Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

Have you gotten the feeling that this pandemic has also been spreading an epidemic of irrationality? From insisting that climate change is a hoax to believing that vaccinations cause autism, many are willing to reject outright even a solid scientific consensus. And though it may be somewhat amusing to hear COVID-19 being blamed on 5G networks, chemtrails or Bill Gates's insatiable greed, the amusement stops when bad thinking leads to bad acting, such as the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.  Nadler and Shapiro argue that the best antidotes for such bad thinking and acting are the insights and practical skills of philosophy. Their engaging tour through the basic principles of logic, argument, evidence and probability can make anyone a more reasonable and responsible citizen. They also demonstrate how you can spot and avoid flawed arguments and unreliable information; determine whether evidence supports or contradicts an idea; distinguish between merely believing something and knowing it; and much more. In

A conservatorship, also known as a guardianship in most states, is the court-ordered assignment of the responsibility for care and the conservation of the estate of an incapacitated person to a third party. The probate court system, where these orders originate in California, has been highlighted in the media for decades for dysfunction that can provide a safe haven for predatory and parasitic attorneys. Too often, vulnerable adults under the “protection of the court” are not protected. Unscrupulous conservators and guardians protected by influential attorneys neglect and exploit the very people they claim to safeguard. The Britney Spears case exposed to the world what thousands of people nationwide each year are experiencing; the deceitful side of conservatorship. Meet four dedicated activists who are counseling victims and their loved ones, and demanding state and federal reforms to prevent abuse. They will speak about who the victims are and how estate trafficking and fraudulent adult guardianships and con

Join John Hagel III and Alison Levine as they share their fear-busting methods for combating today’s uncertainty. Digital business disruption, the emergence of epidemics, and engaging social movements are changing the world before our eyes. Our panel will share their experiences in negotiating extreme environments. Levine led the American Women’s Everest Expedition, and Hagel is engaged in rapidly changing business environments as a business strategist. They will show us how to manage risk more fully in our own lives. Their methods and experiences can inspire us to become more confident in following our own dreams to succeed. Following our program, we will have a rooftop reception and book signing. MLF ORGANIZER Elizabeth Carney NOTES MLF: Business & Leadership SPEAKERS John Hagel III Business Strategist and Founder, Deloitte's Center for the Edge; Entrepreneur; Author, Journey Beyond Fear Alison Levine Team Captain, first American Women's Everest Expedition; Speaker; Author, On the Edge Elizabeth Carney Entr

At a press conference following the conviction of wealthy socialite Ed Buck last month, journalist and political strategist Jasmyne Cannick said, "Ed Buck is going to pay for the crimes he committed, not just to their loved ones but to an entire community of Black men here." Buck was once well regarded in the West Hollywood LGBTQ community and a prominent Democratic Party fundraiser. But his conviction on nine charges, including involvement in the deaths of Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean, maintaining a drug den, distributing methamphetamines and solicitation of prostitutes, ended that. It's a sordid story that might never have come to light—or to court—without the persistence of journalists such as Cannick to bring justice to the victims. Join us for an exclusive talk with Cannick. About the Speaker Jasmyne Cannick founded Justice for Gemmel and All of Ed Buck’s Victims to extend her advocacy for the survivors and victims of Ed Buck beyond her journalism, leveraging both her political acumen and her community

Join us to discover how astronomer Vera Rubin's persistence, after her work was initially dismissed, finally convinced the scientific community that dark matter might exist. It is now taken for granted that the universe is mostly dark, made up of particles that are undetectable even by our most powerful telescopes. This discovery of the possible existence of dark matter signaled a Copernican-like revolution in astronomy: not only are we no longer the center of the universe, but even the stuff we’re made of appears to be insignificant. By showing that some astronomical objects seem to exaggerate gravity’s grip, Rubin played a pivotal role in this discovery. Yeager tells the story of Rubin’s childhood fascination with stars, and her scientific education at Vassar and Cornell. She became a rarity, a woman in science, and her findings were equally incredible to her colleagues. Since some observatories still restricted women from using their large telescopes, Rubin was unable to collect her own data until a decade

Paralyzed by indecision? Sukhinder Singh Cassidy’s debut book Choose Possibility: Take Risks and Thrive (Even When You Fail) is a new view on risk, proposing that we take rather than avoid risk and enjoy the opportunities that come along with it. In it, the Silicon Valley mogul makes easy math of the choices that we make each day that can put us on the path to success. She argues that it is not one big decision that cements our future, but the million small ones that open up doors, enabling us to see success through. With not one but three successful companies under her belt, Cassidy maintains that she is no stranger to mistakes. But in the face of pitfalls and misfires, what has set her apart and launched her success is her ability to adapt, overcome and grow from such setbacks. At INFORUM Sukhinder Singh Cassidy will crunch the numbers of risk, reveal the “seven myths of success”, all while guiding us on how to take the first step and all the ones that follow—making risk synonymous with opportunity rather t

In November 2018, Paradise, California suffered through the nation's deadliest wildfire in a century. The Camp Fire leveled the mountain town, killing 85 people and destroying more than 18,000 structures. At the time, reporter Lizzie Johnson was a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Her definitive firsthand accounts of the fire and its wreckage helped tell the vivid story of this massive disaster. Three years later, Johnson's new book, Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire, provides a detailed overview of the fire that destroyed Paradise, examines what went wrong and suggests ways to avert future tragedies as the climate crisis unfolds and California's drought worsens. Drawing on years of on-the-ground reporting and reams of public records, including 911 calls and testimony from a grand jury investigation, Johnson provides a minute-by-minute account of the Camp Fire, following residents and first responders as they fight to save themselves and their town. As California enters

This special family event will feature a multigenerational panel of adult civic leaders and educators talking together with their children about practices and opportunities for engaging young people in civic life.  Increasingly, youth have been speaking up about the importance of having parents and teachers who model civic engagement and encourage them to get involved in their communities. But how can we get our kids involved in ways that are both meaningful and rewarding? How can families engage in civic work together? What can kids do on their own, and how do they want adults to support them? A lifetime of civic engagement begins in youth. We encourage you to watch this special program with your family. This program is presented by Creating Citizens, an education initiative of The Commonwealth Club. About the Speakers Amber Coleman-Mortley’s passion is focused on elevating diverse voices and perspectives in the civic education space, working with students, educators and parent communities for more equitable

Listener Advisory: This episode contains some content related to a suicide. If you or someone you love is thinking about suicide, the National 24-hour Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. This summer, the climate crisis seems to be unfolding faster than ever before — with catastrophic floods, huge wildfires, and killer heat. It’s becoming increasingly hard to mentally set climate aside as a future problem — it is here, real in our present moment.  How do we grapple with the weight of these changes, and process our fear for what is coming for us, and for the next generation? And how do those emotions affect our decisions about whether or not to have children, who in many ways represent an embodied version of our hope for the future? Guests: Daniel Sherrell, Author, Warmth, Coming of Age at the End of Our World Seb Gould, physics teacher Irène Mathieu, pediatrician and poet Virginie Le Masson, co-director of the Centre for Gender and Disaster at University College London Learn more about your ad choic

Since the 2008 publication of the global bestseller Nudge, co-authored by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, the word “nudge” has entered the vocabulary of many businesspeople, policymakers, engaged citizens and consumers everywhere. It has taught us how to use thoughtful “choice architecture”—a concept the authors invented—to help us make better decisions for ourselves, our families and our society. "Nudging" is a simple change that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives. It’s the option to opt out of your company’s 401k retirement program as opposed to opting in, or the placement of fruits and vegetables at eye level in grocery stores to encourage healthier eating. In 2021, the authors have rewritten the book from cover to cover, building Nudge: The Final Edition out of the last dozen years’ worth of new research, insight, and experience. The book touches on a wide variety of issues we face in our daily lives—COVID-19,

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, discrimination, verbal assaults, and physical violence against members of the AAPI community have skyrocketed, disproportionately harming vulnerable members of the community, including women, youth and elders. This racism takes its toll. Please join us to learn what you can do to help combat anti-Asian racism in everyday living and support the AAPI community. Topics will include: understanding the problem of racism; practical, actionable steps to disrupt racism and overcome unconscious biases; and ways to create a safe space to speak up against racism. NOTES MLF: Psychology SPEAKERS Dr. Tam Nguyen Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist; Director of Ambulatory and Addiction Care, Sutter Health Dr. Sarah Nguyen M.D., Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles; Associate Director, Integrative Psychiatry Clinic Dr. Jennifer Tran D.O., Family Medicine Doctor, Palo Alto Medical Foundation Dr. Uyen-Khanh Quang-Dang M.D.

Historian and journalist Kai Bird's new book, The Outlier, is being acclaimed as a definitive account of President Jimmy Carter's presidency, including how President Carter’s often-controversial policies and initiatives appear in historical perspective.  Carter assisted Bird in his research, giving him exclusive access to the private papers of Charles Kirbo, Carter’s longtime personal lawyer and political adviser, as well as to the unpublished diaries of Carter White House aides Langdon Butler, Tim Kraft and Jerome Doolittle. Bird points out that as president, Jimmy Carter was not merely an outsider: he was an outlier. He was the only president in a century to grow up in the heart of the Deep South, and his born-again Christianity made him the most openly religious president in memory. Bird says this outlier brought to the White House a rare mix of humility, candor and unnerving self-confidence that neither Washington nor America was ready to embrace. Bird traces the arc of Carter’s administration, from his a

9/11 transformed American political and cultural life. Post-9/11 Americans were hyper-concerned with national security, public safety and the War on Terror. Now, looking back at the years of contention between the United States and terrorist organizations, journalists like Spencer Ackerman believe the military campaign set the stage for authoritarianism to rise in the United States. As a national security editor for The Guardian, Ackerman was part of the team that won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for public service journalism for their reporting on Edward Snowden's surveillance revelations. Now, he’s looking to understand the endless conflict known as the War on Terror in his new book, Reign of Terror. After 9/11, policies threatening the safety of Muslims and immigrants turned the War on Terror into a cultural and tribal struggle. It bolstered nativism and inspired bipartisanship. It paved the way for authoritarian leaders to rise to power and exploit sectors of political strength. By analyzing the decisions of P

In the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic and amid a widespread shutdown of economic and social life, a little-watched effort to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom suddenly got traction, easily gaining the number of signatures needed to trigger a special election that could remove him from office. Join us for a special edition of the Club's Week to Week Political Roundtable, as we focus on the high-stakes gubernatorial recall election. How did it come to this? Who is behind the recall? Who is running to replace Newsom? How has Newsom responded? Just how does a recall election happen? We'll dig into all of that and more with our panelists who are experts in state politics. SPEAKERS Carla Marinucci Senior Writer, Politico California Playbook; Twitter @cmarinucci Scott Shafer Senior Editor, KQED's Politics and Government Desk; Twitter @scottshafer Dan Schnur Professor, University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communications; Professor, University of California Berkeley's Institute of Governmenta

In 2020, The Peace Corps recalled every volunteer due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since that moment, the National Peace Corps Association, a 501(c)(3) enterprise, has held many town hall meetings, advocacy meetings, consultations with congressional representatives and senators, and more to help bring back into the field a Peace Corps that is stronger, more responsive to social needs, more diverse and more robust. While NPCA is not a government agency, it has worked tirelessly with the Peace Corps, a government agency, to help launch a new vision. NPCA President Glenn Blumhorst will discuss the future of this important agency and how it will be better and more important than before. Blumhorst is the president and CEO of the National Peace Corps Association, an enterprise at the center of a community of more than 180 grassroots affiliate groups and 235,000 individuals who share the Peace Corps experience. Founded in 1979 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., NPCA’s mission is “to champion lifelong commitment to

Americans owe more than $1.5 trillion in student loan debt, almost $700 billion more than the total U.S. credit card debt. Student loans have proved to be one of the most pressing problems young Americans face, and critics say the college industry is in part to blame. Originally, well-intentioned government reforms for college access quickly turned into reckless lending and runaway tuition. Easy access to loans allowed colleges to raise tuition to soaring levels. Even the private banks that fronted the money made huge profits on interest. Together, everyone in this business formed an exploitative system that relies on students failing to pay back their debt. In his new book The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe, Wall Street Journal reporter Josh Mitchell uncovers the broken student loan system that was created, and then exploited, by loan company Sallie Mae and the United States Congress. He explains what he says are the ill-advised decisions made that drove Americans into massive deb

Christian. Pastor. Transgender. Join us to hear from Dr. Paula Stone Williams about her experience journeying from male to female and from despair to joy. As a father of three, married to a wonderful woman and holding several prominent jobs within the Christian community, Dr. Paula Stone Williams made the life-changing decision to physically transition from male to female at the age of sixty. Almost instantly, her power and influence in the evangelical world disappeared and her family had to grapple with intense feelings of loss and confusion. Feeling utterly alone and at a loss after being expelled from the evangelical churches she had once spearheaded, Paula struggled to create a new safe space for herself where she could reconcile her faith, her identity, and her desire to be a leader. Much to her surprise, the key to her new career as a woman came with a deeper awareness of the inequities she had overlooked before her transition. Where her opinions were once celebrated and amplified, now she found herself

In early August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report unequivocally connecting global warming and extreme weather to human-driven greenhouse gas emissions, and warning of much more dramatic climate futures if we don’t change course soon. Since the 2020 election, Rich Thau’s Swing Voter Project has been querying those who shifted from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020 about a range of issues. How will their views affect the 2022 midterms and the 2024 election? Where does climate rate on their list of issues? And does the accelerating climate crisis matter enough to affect their votes? Guests: Rich Thau, Moderator, The Swing Voter Project; Co-founder and President, Engagious  Andrew Freedman, Climate and Energy Reporter, Axios Venkatachalam “Ram” Ramaswamy, Director of NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

WeWork revolutionized working spaces. By investing in commercial real estate and converting property into flexible shared workspaces, WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann was set to transform the way people get work done. The company offered more than shared space, investing in education and housing initiatives through its WeGrow schools and WeLive residences. Israeli businessman Adam Neumann was on track to become the world’s first trillionaire, but the company soon found itself burning through money with a last hope attempt through a Hail Mary IPO. From the minds of Wall Street Journal reporters Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell, The Cult of We uncovers the wins, hiccups, and turmoil of tech startups. Eliot Brown has spent his career covering startups, venture capital, commercial real estate and economic development. Similarly, Maureen Farrell focuses on the role of initial public offerings and capital markets in creating a successful business. Together, Brown and Farrell delve into the case of WeWork founder Adam

Since 1931, the California Book Awards have honored the exceptional literary merit of California writers and publishers. Each year a select jury considers hundreds of books from around the state in search of the very best in literary achievement. Over its 90 years, the California Book Awards have honored the writers who have come to define California to the world. Among them are John Steinbeck, Wallace Stegner, MFK Fisher, Thom Gunn, Richard Rodriquez, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Joan Didion, Ishmael Reed, and Amy Tan. Recent award winners include Hector Tobar, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Susan Orlean, Rachel Kushner, Rachel Khong, Tommy Orange, Morgan Parker and Steph Cha. This year’s winners include: GOLD MEDALSFICTION A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth, Daniel Mason, Little, Brown and Company  FIRST FICTION How Much of These Hills Is Gold, C Pam Zhang, Riverhead Books NONFICTION South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War, Alice L. Baumgartner, Basic Books JUVENILE Efrén Divided, Ernest