Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Representatives of the three Abrahamic faiths will discuss each of their faith's views about protecting the Earth, caring for the environment and being proactive in combatting climate change, which many believe is Earth's biggest problem. Rev. Bingham will also describe the work of the Regeneration Project, which promotes renewable energy and conservation as part of Interfaith Power and Light, an interfaith climate change initiative.

The Internet of Things promises tech-savvy people the ability to tap a smart phone to unlock your home door to let in your dog walker or houseguest. Other possibilities include refrigerators that can order groceries and thermostats that can be controlled remotely. Smart homes outfitted with appliances that send and receive data are related to a smart electric grid, which would similarly send electricity to homes and receive energy generated on solar rooftops or other renewable sources. California law requires the state to source half of its energy from renewable sources by 2030. That will present big challenges for a grid that was built to be only one-way. Companies financing and supplying renewable energy are scrambling to figure out how to make the grid both green and safe from cyber attacks. How California manages the transition may be a model for the country for what to do, or not. Join us for a conversation about the transition to smart homes and a smart grid and whether smart hackers can exploit the situation to wreak havoc on our connected lives. We also will discuss broader issues of cybersecurity and privacy in a hyper-connected age.

Professor Fukuyama presents the keynote lecture of our special August series, Big Solutions for Big Problems. He asks whether our current “vetocracy” has made it easier to stop our government from doing anything than to accomplish something for the common good. Meanwhile, the presidential race has caused a lot of apprehension. The Republican Party has succumbed to Donald Trump’s hostile takeover, and the ultra-insider Hillary Clinton had to face surprisingly strong competition from Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders. Whatever the issue—from immigration to financial reform to trade to stagnating incomes—large numbers of voters from both ends of the spectrum have rejected what they see as a corrupt, self-dealing establishment, and turned instead to radical outsiders in the hopes of a purifying cleanse. But is that what we will be getting?

In possibly one of the most contentious and hotly contested elections in our lifetimes, don’t miss Will Durst’s take on the 2016 election cycle and the candidates seeking the White House. A five-time Emmy nominee, Will Durst has been hailed by The New York Times as “quite possibly the best political satirist working in the country today.” Durst frequently appears on numerous television broadcasts, including CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. His Off-Broadway one-man show, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” and book of the same name received rave reviews from The New York Times and The New York Post, and he continues to be a leading voice in American political satire. He is currently performing his one-man show, "Elect to Laugh: 2016," at theaters around the Bay Area, including every Tuesday at The Marsh in San Francisco.

With federal standards for smart guns coming this fall, along with grants for law enforcement to purchase smart firearms, there is renewed interest in technology to prevent the harm done when guns fall into the wrong hands. Each year there are 20,000 injuries and deaths caused by accidental shootings and teen suicides, nearly all of which advocates say could be prevented with personalized firearms. A recent Johns Hopkins study found that 6 in 10 Americans support the development of smart gun technologies, including modifications to the existing 300 million guns in America today—a rare middle ground politically.

Are the current policies and laws in place regarding sexual assault on college campuses and in the broader community working as intended? The public is in deep public debate over the issue of sexual assault and whether existing standards are fair and meet their intended goals of educating and protecting students and the public-at-large, supporting survivors and holding college and communities accountable. Join INFORUM for a powerful panel discussion about the issue of sexual assault with leaders across the legal, academic, government and advocacy fields who are all playing a pivotal role in shaping how sexual assault is addressed on college campuses and beyond.

Critics argue that the industrial food system in the United States is beset with big problems: corporate consolidation of the food supply, huge inequities in pay and benefits for food workers, lack of rights for farm workers, and farming practices that prioritize profits over the health of the planet. But there is a growing movement demanding that these problems be addressed, and we have called together the women at the helm of the movement. Our women at the table will discuss the powerful work they are doing to create change and provide solutions to build a food system that is good, clean, and fair for all.

Come out and meet a superstar athlete who has turned his attention to helping to solve problems off the field. Jeremy Affeldt is a major league baseball pitcher, philanthropist, humanitarian, public speaker and author. His baseball career spanned 14 years with the Kansas City Royals, Colorado Rockies, Cincinnati Reds and the last seven years with the San Francisco Giants. He played on all three Giants World Champion teams—2010, 2012 and 2014. For his career, Affeldt has a record of 2-0, 0.86 ERA in 33 post-season games, the third-lowest in history among pitchers with at least 30 innings. He has 22 straight scoreless post-season appearances since allowing one run in Game 1 of the 2010 World Series. He retired from baseball on Sunday, October 4, 2015. Jeremy is an active leader to end human trafficking and modern day slavery and is an advocate to support and feed the hungry at home and around the globe. He is the co-founder of Generation Alive, a non-profit organization that works to teach and inspire a generation of young people to act by serving others. In addition to being an author, he is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and Medium.com. Come be inspired by Jeremy’s work on and off the field.

Get inside of Carla Power's eye-opening story of how she and her longtime friend Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi found a way to confront ugly stereotypes and persistent misperceptions that were cleaving their communities. Their friendship—between a secular American and a madrasa-trained sheikh—had always seemed unlikely, but now they were frustrated and bewildered by the battles being fought in their names. Both knew that a close look at the Quran would reveal a faith that preached peace and not mass murder; respect for women and not oppression. And so they embarked on a year-long journey through the controversial text. A journalist who grew up in the Midwest and the Middle East, Power offers her unique vantage point on the Quran's most provocative verses as she debates with Akram at cafes, family gatherings, and packed lecture halls, conversations filled with both good humor and powerful insights. Their story takes them to madrasas in India and pilgrimage sites in Mecca, as they encounter politicians and jihadis, feminist activists and conservative scholars. Armed with a new understanding of each other's worldviews, Power and Akram offer eye-opening perspectives, destroy long-held myths, and reveal startling connections between worlds that have seemed hopelessly divided for far too long.

Nobody was better, half a century ago, at thinking about the biggest solutions for the problems of his age than Bobby, whether that be race riots roiling in cities across America, and especially in California; the war raging in Vietnam; or the general issue of inequality that was dividing people along lines of class, race, gender and generation. Those issues, of course, are a mirror of those facing the country today, when RFK's message is more resonant than ever. He predicted we'd have a black president almost to the day, when no white politician dreamed of it. He talked about how our problems made us ripe for demagogues, though he'd never met Donald P. Trump but did know George Wallace better than anyone. And he offered ways out of all of that, in compelling enough terms to win the California primary and seem poised for the presidency. Those issues, of course, are a mirror of those facing the country today, when RFK's message is more resonant than ever. He predicted we'd have a black president almost to the day, when no white politician dreamed of it. He talked about how our problems made us ripe for demagogues, though he'd never met Donald P. Trump but did know George Wallace better than anyone. And he offered ways out of all of that, in compelling enough terms to win the California primary and seem poised for the presidency.