Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

At this moment, the cheapest way to create electricity is by pointing a solar panel at the sun. That’s good news for the climate. It’s also good news for communities who want to take control of their own electricity generation. In the heart of Brooklyn, UPROSE is helping to build a solar project that will be owned by the community, provide jobs, and help residents bring down their energy costs. In Puerto Rico, where hurricanes have devastated the power grid, community members are building solar microgrids to provide reliable electricity as the utility has proven they cannot. Meanwhile in conservative rural Virginia, Energy Right is helping farmers and rural communities adopt solar projects, touting a free market message about energy independence and security.  Guests:  Elizabeth Yeampierre, Attorney; Executive Director, UPROSE  Skyler Zunk, CEO and Founder, Energy Right  Arturo Massol-Deyá, Executive Director, Casa Pueblo de Adjuntas For show notes and related links, visit ⁠ClimateOne.org⁠. Highl

Election Day in the November 2024 presidential election was a pivotal moment in American history, and in his second term, President Trump has moved quickly to imprint his vision on the country and its policies. But before November 5, there was a whole campaign that was wild, unpredictable, fiery and violent. Jonathan Karl, ABC News chief Washington correspondent, calls it “the campaign that changed America.”  Karl, author of the bestsellers Tired of Winning, Betrayal, and Front Row at the Trump Show, returns to Commonwealth Club World Affairs for a special online-only discussion of the issues raised in his newest book, Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America. Karl went behind the scenes to learn about what was happening in the White House and in the presidential campaigns during such shocking moments as President Biden’s withdrawal from the campaign, assassination attempts, Vice President Kamala Harris’ historic campaign, and more.  Don’t miss this program featuring one of our leadin

The Social Impact Holiday Mixer is an evening of celebration and connection bringing together philanthropists, nonprofit leaders, and changemakers from across the Bay Area. Hosted at Commonwealth Club World Affairs, the program blends festive warmth with civic purpose. Honorary chair and emcee Willie L. Brown, Jr., two-term mayor of San Francisco and former speaker of the California Assembly, opens the evening with reflections on leadership, philanthropy and community. He is joined by co-hosts Elisabeth Pang Fullerton, a philanthropist and impact investor studying Global Public Health Leadership at Harvard, and Eddy Zheng, founder of the New Breath Foundation and national advocate for cross-cultural healing and justice. Following brief remarks, the evening transforms into an interactive roundtable discussion, with microphones, held by the co-organizers, circulating among guests to share social impact success stories and lessons learned. The program concludes with an open reception, inviting continued conver

BIG. ASIAN. ENERGY. is a Bay Area cultural force, elevating Asian power, women’s leadership, and the unstoppable vitality of our AAPI communities. Through headline events and community activations, BAE champions economic recovery, public safety, and support for small businesses by bringing bold visibility to Asian stories year-round. It’s a catalyst to celebrate, amplify, and activate the future of San Francisco.  Come and hear more about BAE and how you can join the force. Speakers: Dion Lim, our moderator, is an Emmy Award–winning journalist known for nearly two decades as a TV news anchor and reporter, most recently in San Francsico and the Bay Area. Marjan Philhour is managing director of Mercury’s San Francisco office, bringing more than three decades of experience in government, politics, strategic communications and community advocacy to the firm. Nancy Tung was elected as chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party in April 2024. She previously served as an elected member of the party's local l

2025 has been a doozy in so many ways. And climate news has been no exception. Climate One hosts Ariana Brocious and Kousha Navidar look back at what the year has meant for climate progress: the good, the bad, the ugly — and the joyful. According to the World Meteorological Organization, 2025 will go down as one of the ⁠top three⁠ warmest years in the 176-year observational record. Climate-change-fueled extreme weather continues to wreak havoc on communities across the world. And yet, it’s not all bad news.  As Bill McKibben points out, we now live on a planet where the cheapest form of energy basically comes from pointing a piece of glass at the sun. And globally, renewable energy surpassed coal for the first time ever. Despite the federal government’s attacks on climate science and policy, local climate action is still happening across the country and globe, and each of us holds power to make change. Guests: Adrienne Heinz, Clinical Research Psychologist, Stanford University School of Medicine Roxann

From patents to IPOs to international bridge titles, Vinita Gupta has navigated male-dominated arenas with clarity and courage. In this fireside chat with Nalini Elkins, she shares fresh takes from her new memoir on resilience, inclusion, and building durable success in a volatile world—plus what it takes to keep learning through every pivot. join us to hear her timely playbook for founders, operators and the curious. Vinita Gupta is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and the first woman of Indian origin to take a company public in the United States. Her memoir, The Woman in Deed: Road to IPO, Bridge Tables, and Beyond, traces a life of invention, leadership, and competitive bridge at the highest levels. She writes on innovation, integrity, and reinvention across the India–U.S. corridor. Nalini Elkins, the CEO and founder of Inside Products, Inc., is a recognized leader in the field of computer performance measurement and analysis. She is also the chief technical officer and co-founder of Outside the Stacks. An

Bestselling author and noted historian Mark Shaw returns to Commonwealth Club World Affairs to discuss his latest research and his newest book. They strengthen his conclusion that New Orleans mafia don Carlos Marcello was the point person pulling the strings behind the murders of JFK and famed journalist Dorothy Kilgallen. And, for the first time, he also links Marcello to the murder of Robert Kennedy. In his previous books, Shaw established the connections between Marcello, Oswald, Ruby and Kilgallen and Marcello’s use of Kilgallen’s lover to silence her before she could expose Marcello’s involvement in the JFK assassination. In his latest book, Abuse of Power, Shaw lays out compelling evidence that Marcello’s pattern of using patsies to exact his revenge culminated in his setting Sirhan Sirhan up to take the fall for the assassination of RFK on June 6, 1968.  Shaw’s new research includes his examination of the JFK assassination records recently released by the federal government. In those files is a Decemb

On November 7, Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California, the nation’s oldest and largest public affairs forum, will host The Asian American Foundation’s (TAAF) first-ever AAPI Youth Mental Health Summit. Under the theme “Sparking Solutions Together,” the summit will convene hundreds of experts, advocates, funders, and business executives to address the urgent and often overlooked mental health challenges facing Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) youth. From 2018 through 2022, suicide was the leading cause of death among Asian Americans aged 15–24, and the second leading cause of death among Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. Yet despite being deeply impacted by the nation’s mental health crisis, AAPI youth remain largely invisible in the national mental health conversation, and the data needed to understand their mental health is scarce at best. To fill the gap, TAAF released "Beyond the Surface" in December 2024, the most comprehensive study to date on AAPI youth mental health, which revea

How can the United States advance its interests without abandoning its core values? Alexander Vindman, retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and former director for European Affairs on the White House’s National Security Council, presents a discussion on the critical interplay between morality, values and power in the practice of geopolitics and national security.  After the collapse of the Soviet Union, six U.S. presidential administrations across both parties crafted policies for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia that unintentionally emboldened Russia and played into its imperialist, centuries-long mythos of regional hegemony, by pursuing short-term transactional policies. The result: military aggression and full-scale invasion. It was all too foreseeable.  Vindman will discuss the shifting U.S. foreign policy landscape, what a just peace and lasting end to the war in Ukraine might look like, the administration's increasingly transactional approach to international relations, and Trump's heavy-handed approach to

Project Drawdown is the world’s leading science-based guide to climate solutions. According to Jonathan Foley, Project Drawdown’s Executive Director, they aim to be the Consumer Reports for climate change. “We synthesize every paper ever written in science, engineering, technical, economic literature, all the data, and bring it together and say, ‘Hey, does this actually work? And if so, how much would it cost? And how long would we have to wait for it?’”  Foley is not just an expert on the intricacies of hundreds of potential climate solutions; he’s also the winner of the 2025 Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Science Communication, and an expert at explaining complex ideas in easily digestible terms. As he said on a past Climate One episode, “The great news about addressing climate change is we also build a better world in the process. Imagine going to the doctor and they're like, ‘Wow, you're really sick and I'm gonna give you this medicine, and its side effects are, you're gonna feel better.’ Cli

At the age of 83, Jesse Jackson has a long career behind him as one of the most influential Black activists of the past century. As a civil rights leader, activist, shadow senator, presidential candidate, and ordained Baptist minister, he has been at the center of the public eye and a thorn in his opponents’ sides. Now CNN anchor and author Abby Phillip comes to Commonwealth Club World Affairs to share the story of Jackson, focusing on his presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988. In both campaigns, he was initially viewed as a fringe candidate yet went on to surprisingly strong finishes—third place in 1984 and runner-up to nominee Michael Dukakis in 1988.  How did he do it? How did he build a coalition that appealed to urban working-class people, college students, and Southern Blacks? That coalition would go on to become a core part of many Democratic presidential campaigns in the decades following the 1980s. Drawing on his time working with Martin Luther King, Jr., his organization of the SLCC’s Operation B

Join us for a December program and celebration featuring youth speakers from San Francisco's LYRIC Center for LGBTQQ+ Youth. These young people will speak about today's important social issues affecting their lives. After the program, stick around for an appreciation reception with food and beverages. The Commonwealth Club thanks Gilead Sciences, Inc. for its generous support of The Michelle Meow Show.  See more  Michelle Meow Show programs at Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California.   This program contains EXPLICIT language.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Civic engagement is being redefined by members of a generation that is both deeply critical of the systems around them and deeply committed to shaping something better. Rather than relying solely on traditional channels such as electoral politics or government-backed programs, students and young leaders are turning to alternative forms of participation—mutual aid networks, campus resource-sharing, community coalitions, and peer-led initiatives—that center care, solidarity and local action. How can civic life can be sustained and strengthened even when public institutions appear stagnant or unresponsive? What does it mean to be civically engaged when government channels feel inaccessible? How can young people build community and foster accountability when the structures designed to support them fall short? And how can higher education remain a space for meaningful participation amid growing tensions around inclusion, access and speech? Through a conversation rooted in practice and reflection, this event high

Leading writers and researchers will discuss and explain the issues that arise in writing with the entrance of large language models into this space. Are they useful for fiction and nonfiction writers, and in what ways? Can their use be considered ethical? About the Speakers Nina Beguš is a researcher at UC Berkeley working in artificial humanities, an interdisciplinary approach she designed to understand the cultural, ethical and philosophical dimensions of AI. Focusing on language and literature, her work foregrounds our imaginary around AI. She lives in the West Coast's only residential college, Bowles Hall, with her husband, three sons, and 188 students. James Yu is a speculative fiction writer and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Sudowrite, the AI assistant for creative writers. His writing explores how technology mediates our everyday experiences. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, two kids, and a growing number of AIs (none sentient yet.). Ted Chiang is an American science fiction writer

Join us for a special screening of the new documentary 2000 Meters to Andriivka, followed by a conversation with acclaimed Ukrainian filmmaker and war correspondent Mstyslav Chernov. From the Oscar-winning team behind 20 Days In Mariupol, 2000 Meters to Andriivka documents the toll of the Russia-Ukraine war from a personal and devastating vantage point. Following his historic account of the civilian toll in Mariupol, Chernov turns his lens toward Ukrainian soldiers—who they are, where they came from, and the impossible decisions they face in the trenches as they fight for every inch of their land.  Amid a failing counteroffensive in 2023, Chernov and his AP colleague Alex Babenko follow a Ukrainian brigade battling through approximately one mile of a heavily fortified forest on their mission to liberate the Russian-occupied village of Andriivka. Weaving together original footage, intensive Ukrainian Army bodycam video and powerful moments of reflection, 2000 Meters to Andriivka reveals, with haunting intimac

It’s been ten years since Pope Francis issued his landmark encyclical on climate and caring for our common home, Laudato Si’. With the election of the new Pope Leo XIV, many are hopeful he will follow in Francis' path.  Three-quarters of the global population follow a major religion. And the Catholic Church is far from alone among religious institutions in its directives to care for creation. A few years after Laudato Si, Muslim leaders issued Al-Mizan, which restates principles from the Quran on protecting nature in terms of meeting current challenges. Organizations like Interfaith Power and Light, the Jewish group Dayenu, the Hindu Bhumi Project, and the Buddhist Climate Action Network demonstrate the universality of creation care as central to religions worldwide.  Especially at a time when governments are failing to take meaningful action on climate progress, can faith traditions provide new paths forward? Guests: Celia Deane-Drummond, Director, Laudato Si' Research Institute; Senior Research Fellow

Is the HIV fight behind or ahead of us? On this World AIDS Day, we will have a panel with key players in the space. These doctors are working on clinical trials to develop drugs to prevent and treat HIV, they work on policies to help bring the interventions where they are needed, and they are also on the ground caring for the individuals needing the care. Join us to hear how they feel about where we are with the fight. Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California is a nonprofit public forum; we welcome donations made during registration to support the production of our programming. This program is sponsored by ViiV, along with the generous support of Kaiser Permanente.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can we reclaim control of our economy to make it work for everyone? What needs to be understood about the big tech platforms before that could even be attempted? Tim Wu has a plan. Wu, a scholar and the former White House official who coined the phrase “net neutrality,” has examined the rise of “platform power” and the risks and rewards of working within such systems. It’s a topic he explores in his latest book The Age of Extraction. Drawing on lessons from recent history—from generative AI and predictive social data to the antimonopoly and crypto movements—Wu says the internet that was promised to be the provider of widespread wealth and democracy in the 1990s and 2000s instead created new economic classes and helped spread autocracy. Wu envisions a future in which tech advances can serve the greatest possible good, and he offers proposals for making a more balanced economy. Wu has been named one of Scientific American’s 50 people of the year (2006), one of the “Politico 50” (2014 and 2015), one of The Na

Join the multi-talented Jay Kuo for "political and legal analysis with a dose of humor." Jay will discuss issues ranging from the president's use of the National Guard, immigration, Supreme Court decisions and more. About the Speaker Jay Kuo is the chair-elect of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization with more than 3.3 million members. He currently leads its Public Policy Committee to help elect equality-focused candidates at the national, state and local level. Jay is the CEO and founder of The Social Edge, a digital publishing and social media company. As head of "Team Takei,” he built actor and activist George Takei’s social media into an online juggernaut reaching more than 25 million fans. Jay writes a popular daily Substack on politics and law called "The Status Kuo," which has more than 5 million monthly reads. Bu that is not all. He is a two-time Tony winning co-producer for Hadestown and The Inheritance and is currently developing two new musical product

Dr. Melody Glenn was a burned-out emergency physician who had grown to resent the large population of opioid-dependent patients passing through her ER. While working at a methadone clinic, she realized how effective harm reduction treatments could be and set out to discover why they weren’t used more broadly. That’s when she found Dr. Marie Nyswander. In the 1960s, Dr. Nyswander defied the DEA and medical establishment to co-develop methadone maintenance as a treatment for heroin addiction. According to some addiction specialists, its discovery could be considered as monumental as the discovery of penicillin. Yet, it still carries a stigma today. As the United States continues to struggle with opioid and fentanyl use, Dr. Glenn shares Dr. Nyswander’s legacy and important lessons that can be used in dealing with today’s addiction crisis. Dr. Melody Glenn is an author and associate professor of addiction and emergency medicine at the University of Arizona. She graduated with her M.D. from The University of S