Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

To defeat ISIS, you need to understand ISIS. Brian Fishman is a leading expert on ISIS. He served as the director of research at the United States Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center and began studying the progenitors of ISIS in 2005. He predicted the rise of the Islamic State in early 2011, prior to the Syrian civil war. Fishman says that the rise of ISIS was neither an accident of history nor an unpredictable product of chaos in Syria, but rather the fulfillment of a vision to capitalize on Syria’s demographic and geopolitical frailty, detailed in a plan that runs through 2020. He says that "master plan" offers important insight into how ISIS might now evolve. Fishman says that only by learning the Islamic State’s full history and the strategy that drove it can we understand the forces that could ultimately tear it apart. Fishman is a graduate of the University of California Los Angeles and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

One in a million doesn’t even come close. Not when we’re talking about the odds that you would happen to be alive today, on this particular planet, hurtling through space. Almost 14 billion years of cosmic history, more than 4 billion years of Earth history, and a couple million years of human history, has led to you. This panoramic viewpoint has captured the imagination of historians and scientists alike, and together they’ve created a new field—big history—that studies the entire known past of our universe to give context to our very existence. Famed geologist Alvarez is best known for the impact theory explaining dinosaur extinction. His unique expertise and infectious curiosity gives us a new appreciation for the incredible occurrences—from the Big Bang and beyond—that have led to our improbable place in the universe.

It's happened to all of us: our cheeks flush red when we say the wrong thing, or our hearts skip a beat when a certain someone walks by. But few of us realize how much more dramatic and extreme our bodies' reactions to emotions can be. Many people who see their doctors have medically unexplained symptoms, and in the vast majority of these cases, a psychosomatic cause is suspected. And yet the diagnosis of a psychosomatic disorder can make a patient feel dismissed as a hypochondriac, a faker or just plain crazy. In Is It All in Your Head?, neurologist Dr. Suzanne O'Sullivan takes us on a journey through the world of psychosomatic illness, where we meet patients such as Rachel, a promising young dancer now housebound by chronic fatigue syndrome, and Mary, whose memory loss may be her mind's way of protecting her from remembering her husband's abuse. O'Sullivan reveals the hidden stresses behind their mysterious symptoms, approaching a sensitive topic with patience and understanding. She addresses the taboos surrounding psychosomatic disorders, teaching us that "it's all in your head" doesn't mean that something isn't real, as the body is often the stand-in for the mind when the latter doesn't possess the tools to put words to its sorrow. She encourages us to look with compassion at the ways in which our brains act out, and to question our failure to credit the intimate connection between mind and body.

Over the coming decades, artificial intelligence will profoundly impact the way we live, work, wage war, play, seek a mate, educate our young and care for our elderly. It is likely to greatly increase our aggregate wealth, but it will also upend our labor markets, reshuffle our social order, and strain our private and public institutions. Eventually it may alter how we see our place in the universe, as machines pursue goals independent of their creators and outperform us in domains previously believed to be the sole dominion of humans. Jerry Kaplan is widely known as an artificial intelligence expert, serial entrepreneur, technical innovator, educator, bestselling author and futurist. He co-founded four Silicon Valley startups, two of which became publicly traded companies, and teaches at Stanford University. Join Kaplan for an illuminating conversation about the future of artificial intelligence and how much humans should entrust to machines.

Two days before the new U.S. president is sworn in, join us for a rare opportunity to hear an economic assessment from the head of the Fed. Dr. Janet Yellen took office as chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in 2014, for a four-year term ending February 3, 2018. Dr. Yellen also serves as chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, the country's principal monetary policymaking body. Prior to her appointment as chair, Dr. Yellen served as vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, while simultaneously beginning a 14-year term as a member of the board that will expire January 31, 2024. Dr. Yellen is professor emeritus of business and economics at the University of California, Berkeley, where she has been a faculty member since 1980. From 2004 through 2010 she served as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and previously chaired President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers. Dr. Yellen holds a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University and has written on a wide variety of macroeconomic issues, specializing in the causes, mechanisms and implications of unemployment.

Join us for a new-year political roundtable as we explore the biggest, most controversial and sometimes the surprising political issues with expert commentary by panelists who are smart, are civil, and have a good sense of humor. Join our panelists for informative and engaging commentary on political and other major news, audience discussion of the week’s events, and our live news quiz!

The Paris Climate Agreement has been ratified by 76 countries, representing nearly 60% percent of the world’s emissions, and will enter into force on November 4 of this year. So we all agree, climate change is the biggest problem humankind has ever faced? Not so fast. Here in the U.S., denial and confusion about the science is rampant, and we may be the only developed nation where it is written into a major political party’s platform. Climate scientist Michael Mann and Pulitzer-Prize winning cartoonist Tom Toles take a satirical look at how this lack of consensus came to be. Christine Russell is a veteran science journalist with deep knowledge about conveying complex scientific issues to a broad public. How deep does climate doubt run, and how can communication help us move on to solutions? Join us for a fun and informative look at manufactured doubt and genuine skepticism.

Have you ever wondered why some 60-year-olds look and feel like 40-year-olds and why some 40-year-olds look and feel like 60-year-olds? Though many factors contribute to aging and illness, Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn — a Nobel laureate — and health psychologist Dr. Elissa Epel reveal the critical role that biological markers called telomerase and telomeres play in our health. Dr. Blackburn and Dr. Epel discuss how to increase not only your lifespan but your health-span (the number of years that you remain active and healthy). They say that to live healthier and younger, we need to understand how sleep, exercise, stress, and diet can affect our telomeres.

As U.S. health-care costs continue to grow, supporters of the Affordable Care Act point to a dramatic drop in uninsured citizens, while critics highlight skyrocketing premiums. But the arguments over cost and access largely ignore the impact on the delivery of health-care services to patients. How are care delivery systems transforming to provide Americans with high-quality care at affordable prices? How will Republican efforts to repeal and replace the ACA influence the delivery system? In this wide-ranging conversation, Obamacare architect and noted health policy expert Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel will discuss the impetus for delivery reform during the Trump era and specific practices that enable highly effective care delivery.

Climate One presents Naomi Oreskes the 6th Annual Stephen Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication. According to Schneider Award juror, Ben Santer, “Her 2004 Science paper helped to quantify, for the first time, the broad scientific consensus on climate change. Her recent research unmasked the forces behind denial of human effects on climate and improved our chances of having a responsible, science-based discussion of climate change solutions.”