The United States faces a public health crisis on its roads. In 2021 alone, almost 43,000 people died in traffic crashes and millions more suffered serious injuries. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg calls the situation a preventable crisis—one for which we must take responsibility by recognizing that human lives are not a price to pay for modernity. New funding available through the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) provides a significant opportunity to reduce crashes through infrastructure redesign.

Join the Mineta Transportation Institute and a panel of national experts to discuss the role of infrastructure redesign in achieving a national goal of zero traffic fatalities.

NOTES

This program is supported by the Mineta Transportation Institute at San José State University.

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Billions of dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act have started flowing into renewable energy projects and manufacturing. That’s bringing jobs and revenue back to the country and to some areas abandoned by the oil, coal and gas industries. Despite the massive investments in their districts, some Republican politicians aren’t fans of the green energy companies moving into their backyards and are doing everything they can to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act – putting them at odds with their constituents. How do we advance the clean energy transition when it’s seen as a partisan issue?

Guests: 

Emma Dumain, Reporter, E&E News

Heather Reams, President, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions

Terry Weickum, Mayor, Rawlins WY

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El Ultímo Sueño de Frida y Diego (2022) by local composer Gabriela Lena Frank is the first-ever San Francisco Opera production by a female composer, and the first ever in Spanish (libretto by Nilo Cruz).The opera tells the story of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera reliving their tumultuous love for 24 hours on El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) through their paintings, embracing the passion they shared and the pain they inflicted upon one other.

Artists Kahlo and Rivera were and are icons of Mexican arts and culture, magic and realism. This Commonwealth Club panel will focus on the impact of their artistic motivation, clothing, design and the famed murals across the Americas. Their fashion and lifestyles have continued to inspire many in the arts world today, including the costumes in El Ultímo Sueño de Frida y Diego, the incredible co-commissioned production of San Francisco Opera you can see on stage from June 13–30, 2023.

MLF ORGANIZER

Anne W. Smith and Robert Melton

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The last several years have seen a big increase in the number of lawsuits focused on the climate crisis. Some lawsuits challenge governments for their support for fossil fuels and for their failure to take climate action, while other cases target the fossil fuel companies themselves for knowingly misleading the world about the climate disrupting impacts of burning their products. Some of these cases seek monetary damages, others seek to hold governments accountable to their emissions reduction pledges. As more of these cases get their time in court, how powerful can litigation be in forcing action around the climate emergency?

Guests:

Delta Merner, Lead Scientist, Science Hub for Climate Litigation, Union of Concerned Scientists

Korey Silverman-Roati, Senior Fellow, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia Law School

Lucy Maxwell, Co-Director, Climate Litigation Network, Urgenda Foundation

For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts

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Government at all levels has limped into the digital age, widening the gap between the policy outcomes we intend and what we get.

Jennifer Pahlka served as President Barack Obama’s former deputy chief technology officer. Join us for an in-depth talk as she offers a bold reexamination of how our government operates and the improvements that she says need to be made to end bureaucratic dysfunction.

It’s not more money or more tech we need; Pahlka calls for "recoding" American government to reclaim it for the people it is supposed to serve.

NOTES

This program is presented in collaboration with the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future.

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No elemental force has done more to shape life on this planet than water, from originating the earliest forms of life, to sculpting our landscapes, to determining patterns of human civilization. Humans have tried to control water for thousands of years, and access to this precious resource has caused conflict and also unlikely partnerships. In an era defined by climate disruption, the control, access, and quality of water will continue to determine our ability to survive and thrive. How can we ensure a future where clean water exists for all who need it – including the ecosystems we depend on – and navigate the challenges of too little or too much? 

Guests:

Peter Gleick, co-founder, The Pacific Institute; author, “The Three Ages of Water”

Contributor: Luke Runyon, Managing Editor & Reporter, Colorado River Basin, KUNC Radio

For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts

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Few drugs in history have generated as much controversy as MDMA—or held as much promise, according to some. Once vilified as a Schedule I substance that would supposedly eat holes in users’ brains, MDMA (also known as Molly or Ecstasy) is now being hailed as a therapeutic agent that could transform the field of mental health and outpace psilocybin and ketamine as the first psychedelic approved for widespread clinical use.

Award-winning science journalist Rachel Nuwer separates fact from fantasy, hope from hype, in the drug’s contested history and still-evolving future. Hear more as Nuwer explains the cultural and scientific upheaval that is rewriting our understanding of our brains, our selves, and the space between.

This program contains EXPLICIT content.

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Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia. It begins with mild memory loss and progresses to more severe effects, in some cases leading to the loss of the ability to carry on a conversation or respond to the surrounding environment. According to the CDC, in 2020, 5.8 million Americans were living with Alzheimer's; the number of people living with the disease doubles every five years beyond the age of 65; and as many as 14 million people in the United States are projected to have Alzheimer's by the year 2060.

The disease and its impact can be experienced in different ways in different communities. 

Join us live as television host Michelle Meow leads a discussion with health experts and Alzheimer's advocates. They'll discuss Alzheimer's awareness, caregiving and the API stigma, filial piety, a personal caregiving story, LGBTQ caregiving and family dynamics, early detection, and brain health.

This is a free event—your chance to learn more about this disease affecting millions of people.

NOTES

The Michelle Meow Show thanks Kaiser Permanente for its support of independent LGBTQ media producers. 

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Every year millions of tourists from around the world come to California to see our famous redwoods. Yet few understand how unlikely it is that these last groves of giant trees still stand at all. Activist Greg King examines how investors and a growing U.S. economy drove the timber industry to cut down the giant redwoods on all but four percent of the original 2-million-acre redwood ecosystem. 

The land grab began in 1849, when a “green gold rush” of migrants came to exploit the legendary redwoods that grew along the Russian River. Several generations later, in 1987, Greg King discovered and named Headwaters Forest—at 3,000 acres the largest ancient redwood habitat remaining outside of parks—and then led the movement to save this grove. After a decade of one of the most dramatic and violent environmental campaigns in U.S. history, the state and federal governments finally protected Headwaters Forest in 1999. 

The Ghost Forest explores the mystery of what it was about this unique Northern California forest that was both so spectacular and yet so enticing as fuel for economic growth that it inspired a life-and-death struggle. Few but loggers and surveyors ever saw such magnificent trees, ancient sentinels that, like ghosts, have informed Greg King’s understanding of the world, and have inspired him to tell the story of their discovery and their exploitation, and to protect them against those determined to cut them down. 

MLF ORGANIZER

Andrew Dudley

NOTES

A People & Nature 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.

This program contains EXPLICIT content.

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