basic income or the Stockton Scholars program. Has he delivered on his promises? Motecuzoma ...
08.09.2019 The Land of Dreams and Drought In his new book The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California, author Mark Arax reveals the tumultuous history behind the myth of abundance in the Golden State. LA Times reporter Diana Marcum and water expert Faith Kearns explore ...
08.09.2019 Gov. Terry McAuliffe: Beyond Hate and Charlottesville In August of 2017, white nationalists marched through the University of Virginia in Charlottesville to protest the removal of Confederate Army leader Robert E. Lee’s statue through a series of racist and anti-Semitic chants. The Unite the Right rally turned ...
08.08.2019 Pod Save America's Dan Pfeiffer Dan Pfeiffer was one of President Obama’s longest-serving advisers and closest confidantes, working on his historic campaign and spending six years in the White House as communications director and senior adviser to the president. As a co-host of the wildly ...
08.06.2019 San Francisco's Shocking Seventies A prize-winning writer for the San Francisco Chronicle in the tumultuous 1970s, Duffy Jennings covered the Patty Hearst kidnapping, the Zodiac and Zebra serial murders, and the City Hall assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Jennings also ...
08.06.2019 The Rights of Asylum Seekers: East Bay Sanctuary Covenant This event is the latest in our member-led forums’ Art and Science of Well-Being series. While the conditions in Central America produce caravans and others seeking safety, the rights of asylum seekers are continuously under attack. Come learn about the ...
08.05.2019 Qi Gong: More Energy and Less Stress This event is the latest in our member-led forums’ Art and Science of Well-Being series. Lee Holden is a renowned instructor in Qi Gong, meditation and Tai Chi. He Has worked to bring the ancient Taoist teachings to the West. ...
08.05.2019 Reframing Elderhood This event is the latest in our member-led forums’ Art and Science of Well-Being series. Louise Aronson has received numerous awards for her medical work, teaching, educational research and writing. In Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life, Aronson urges ...
08.04.2019 Drawdown: Do We Have What It Takes to Solve Climate Change? Today’s solutions for addressing climate change are doable, but daunting: decrease global meat consumption, improve family planning, shut down coal-fired power plants, or expand solar energy – where to start? How do we best allocate resources, prioritize policies, and design ...
08.03.2019 Let’s Talk About #SexTech When sex and technology cross paths, we see a combination of curiosity and censorship, sexism and empowerment, but most importantly, knowledge and pleasure. The intersection between sex and technology goes beyond sex toys—from smart vibrators to apps for your phone ...
08.01.2019 Adam Gazzaley and Robert Strong: The Neuroscience of Magic From ancient conjurers to quick-handed con artists to Las Vegas illusionists, magicians throughout the ages have been expertly manipulating human attention and perception to dazzle and delight us. The phenomena of cognitive and sensory illusions are responsible for the “magic” ...
07.31.2019 Tech Titans of China: The Roots of a U.S.–China Tech Cold War China’s rise as a technology innovator is challenging the world by working hard, innovating fast and going global. A new book by Rebecca A. Fannin, Tech Titans of China, delves into the Chinese technology sector and its influence and implications ...
07.31.2019 Debate Night: Week to Week Political Roundtable 7/30/19 It's the night of the next Democratic presidential candidates debate, and we're all set to watch and comment on that and other political news. Doors will open at 5 p.m., and we will show the debate on the big screen ...
07.30.2019 A Beginner's Guide to the End of Life How do we cope with the inevitability of death? How can we make better decisions for ourselves and our families? B.J. Miller and journalist Shoshana Berger visit INFORUM to answer the questions about death we’re all afraid to ask with ...
07.30.2019 The Iran Crisis Dr. Keynoush is the author of the book Saudi Arabia and Iran: Friends or Foes? and the editor of a forthcoming book Iran's Interregional Dynamics in the Near East. She was recently a visiting scholar at Princeton University and a ...
07.30.2019 Bees, Butterflies and Your Well-Being This event is the latest in our member-led forums’ Art and Science of Well-Being series. Bees, butterflies, bats, birds and other insects are important actors in maintaining a healthy environment. The health of the environment directly influences human well-being. The ...
07.29.2019 Seduction and Satiety: Under the Hood of the Brain Circuits That Drive Us to Overeat No one wants to overeat. And certainly no one wants to overeat for years, become overweight, and end up with a high risk of diabetes or heart disease—yet two thirds of Americans do precisely that. Why does our behavior betray ...
07.29.2019 Carole Migden: Representing the Underrepresented This week's special guest: Carole Migden. Carole Migden is a former California state senator (and former state assemblymember, and former San Francisco supervisor and much more) who has worked her entire career to assist underrepresented demographics. Join us as Michelle ...
07.26.2019 Deborah Lipstadt on Anti-Semitism: Here and Now Over the past several years, there has been a noticeable uptick in anti-Semitic rhetoric and incidents from college campuses in the United States to terrorist attacks against Jews throughout Europe and, in 2018 and 2019, the tragic hate crimes at ...
07.26.2019 The Art of the Green Deal With the Green New Deal, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's vision challenges her own party to go further and faster on climate action than ever before. Her co-sponsor, Sen. Ed Markey, has spent 40 years in Congress and has similar experience pushing ...
07.25.2019 An Evening with Dr. Cornel West Dr. Cornel West says his passion is to keep alive the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.—a legacy of telling the truth and bearing witness to love and justice. In addition to his posts at Harvard and Princeton, ...
07.25.2019 Richard Clarke: Cyber Threats in the Digital Age Cyber warfare is at the intersection of innovation and danger. It can be comical, like the malware which blasted AC/DC’s song “Thunderstruck” at full blast in the middle of the night in Iranian nuclear facilities. It can also be catastrophic, ...
07.23.2019 David Gergen: Democracy in Turbulent Times Where is America headed? Veteran political analyst David Gergen offers his insights to the polarized state of politics and what we can expect as we head into our next presidential election. Gergen has the unique perspective of serving as a ...
07.22.2019 The Fate of Food How do we go about feeding a planet that’s hotter, drier, and more crowded than ever? From a remote-controlled organic farm in Shanghai to famine-stricken parts of Ethiopia, innovators are seeking to reinvent the global food system to be more ...
07.22.2019 The Art of the Green Deal With the Green New Deal, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's vision challenges her own party to go further and faster on climate action than ever before. Her co-sponsor, Sen. Ed Markey, has spent 40 years in Congress and has similar experience pushing ...
07.18.2019 Memory Problems More Likely to Be Reported by the LGBTQ Community Dr. Jason Flatt, assistant professor at the UCSF School of Nursing's Institute for Health & Aging, will discuss some of the new research findings he presented at the July 2019 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Los Angeles. Past research has ...
07.18.2019 Astronomer Andrew Fraknoi: 50 Years Since Our First Step What Do We Know About the Moon? July 20, 2019 is the 50th anniversary of humanity’s first steps on the surface of the moon. In that time, the Apollo missions, a fleet of robotic probes and observations from Earth have ...
07.17.2019 Intergenerational Executive Womxn Talk Success, Age and Empowerment From millennial "womxn's" happiness to midlife career empowerment, ambitious working women climb succeed professionally not only by mastering their careers but also by simultaneously outsmarting gender bias, ageism and societal expectations that hold us back on the job and in ...
07.17.2019 Shakespeare in Prison Marin Shakespeare Company’s Shakespeare in Prison program originated in San Quentin in 2003 and has since expanded to include 13 facilities throughout the state. Former inmate Dameion Brown relates the transformative impact of finding Shakespeare at Solano State Prison and ...
07.16.2019 Tom Siebel: Inside the Digital Future Big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and the internet of things: we have all heard of these innovations individually and their potential impacts. But Tom Siebel is working on how these technologies can work in conjunction with each other to ...
07.12.2019 Cities for the Future: Where Life Meets Design Cities around the world are bracing for a growth spurt. With over half of the global population living in urban centers, and another 2.5 billion expected to join them by 2050, it’s time to rethink the traditional car-centric cityscape. How ...
07.12.2019 Cosmological Koans This event is the latest in our member-led forums’ Art and Science of Well-Being series. Cosmological Koans invites you to take an intellectual journey through more than 50 koans: pleasingly paradoxical vignettes following the ancient Zen tradition. Anthony Aguirre traverses ...
07.11.2019 Asian Pacific Islander Equality Northern California: Sammie Ablaza Wills Sammie is a queer, non-binary Pilipinx person with a vivid love for their chosen family, social justice, and grassroots organizing. Currently director of APIENC, a trans and queer Asian and Pacific Islander grassroots organization in the SF Bay Area, Sammie's ...
07.11.2019 Week to Week Political Roundtable 7/10/19 Come in out of the fog and let us clear up things for you, at least as far as politics is concerned. Join us as we discuss the biggest, most controversial and sometimes the surprising political issues with expert commentary ...
07.11.2019 Esther Wojcicki: How to Raise Successful People What does it take to raise successful people? Esther Wojcicki, lovingly referred to as the Godmother of Silicon Valley, has a simple answer to this million-dollar question. It comes in the convenient form of an acronym: TRICK (Trust, Respect, Independence, ...
07.10.2019 Why Great Workplaces Are Better for Employees, Investors and Society These three compelling authors show the value of great places to work and how people are truly an asset to investors and society. Michael C. Bush will explore what makes a company a great place to work. Emilie Aries provides ...
07.10.2019 Pride and Fatherhood: Celebrating Gay Dads and LGBTQ Families Join us as we talk with high-profile gay parents about the joys and challenges of raising families. Our guests: James Loduca leads global inclusion and diversity efforts at Twitter. In this new role, he will lead a team responsible for ...
07.09.2019 When Republicans Were Progressive Monday Night Philosophy revives an almost forgotten aspect of 20th century American politics, played out mostly in the Midwest. The progressive Republican Party that came to power in Minnesota with Harold Stassen's election in 1938 had already faded into near ...
07.02.2019 Giving USA 2019: A National and San Francisco Perspective Giving USA: The Annual Report on Philanthropy is the seminal publication on charitable giving in the United States. For over 60 years, fundraisers, nonprofit leaders, donors and volunteers, scholars, and other individuals who work in or with the charitable sector ...
07.02.2019 The Incredible Slip Madigan Edward Patrick “Slip” Madigan was a football coach who was far ahead of his time, yet he was also a coach for all time, modernizing of the game in the 1920s and 1930s at Saint Mary’s College of California. He ...
07.01.2019 The War for Kindness This event is the latest in our member-led forums’ Art and Science of Well-Being series. Are Americans suffering from an "empathy deficit,” as Barack Obama claimed in 2006? Studies do show that we are less caring than we were even ...
07.01.2019 Standing Rock, Climate Change and the Green New Deal In 2015, representatives of 193 nations gathered in Paris, agreed that global climate change is underway and that our use of fossil fuels is a primary cause and set goals to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. President Trump ignored these ...
06.29.2019 Tales of the City Producer-Writer Lauren Morelli Kick off Pride weekend in San Francisco with award-winning producer Lauren Morelli. Lauren Morelli is a television writer, screenwriter and producer. She is executive producer and writer of a reboot of Armistead Maupin’s "Tales of the City" for Netflix, starring ...
06.29.2019 David Wallace-Wells: The Uninhabitable Earth According to David Wallace-Wells, we’re cooked – literally. In his new book The Uninhabitable Earth, Wallace-Wells explores how climate change will impact not just the planet, but human lives – including how a five degree increase in temperatures would make ...
06.27.2019 George Will: The Future of Conservatism This program is part of our Ethics and Accountability series, underwritten by the Travers Family Foundation. George Will has been a columnist for The Washington Post since 1974 and is one of the most influential political pundits today. He is ...

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