KQED's Forum

After following the notoriously bad relationship between baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent as well as the meteoric path of the Giants, Bay Area based sports writer Joan Ryan grew curious about team chemistry and how it affects performance.   She spent ten years probing sociology, neuroscience and psychology to answer questions about whether team chemistry was real. And if so, what is it exactly? And how do you measure it?  Ryan joins us to talk about the importance of sports during the pandemic,  how our interactions affect our performance on non-athletic teams -- as friends, colleagues, and family, and her new book, “Intangibles: Unlocking the Science and Soul of Team Chemistry”.

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As President Trump counters calls to defund the police and end systemic racism with demands for “law and order,” many Americans feel the country is deeply divided and broken. Community leader and lawyer Zach Norris attributes this division, as well as issues like mass incarceration and economic inequality, to a “framework of fear” that has grown between fellow Americans. In his new book, “‘We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities,” Norris outlines a path for America to move from an “us vs. them” mentality towards a “culture of care”. Zach Norris joins Forum to discuss the book, address the systemic issues raising his concern, and to outline his vision for public safety.

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By now, people are becoming used to seeing social media posts and articles about their favorite businesses closing for good. Thousands of beloved Bay Area enterprises from restaurants and boutiques to independent movie theaters and corner stores have shut down during the coronavirus pandemic. Some owners thought they could ride out shelter-in-place orders, but no longer see a viable future or couldn’t afford carrying costs. The end of a business often spells the end of a dream, a community, years of hard work, and livelihoods of owners and workers. We’ll hear the stories of Bay Area business owners and how this wave of closures could reshape the region’s economy.

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According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than 97,000 Americans aged 18 and younger tested positive for Covid-19 in the last two weeks of July, representing a 40% increase in total pediatric cases in the U.S. Infected children are usually asymptomatic or have only minor symptoms, but the CDC reports that a small percentage may become severely ill. The CDC also reports that hospitalization rates among Black and Latinx children are, respectively, nearly eight times and five times the rates of white children. We'll discuss the CDC's findings and how best to keep kids -- and those around them -- safe.

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In a long awaited decision, democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has selected California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate. Harris will be the first woman of color to appear on a major party's presidential ticket. A Bay Area native, Harris drew on her childhood experience of being bused across Berkeley for school as part of a pointed attack against then-rival Joe Biden during her presidential bid last year. Forum will talk about what her record as a senator, prosecutor and as California’s attorney general will bring to the Democratic ticket, the politics of the pick and what it could mean for California.

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In the next 50 years, more than a million climate migrants could come to the United States from Central America if nothing is done to curb carbon emissions. That’s according to a new model that predicts where refugees from regions decimated by decreased crop productivity, water shortages and rising sea levels may move.  The model, developed by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, finds that climate change will likely cause “the greatest wave of global migration the world has seen.”  Forum talks with ProPublica environmental reporter Abrahm Lustgarten about future climate migration and the experiences of those who have already left their homes because of the changes caused by a warming planet.

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By the 2070s, climate change will reduce snowpack and increase extreme rainfall in the Sierra Nevada and California’s reservoirs will likely be overwhelmed. That’s according to a new study by UCLA climate scientists, who predict that run-off during so-called atmospheric rivers  will increase by nearly 50 percent, leading to widespread flooding across the state. We’ll talk about the impact of climate change on Sierra weather patterns and what it all means for the state’s water supply.

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In her new book, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson presents an examination of what she sees as America’s often disguised, but very real, caste system. The book compares America’s system with those in India and Nazi Germany, and delves into how America betrays its ideals of meritocracy by instead cultivating an insidious hierarchy based on race. “Caste” is a much anticipated follow up to Wilkerson’s 2011 book “The Warmth of Other Suns,” which detailed the decades-long migration of black people from the South to other regions of the country. Wilkerson joins Forum to discuss her new book and how America’s past relates to its future. 

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A close friendship can be one of the most fulfilling, and most challenging, relationships of our lives. In their book “Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close,” writers and longtime friends Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman share their honest and humorous account of what it really takes to maintain a meaningful bond -- from moments of being totally in sync to painful disagreements and everything in between. We'll talk to Sow and Friedman about the lessons they've learned together and hear your stories of big friendships that transcend life phases.

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In his new book "The Madman Theory," CNN anchor and Chief National Security correspondent Jim Sciutto highlights how President Trump’s unpredictable behavior--including threats to meet North Korea with “fire and fury” and to pull the U.S. out of NATO and NAFTA--have unnerved enemies and allies alike. Sciutto discusses how Trump’s volatility has led advisers to hesitate in giving the President military options because they feared he could start a war.  We'll talk to Sciutto about the lasting imprint Trump has left on the world after four years in office, and get his take on how that will shape America’s place in the world.

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