“Here is the great paradox of Cosmic Comic Consciousness: The world is in serious condition, and yet there is definitely something funny going on.” Swami Beyondananda, whose favorite yoga pose is tongue-in-cheek (and occasionally foot-in-mouth) is bringing his comedy disguised as wisdom—or is it wisdom disguised as comedy—to The Commonwealth Club. If you’ve never been to The Commonwealth Club, this is your opportunity to not be there again—this is a virtual event! Seriously and humorously, in these way-too-serious times, this is the perfect opportunity to take humor more seriously and seriousness more humorously. Noted author Marianne Williamson has called the Swami “the Mark Twain of our times,” and as such Swami has a “one-twack mind”—that’s the laugh twack. And he has one “loco motive”—to keep you laughing till the sacred cows come home. Now the Swami is not one of those gurus who expects people to accept his teachings without questioning. If you have an answerable question for the Swami, the Swami will have a questionable answer for you. As the Swami tells us, there are two kinds of people in the world—the kind who divide people into two kinds and the kind who don’t. If you’re part of the former group, there are two other kinds of people in the world. The ones who love to laugh, and the ones who need to. If you fit either category, come laugh with (or at, he doesn’t care) the Swami. And invite your friends, because when it comes to laughter, the more the merrier. MLF ORGANIZER George Hammond NOTES MLF: Humanities
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Swami Beyondananda UNMASKED

The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's largest public affairs forum. The nonpartisan and nonprofit Club produces and distributes programs featuring diverse viewpoints from thought leaders on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast — the oldest in the U.S., since 1924 — is carried on hundreds of stations. Our website features audio and video of our programs. This podcast feed is usually updated multiple times each week.

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From massive forest fires in California to hurricanes in Louisiana, receding coastlines in Massachusetts and devastated fisheries in Alaska, the climate catastrophe is already here.
Discussion of the climate crisis has always suffered from a problem of abstraction. Data points and warnings of an overheated future struggle to break through the noise of everyday life. Deniers often portray climate solutions as inconvenient, expensive and unnecessary. Many politicians, focused always on their next election, do not yet see climate as a winning issue in the short run, so they don’t take any action at all. But climate change, and its devastating consequences, has kept apace whether we want to pay attention or not.
CBS News national correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti has seen that crisis unfold for himself, spending nearly two decades reporting across the United States (and the world) documenting the people, communities, landmarks, and traditions we’ve already surrendered. Vigliotti shares with urgency and personal touch the story of an America on the brink.
In his new book, Before It’s Gone, Vigliotti traces his travels across the country, taking him to the frontlines of climate disaster and revealing the genuine impacts of climate change that countless Americans have already been forced to confront. This is the story of America, and Americans, on the edge, and a powerful argument that radical action on climate change with a respect for its people and traditions is not only possible, but also the only way to preserve what we love.
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Jonathan Vigliotti: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change in Small-Town America

Is the future of San Francisco on the line right now? Since COVID hit, San Francisco has repeatedly made headlines across the world for the challenges the city faces. The pandemic, remote work, downtown retail woes and the perception of rising crime have all contributed to a “doom loop” narrative. In response, city boosters have acknowledged our city’s “boom and bust” cycles and looked forward to the city rising again.
Join Larry Baer, president and CEO of the San Francisco Giants, in conversation with NBC Bay Area’s Raj Mathai to explore how San Francisco’s business community is responding and how they propose to ensure the city’s best days are still ahead. As co-chair of Advance SF, Baer spearheads a group of business leaders born, raised and living in San Francisco, just like him, who are betting big on the city’s future.
From his work in the 1990s to keep the Giants in San Francisco to the Giants current role investing in and building Mission Rock, a new mixed-used neighborhood next to Oracle Park, Baer has been at the nexus of sports, business and innovation in the city for decades. And, of course, he will look ahead to the 2024 MLB season as it gets underway and we ask: Should we be betting big on the Giants?
A fourth-generation San Franciscan, Baer has gained a national reputation as one of professional sports visionaries leading the San Francisco Giants. Baer joined the team in 1992 as the executive vice president after he and Peter Magowan led the effort to assemble a new ownership group that kept the Giants in the city. A limited partner and board member of the ownership group, Baer was named CEO on January 1, 2012. In his first year as president and CEO, the Giants won their second World Series Championship in three years. In 2014, the Giants won their third World Series title in five years. Baer is responsible for the overall day-to-day operations of the organization and serves as a key strategist and negotiator of the club’s major transactions.
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Larry Baer, San Francisco Giants CEO: Betting Big on the City

What can we learn about the polarized and unstable world in which we live by exploring the revolutions―past and present―that define our age?
Populist rage, ideological fracture, economic and technological shocks, war, and an international system studded with catastrophic risk―the early decades of the 21st century might be one of the most revolutionary periods in modern history. But it is not the first. Humans have lived, and thrived, through more than one great realignment. What are these revolutions, and how can they help us to understand our fraught world?
CNN host and bestselling author Fareed Zakaria has investigated the eras and movements that have shaken norms while shaping the modern world. He says three such periods hold profound lessons for today. First, in the 17th-century Netherlands, a fascinating series of transformations made that tiny land the richest in the world―and created politics as we know it today. Next, the French Revolution, an explosive era that devoured its ideological children and left a bloody legacy that haunts us today. Finally, the mother of all revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, which catapulted Great Britain and the United States to global dominance and created the modern world.
Zakaria, author of the new book Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, probes four present-day revolutions: globalization, technology, identity, and geopolitics. For all their benefits, the globalization and technology revolutions have produced profound disruptions and pervasive anxiety and our identity. And increasingly, identity is the battlefield on which the 21st century’s polarized politics are fought. All this is set against a geopolitical revolution as great as the one that catapulted the United States to world power in the late nineteenth century. Now we are entering a world in which the United States is no longer the dominant power. As they find themselves at the nexus of four seismic revolutions, people can easily imagine a dark future. But Zakaria says pessimism is premature. If we act wisely, he says, the liberal international order can be revived, and populism relegated to the ash heap of history.
As few public intellectuals can, Zakaria combines intellectual range, deep historical insight, and uncanny prescience to once again reframe and illuminate our turbulent present. Don’t miss his return to Commonwealth Club World Affairs.
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Fareed Zakaria: Age of Revolutions

Join a Nobel Laureate physicist, a psychologist and a philosopher for a conversation about the tools and frameworks that scientists have developed to keep from fooling themselves, to chart a course through the profusion of possibilities, to better understand the world, and to make intelligent decisions. These trust-building techniques, which the authors call Third Millennium Thinking, can be used to tackle problems both big and small.
Ironically, the deluge of information over the internet has made it even harder to distinguish the revelatory from the contradictory. How do we make health decisions in the face of conflicting medical advice? Does that article on GMOs even show what the authors claim? How should we navigate our next Thanksgiving discussion with our in-laws, who follow completely different experts on climate?
Based on a popular UC Berkeley course, Third Millennium Thinking offers a novel approach for making sense of the nonsense by thinking critically, making sound decisions, and solving problems—individually and collectively—using scientists’ tricks of the trade.
MLF ORGANIZER
George Hammond
 
A Humanities 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.
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Perlmutter, Campbell and MacCoun on Third Millennium Thinking: Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense

In August 2022, Congress passed the biggest piece of climate legislation in our nation’s history: The Inflation Reduction Act, which put $400 billion into boosting the transition to a clean energy economy over the next ten years. The IRA has spurred companies to announce nearly $110 billion of investment in new factories to build EVs, batteries and renewable energy facilities. That’s driving investments, reshoring of manufacturing, and real change.
This week we check in on the impact of the IRA in the last 18 months. What impact has the IRA really had on US emissions so far? Has the IRA distributed money to fulfill its climate justice initiatives?
Guests:
Trevor Houser, Partner, Rhodium Group
Danny Kennedy, CEO, New Energy Nexus
Bineshi Albert, Former Co-Executive Director, Climate Justice Alliance
This piece also includes a reported feature from Emily Jones of WABE in Atlanta and Grist.
Climate One will be celebrating SF Climate Week with a series of programs featuring California and the San Francisco Bay Area’s leading voices in policy, climate justice, and business. 
The week will showcase interviews with California Attorney General Rob Bonta, State Senators Nancy Skinner and Scott Wiener, and California Environmental Justice Association’s Energy Justice Director Mari Rose Taruc, among others, about the challenges and opportunities facing the nation’s innovation capital when it comes to addressing climate change. 
On Tuesday, Climate One will also be hosting an Action Lounge, where attendees will be able to join local climate and environmental organizations, apply for green jobs, and receive guidance from climate career coaches. See you there!
Support Climate One by going ad-free! By subscribing to Climate One on Patreon, you’ll receive exclusive access to all future episodes free of ads, opportunities to connect with fellow Climate One listeners, and access to the Climate One Discord. 
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For show notes and related links, visit our website.
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Swami Beyondananda UNMASKED

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