Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

The jury is out on whether our legal system is equipped to deal with climate change. While some parts of the country are inundated by floods, others are resisting the growth of oil and gas infrastructure — and both are running into the law. Do youth have a constitutional right to a clean environment? At what point should disaster preparedness become disaster law? Does water have legal rights? A discussion on how many facets of the climate challenge are pushing, and changing, the law.

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There are more women earning college degrees and participating in the workforce than ever before. Even still, women spend far more time on unpaid labor than men. Eve Rodsky, author of the new book Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live), seeks to address this universal imbalance. Rodsky began her journey to address this inequality after reaching a tipping point in her own marriage. After recording all of the unrecognized work she was doing for her busy household, she realized the disparity between her and her partner was striking. Fair Play offers four simple and practical steps to redistribute invisible work, reignite your relationship and reclaim your own time. Join Eve Rodsky and INFORUM on the quest for domestic rebalance. ** This Podcast Contains EXPLICIT Language **

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How do we cope with the inevitability of death? How can we make better decisions for ourselves and our families? B.J. Miller and Shoshana Berger offer step-by-step instructions on managing the end of life, including how to navigate a complex system of hidden costs and intense emotions without shame and guilt often associated with this period of life. Miller is an assistant clinical professor of medicine at UCSF, where he practices and teaches palliative medicine. Berger is a journalist and editorial director at IDEO. Together they offer a lesson on dying—and how to live fully until you do.

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For nearly nine years, civil war has raged in Syria. The conflict has created millions of refugees and devastated countless towns and cities. For Sama is a new documentary that tells the story of one woman’s journey through love, motherhood, war and survival during five years of the Syrian conflict. Directed by Emmy award-winning filmmaking duo Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts (Escaping ISIS), the film chronicles the experiences of 26-year-old Syrian filmmaker Waad al-Kateab, who filmed her life in the rebel-held city of Aleppo over five years. Join us for an in-depth discussion with al-Kateab and Watts for a view of the Syrian conflict you've never heard before.

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Join us for a discussion with experts about PrEP and a new tool designed to identify who might be more at risk of HIV infection. Come for a free midday program, as Michelle Meow brings her long-running radio show to The Commonwealth Club one day each week. Meet fascinating—and often controversial—people discussing important issues of interest to the LGBTQ community, and have your questions ready.

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Liana Finck’s deeply insightful and delightfully odd work as a cartoonist and illustrator with The New Yorker has earned her a devoted following who look to her columns and cartoons as a refreshing depiction of collective experiences in today’s world. She is also a social media sensation, with almost 300,000 followers on Instagram who visit her page daily for their dose of comedically dark insights on love, dating, self-esteem, mental health and much more. While her cartoons appear simple, they shed light on some of human existence’s most complex themes. Finck’s new book, Excuse Me: Cartoons, Complaints, and Notes to Self, is a collection of her most beloved work from Instagram and The New Yorker, and it combines the personal with the relatable to explore common anxieties, no matter the reader. She joins INFORUM to discuss her trademark mix of absurdity, melancholy and humor and to share her sharply deft views of the world.

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From the Amazon to the Congo to California, our planet’s forests are being decimated. And along with them, the stability of our climate. Why? Because trees are among our most effective weapons against carbon emissions. The Amazon alone is responsible for removing five percent of the world’s 40 billion tons of CO2 emissions from the air each year. When forests burn, carbon storage is lost -- along with biodiversity, indigenous culture, and more. Join us for a conversation about the climate factors and the global consumerism driving deforestation, as well as the seeds of change being planted by organizations, corporations, governments and individuals.

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Susan Rice, President Obama’s former national security adviser and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is heralded as one of the most influential foreign policy voices of our time. Having dedicated her career to public service, Rice is now a distinguished visiting research fellow at American University, a senior fellow at Harvard University, a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and author of the new book Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For. With humor and grace, Rice reflects upon the pivotal moments of her career on the front lines of American diplomacy and foreign policy. With unflinching honesty, Rice navigates her readers through the well-known 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, as well as the untold stories involving a secret channel to Iran and behind-the-scene confrontations with Russia and China. A dedicated public servant, join Susan Rice as she invites us to take a look at some of her biggest triumphs and failures, while teaching some important life lessons for all of us who dream of success and aspire to serve. This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. ** This Podcast Contains Explicit Language **

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Is clinging to habits and cravings destroying our future? An outspoken critic of factory farming and animal-centric diets, Jonathan Safran Foer writes that stopping climate change begins with a close look at what we eat — and don’t eat — at home for breakfast. At the office, industry leaders like Google are taking steps toward veggie-forward diets by reducing meat, rather than cutting it out entirely. But when it comes to global food habits, are societies up for changing norms — individually and collectively — at a scale ambitious enough to meet the challenge?

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Segment #3 of 3, 3–3:30 p.m.: Next Generation Connections - Working Together Join a discussion on how our shared history and the unique legacy of Fort Ross State Historic Park can be a platform for cooperation and exchange between Russians and Americans, even amid severe challenges in relations between Washington, D.C. and Moscow. The final panel looks towards the future by bringing four young Russians and Americans from different disciplines to discuss their bilateral work and ideas for the future. A native Californian, Margo Poda chose to study the Russian language as an undergraduate at Georgetown University—her interest in the language and region stemming from Russia’s unique history and culture. After graduating, Poda headed home to Silicon Valley and worked at a series of tech start-ups as a project marketing manager, focusing on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. Now she has returned to school pursuing a joint MBA/MA in international policy and development at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey to further develop key business skills, concentrating on the global entrepreneurial ecosystem. Vladislav Chernavskikh is a graduate student in the dual degree in nonproliferation studies program of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS) and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). Angelina Davydova is director of the German–Russian Office of Environmental Information in St. Petersburg, Russia. Davydova received a degree in economics from St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance. Her nonprofit work focuses on developing environmental journalism in Russia and neighboring countries. She teaches at the School of Journalism at St. Petersburg State University and the Saint Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics. Jake Hecla is a graduate student at UC Berkeley in the department of nuclear engineering. He earned an undergraduate degree in nuclear engineering at MIT, where he worked on techniques for zero-knowledge warhead verification and assisted in the development of an intraoperative radiation detector with the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute. In his spare time, he works with Clean Futures Fund, a nonprofit providing support to communities near the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Notes: In partnership with the Fort Ross Conservancy and the Kennan Institute

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