Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

It’s become common for homeowners to install solar panels to provide themselves with emission-free electricity. But increasingly more attention is being paid to decarbonizing things inside the home – the machines that heat and cool water and air, dry our clothes and cook our food. The Inflation Reduction Act includes many ways for homeowners and renters to start to electrify their lives. And in some places, builders are developing highly efficient, all electric homes from the get-go. What more is needed to make our buildings greener and get away from fossil fuels?

Guests:

Mark Chambers, Sr. Director Building Emissions & Community Resilience, White House Council on Environmental Quality

Bruce Nilles, Executive Director, Climate Imperative

Contributing Producer: Cody Short, WBHM

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

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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 taught us a lot about Earth’s surprising satellite. In this nontechnical talk, Andrew Fraknoi, who is sometimes called the Bay Area’s public astronomer, will look at the past, present and future of the moon, including its violent origins, the mystery of the frozen water we have found at its poles and its long-term future as it moves farther and farther away from us. Illustrated with beautiful images taken from orbit and on the surface, his talk will make the moon come alive as an eerie world next door, as a changing object in our skies, and as a possible future destination for humanity and its ambitions. Come find out how the achievements of the Apollo program fit into the bigger picture of our involvement with our only natural satellite.

Fraknoi recently retired as the chair of the astronomy department at Foothill College and now teaches noncredit astronomy courses for seniors at the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State. He also served as the executive director of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for 14 years and was named the California professor of the year in 2007. Fraknoi appears regularly on local and national radio, explaining astronomical developments in everyday language. The International Astronomical Union has named Asteroid 4859 after Fraknoi in honor of his contributions to the public understanding of science.

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Julia Morgan was a lifelong trailblazer. She was the first woman admitted to study architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the first licensed to practice architecture in California. Born in San Francisco and trained in Paris, she developed a distinctive aesthetic that now defines certain regions of California. But only in the last 20 years has her contribution to architecture been fully recognized and celebrated. In 2014, the American Institute of Architects posthumously awarded her its Gold Medal; she is the first female recipient. Victoria Kastner has spent years compiling photographs, interviews, letters, drawings, and diaries—including material never published before—to create a comprehensive portrait of this amazing woman.

Of Julia Morgan’s remarkable 700 creations, from hotels to churches to private homes, the most iconic is Hearst Castle. She spent 30 years constructing this opulent estate on the California coast for the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, forging a lifelong friendship and creative partnership with him. Together they built a spectacular and perhaps unequalled residence that once hosted the biggest stars of Hollywood's golden age, and that now welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

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When the United States was founded in 1776, its citizens didn’t think of themselves as “Americans.” They were New Yorkers or Virginians or Pennsylvanians. It was decades later that the seeds of American nationalism—identifying with one’s own nation and supporting its broader interests—began to take root. But what kind of nationalism should Americans embrace? The state-focused and racist nationalism of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson? Or the belief that the U.S. Constitution made all Americans one nation, indivisible, which Daniel Webster and others espoused? 

Paul tells the fascinating story of how Webster, a young Dartmouth graduate and New Hampshire attorney, rose to political prominence by capturing the national imagination through his powerful oratory and unwavering belief in the United States. In his speeches—on the floors of the House and the Senate, in court, and as secretary of state—Webster argued that the Constitution was not a compact made by states but an expression of the will of all Americans. As the greatest orator of his age, Webster saw his speeches and writings published widely, and his stirring rhetoric convinced Americans to see themselves differently, as a nation bound together by a government of laws, not parochial interests. As these ideas took root, they influenced future leaders, among them Abraham Lincoln, who drew on them to hold the nation together during the Civil War.

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Dr. Mehrdad Ayati has identified eight critical challenges that currently face the aging population. Join Us at the Club for a discussion on healthy aging and Dr. Ayati’s proposed solutions to these critical challenges.

Topics will include global aging trends and demographics, over medications, inappropriate use of vitamins and supplements to stay young, promoting healthy aging rather than just a diagnostic system, and lack of training in health care. Plus, what are the lessons that we have learned from the pandemic? How will it affect the future of our aging population?

Dr Ayati is well-known nationally and internationally in the field of geriatric medicine, as a physician, speaker, author, and an educator. As the medical advisor to the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, he raises awareness and provides advice on aging and challenges faced by the aging population in the United States. Dr. Ayati is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of General Medicine, Open Access, and co-author of Paths to Healthy Aging. He is currently a member of the Ethnogeriatric and Quality & Policy Performance Committees of the American Geriatrics Society. He also serves as a community health advisor for Alzheimer's Association, Northern California, and Nevada Chapter.

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Was 2019 the last great year for the world economy? For generations, everything has been getting faster, better and cheaper. Complex, innovative industries were created to satisfy consumers, but are we at the brink of not being able to sustain ongoing demand?

Geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan asserts it is only a matter of time before major changes will start to unfold that will affect how we manufacture goods, grow food and produce energy. Additionally, the list of countries able to sustain this model is much smaller than you might think.

Zeihan issues an urgent call to avoid what he sees as a catastrophic ending and maps out what the “next” world will look like.

NOTES

This program is supported by the Ken & Jaclyn Broad Family Fund. 

This program contains EXPLICIT language.

SPEAKERS

Peter Zeihan

Author, The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization; Twitter @PeterZeihan

Quentin Hardy

Head of Editorial, Google Cloud

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on December 2nd, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Five centuries after his death, Leonardo Da Vinci is attracting more attention for his art, his science and his mechanical inventiveness than ever. Humanities West celebrates his continuing cultural contributions with an encore presentation of "Leonardo’s Legacy," our February 2019 program, again featuring Martin Kemp, a world-renowned Leonardo scholar, who will treat us this time to his latest research on Leonardo’s study of the science of optics and how that study influenced his artistic creations. And Deborah Loft will reprise her popular lecture, "Leonardo's Artistic Legacy: Homage and Irony," which looks at the visual elements that make his work distinctive, and follows his significance through time to our contemporary culture.

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Over the last two decades, a fringe plan to call a convention under the Constitution's amendment mechanism—the nation's first ever—has inched through statehouses. Delegates, like those in Philadelphia two centuries ago, would exercise nearly unlimited authority to draft changes to our fundamental law, potentially altering anything from voting and free speech to regulatory and foreign policy powers. Such a watershed moment would present great danger, and for some, great power.

Russ Feingold and Peter Prindiville examine the nature of such constitutional changes in modern life and ask the urgent question about what American democracy is—and should be.

SPEAKERS

Russ Feingold

Former U.S. Senator (D-Wisconsin); President, American Constitution Society; Co-author, The Constitution in Jeopardy: An Unprecedented Effort to Rewrite Our Fundamental Law and What We Can Do About It; Twitter @russfeindgold

Peter Prindiville

Non-resident Fellow, Stanford Constitutional Law Center; Co-Author, The Constitution in Jeopardy: An Unprecedented Effort to Rewrite Our Fundamental Law and What We Can Do About It; Twitter @prindivillean

Melissa Caen

Attorney; Political Analyst—Moderator

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on November 30th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Best-selling author Mark Shaw, who has become a magnet for crowdsourced information about Marilyn Monroe, JFK and prominent journalist Dorothy Kilgallen ever since his lectures went viral on YouTube, returns to The Commonwealth Club to share new research about the cover-ups that followed those three celebrities’ deaths. Revealed for the first time in his latest book, Fighting for Justice, is evidence from a still-living legislative aide to a Warren Commission member never identified before that the inner workings of the commission involved “internal corruption,” and that commission members felt pressure from President Johnson, Chief Justice Earl Warren, and J. Edgar Hoover to support the “Oswald Alone” theory. Shaw also argues that that commission member was likely the one who surreptitiously passed Jack Ruby’s testimony to journalist Dorothy Kilgallen prior to its release date—triggering an FBI inquiry.

Join us to hear Shaw describe what a “rat’s nest” Marilyn fell into when she fell in love with Frank Sinatra, and to hear how important the almost unknown 18-month investigation into JFK’s assassination by Kilgallen would have been had all her research papers not disappeared when she mysteriously died. Continuing his quest for the truth about the deaths of Dorothy and Marilyn, Shaw adds new evidence to the pile, using first-hand accounts that he says make it clearer than ever that the official explanations for those deaths are not credible.

MLF ORGANIZER

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In 2015, Misty Copeland made history and changed the dance world forever when she became the first African-American female principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre. But as she will tell you, achievements like this never happen in a void. Behind her and supporting her rise was her mentor, Raven Wilkinson.

A trailblazer in the world of ballet, Wilkinson fought to be taken seriously as a Black ballerina in the 1950s and '60s. During this time Wilkinson faced overt and casual racism, hostile crowds, and death threats for having the audacity to dance ballet.

Copeland honors the unheralded contributions made by women like Wilkinson who helped pave the way so she could pursue her dream career.

She will also share more about her own journey, struggles with racism and exclusion, and intergenerational friendship and mentorship with Wilkinson.

NOTES

This program is generously supported by the Applied Materials Foundation.  

SPEAKERS

Misty Copeland

Principal Dancer, American Ballet Theatre; Author, The Wind at My Back: Resilience, Grace, and Other Gifts from My Mentor, Raven Wilkinson; Twitter @mistyonpointe

In conversation with Mina Kim

Host, “Forum” on KQED; Twitter @mkimreporter

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on November 16th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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