Our distinguished panel will discuss how beleaguered nonprofits are struggling to deal with the increased challenges for desperate refugees and aid workers in the Middle East and elsewhere during the COVID-19 crisis. Dr. Niveen Rizkalla will present findings from her timely research with an emphasis on Syrian refugees and aid workers in Lebanon. Amanda Lane will share the importance of small grass-roots organizations, like the Collateral Repair Project that she directs and which mostly works with Syrian, Iraqi and Kurdish refugees in Jordan. They will both discuss how dedicated NGOs, aid workers and volunteers are striving to nimbly solve basic human needs—physical and psycho-social—in the face of disease, violence, fear and other challenges. MLF ORGANIZER Celia Menczel NOTES MLF: Middle East
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The Impact of COVID-19 on Refugees

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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After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on most measures. Why?
In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt says the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.
Most important, Haidt offers a clear call to action. Join us as he describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.
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Jonathan Haidt with Tristan Harris: The Anxious Generation and the Epidemic of Childhood Mental Illness

How can young voters navigate a divided political landscape? Should we be afraid of this upcoming election cycle? Is our democracy falling apart? How can we save it?
The events of January 6, 2021, epitomized the destructive effects of extreme polarization in politics. As we move into our next election cycle, where the two leading presidential candidates are once again Joe Biden and Donald Trump, many young voters are facing—and fearing—existential questions about our democracy, in what experts say is the United States’s most divided political landscape ever.
“Are We Too Polarized to Govern?” presents accomplished Gen Z leaders who are working to foster bipartisan solutions to the toxic polarization that is causing so much anxiety for young people. The program will be led by UC Berkeley Political Science Professor Darren Zook and will feature Alia Braley, Cal Ph,D, candidate and author of the recent article, “Why Voters Who Support Democracy Participate in Democratic Backsliding”; Alexandra Leal Silva, associate at California Common Cause and host of the podcast “Democracy Is”; and Saanvi Arora, UC Berkeley student and director at the Youth Power Project. Panelists will discuss how and why we can exist and communicate in a diverse civil society and explore ways that young people can use their power to overcome political divides to strengthen and rebuild our democracy for the next generation.
This event is part of the Creating Citizens Speaker Series at UC Berkeley, a partnership between Commonwealth Club World Affairs, the Associated Students of the University of California Vote Coalition, and the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement. The series gives UC Berkeley students and community members opportunities to listen to and ask questions of leading minds in politics, media and education as they learn how to become better, more involved citizens. We look forward to welcoming community members and students from around the Bay Area to participate in this riveting conversation and to join us for future programs in the Creating Citizens Speaker Series.
This program is part of The Commonwealth Club’s civics education initiative, Creating Citizens.
 
This program contains EXPLICIT content.
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Youth Talk: Are We Too Polarized to Govern? The Importance of Working Across Political Divides

Would you even have time to duck and cover?
There is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war. And one of the triggers for that war would be a nuclear missile inbound toward the United States.
Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds’ notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have.
In her new book Nuclear War: A Scenario, Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen explores this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made.
Join us as Jacobsen returns for a new Club program examining the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch.
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Annie Jacobsen - Nuclear War

The Golden State has staked much of its reputation on its green credentials, with state leaders touting its role on the leading edge of global and national climate progress. But California is falling behind in meeting its ambitious emission targets, and has been criticized for over-relying on emerging clean energy technologies that may not bear out.
At the same time, the state is at increasing risk from severe wildfires, epic floods and other impacts worsened by burning fossil fuels. What can the nation learn from California’s attempts to mitigate climate disruption?
Guests:
Scott Wiener, California State Senator
Nancy Skinner, California State Senator
Liane Randolph, Chair, California Air Resources Board
Mari Rose Taruc, Energy Justice Director, California Environmental Justice Alliance
Eleni Kounalakis, Lieutenant Governor, California
Jennifer Barrera, President & CEO, California Chamber of Commerce 
It's time for our annual spring appeal! At Climate One, we believe in the power of open conversations to drive positive change. Through our thought-provoking discussions and interviews, we strive not only to raise awareness of climate issues and solutions, but to also empower individuals — like each of our valued listeners — to take tangible steps toward a more sustainable future. 
You can show your support for Climate One by contributing to our spring fundraising campaign.
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CLIMATE ONE: When California Dreams Hit Political Reality

How can we reimagine the justice system to support restoration instead of retribution?
Our panelists believe the American criminal justice system cannot reduce its dependence on mass incarceration until we confront our impulse to punish in ways that are excessive, often wildly disproportionate to the harm caused. Instead, our panel will explore the transformative power of second chances, including those who have benefited from them—and those who advocate to ensure our system provides them.
Prompting this discussion is the publication of a series of essays, Excessive Punishment: How the Justice System Creates Mass Incarceration, that trace how a maze of local, state and federal agencies have contributed to mass incarceration and deterred attempts at reform.
Kevin McCracken from The Last Mile, Michael Mendoza, and Ken Oliver from the Checkr Foundation will join L.B. Eisen from the Brennan Center for Justice and retired Judge LaDoris Cordell for a thoughtful conversation on the second chances their organizations are providing and efforts to reform the existing criminal justice system.
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The Impact of COVID-19 on Refugees

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