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Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

KQED

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.

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.

Location:

San Francisco, CA

Networks:

KQED

Description:

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.

Twitter:

@cwclub

Language:

English

Contact:

The Commonwealth Club of California 595 Market Street 2nd Floor San Francisco, CA 94105 415-597-6700

Episodes

Fear of a Black Universe

9/27/2021
Join us for a conversation with cosmologist Stephon Alexander, who argues that great physics requires one to think outside the mainstream—to improvise and to rely on intuition. His approach has led him to three principles that shape all theories of the universe: the principle of invariance, the quantum principle, and the principle of emergence. Alexander uses these three principles to explore some of physics' greatest mysteries, from what happened before the Big Bang to how the universe...

Duration:01:01:01

CLIMATE ONE: Preparing for Disasters We Don’t Want to Think About

9/24/2021
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed structural weaknesses and inequities that existed long before 2020. Like COVID-19, climate change is another “threat multiplier,” with the power to disrupt many of our social systems. In her new book, The Fight for Climate After COVID-19, Alice Hill says we need to adapt our thinking and our policies to combat the ever-increasing threat of climate change. Especially when we see more compound disasters – like a wildfire followed by a mudslide. “We need to come...

Duration:00:59:39

Matthew Rettenmund: Chronicler of 'Boy Culture'

9/22/2021
Now making appearances on the film festival circuit, "Boy Culture: The Series" is a follow-up to the 2006's Boy Culture—the movie of the novel by the same name first published in the mid-1990s. In six brand-new 15-minute episodes, the series tells the story of X, portrayed by Derek Magyar, his roommate Andrew (Darryl Stephens), and their struggles. Join us for an exclusive conversation with Matthew Rettenmund, author of the book and the series, for a look at tackling controversial topics,...

Duration:00:59:10

George Will: American Happiness and Discontents

9/22/2021
Pulitzer Prize-winner George F. Will has been one of this country’s leading columnists since 1974 and, as The Wall Street Journal once called him, “perhaps the most powerful journalist in America.” In his new collection titled American Happiness and Discontents: The Unruly Torrent, 2008–2020, Will offers an in-depth account of a remarkably chaotic 13 years in our nation’s experience through his analysis of an impressively vast array of topics. In this stirring examination, George Will...

Duration:01:01:04

Director Barry Sonnenfeld: Tales from a Neurotic Filmmaker

9/22/2021
Film and television director Barry Sonnenfeld has outrageous and hilarious stories to tell—from his idiosyncratic upbringing in New York City to his breaking into film as a cinematographer with the Coen brothers to his unexpected career as the director behind such huge film franchises as The Addams Family and Men in Black and beloved work such as Get Shorty, Pushing Daises and A Series of Unfortunate Events. Barry Sonnenfeld's philosophy is, "Regret the Past. Fear the Present. Dread the...

Duration:01:04:15

Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy: Race Relations in America

9/21/2021
In his new book Say It Loud, acclaimed Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy chronicles his reactions over the past quarter-century to arguments, events and people that have compelled him to put pen to paper. Three beliefs that are sometimes in tension with one another infuse these pages. First, Professor Kennedy says a massive amount of cruel racial injustice continues to beset the United States, an ugly reality that Kennedy says has become alarmingly obvious with the ascendancy of Donald...

Duration:01:06:53

Survival of the City, with Edward Glaeser and David Cutler

9/21/2021
Prior to the COVID–19 pandemic, many cities, particularly in the United States, were experiencing somewhat of a renaissance. Population was increasing, abandoned areas were being redeveloped into walkable neighborhoods, crime was dropping, and public spaces were engaging both a new generation of citizens and an older cohort who had moved to cities for the first time. In many ways, cities were fulfilling the vision of renowned urban economist Edward Glaeser as places that were the healthiest,...

Duration:01:00:01

The Lasting Impact of Tiny Habits. No Willpower Needed

9/20/2021
Transforming your life can be easier than you think. In his New York Times best selling book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything, a world-renowned expert on habit formation shares his groundbreaking methods for the first time in print. A behavior scientist at Stanford University, BJ Fogg combines his academic research with his massive real-world experience (he has personally coached more than 40,000 people) to create a book full of new insights about how he says behavior...

Duration:01:02:24

Chris Wallace: The Hunt for Osama bin Laden

9/20/2021
On August 27, 2010, three CIA officers met with then-CIA Director Leon Panetta. Their secret session revealed a courier with deep Al Qaeda ties who had been tracked to a three-story, heavily protected fortress at the end of a dead end street in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Without ever having to say the name bin Laden, there exists a mutual understanding that finally, after nearly a decade, they may have just found the world’s most wanted man. In Countdown bin Laden, celebrated journalist and...

Duration:01:07:41

Thomas Wright: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order

9/20/2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed millions, infected hundreds of millions, and laid bare the deep vulnerabilities and inequalities of our interconnected world. The ensuing economic collapse was the worst since the Great Depression, undoing more than two decades of progress in reducing extreme poverty. Tensions between the United States and China boiled over, and the worldwide contest between democracy and authoritarianism deepened. At a time when this global crisis required a truly collective...

Duration:00:57:27

The Secret Body: How the New Science of the Human Body Is Changing the Way We Live

9/20/2021
In a revolutionary new vision of human biology and the scientific breakthroughs that will transform our lives. Professor Daniel M. Davis shows how radical new possibilities are becoming realities thanks to the visionary efforts of scientists who are revealing the invisible and secret universe within each of us. Focusing on six important frontiers, Davis describes what we are learning about cells, the development of the fetus, the body's immune system, the brain, the microbiome, and the...

Duration:01:04:05

CLIMATE ONE: Diet for a Threatened Planet

9/17/2021
This September marks the 50th anniversary of the seminal work Diet for a Small Planet, in which Frances Moore Lappé argued that cattle constitute “a protein factory in reverse.” Lappé’s book inspired countless people to adopt vegetarian diets for environmental reasons. But in the last 50 years the industrial food systems in America have only grown bigger and more concentrated, and – as the Lappés would argue – more powerful. Together with her daughter Anna Lappé, author of Diet for a Hot...

Duration:00:56:39

Drug Use, the Pandemic, and LGBTQ People

9/16/2021
COVID-19 has disrupted many of our lives, with impacts ranging from job loss to housing changes, physical health issues to mental health challenges. At the same time, drug use has increased since the pandemic first struck and has deeply affected many LGBTQ people. Join us for an important discussion on the impact of drugs and the search for healthy ways of coping with the pandemic and life's other challenges. SPEAKERS Kristen Marshall Associate Director of San Francisco Programs, National...

Duration:00:56:32

Craig Whitlock: Inside the War in Afghanistan

9/16/2021
Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan had near-unanimous public support at the time. Their goals were straightforward: defeat Al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. But after the Taliban was ousted from power, U.S. officials lost sight of their original objectives as the military became mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock brings us The Afghanistan Papers, which, similarly to the...

Duration:01:05:59

Renewal: From Crisis to Transformation with Anne-Marie Slaughter

9/15/2021
Americans today face a deeply divided nation beset with political dysfunction. It is here in the United States where identity is questioned, equality is fought for, and history is debated. How can we face the past and simultaneously envision a new future? In her new book Renewal, lawyer and foreign policy analyst Anne-Marie Slaughter encourages self-reflection and growth to change the way individuals and institutions lead and learn. Slaughter’s years of government service, particularly as...

Duration:01:04:20

The 20th Anniversary of 9/11 and the Homeland Today: With Janet Napolitano, Anthony Romero and Amy Zegart

9/15/2021
As the country reflects on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, join us for a special 90-minute conversation focused on the state of homeland security today and looking ahead. Homeland security is a term that has evolved over the past two decades since the deadly terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. At first, it was a subject primarily focused on protecting the country from international terrorism, including Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, then ISIS, as well...

Duration:00:57:26

The Future of California Tourism in Challenging Times

9/15/2021
Travel and tourism make up one of California’s most important and powerful industries. Every day before the pandemic of 2020, travelers injected hundreds of millions of dollars into communities across the Golden State, infusing hundreds of billions of dollars into the state’s economy. In 2019, this spending generated $12.2 billion in local and state tax revenue and supported 1.2 million jobs for Californians. That all changed when the pandemic spread in March 2020, and the tourism industry...

Duration:01:07:06

CLIMATE ONE: Water and Civilization: Resilience and Collapse

9/10/2021
Water is essential for life, and throughout history we have sought to control and make use of it. As Giulio Boccaletti explores in his new book, Water: A Biography, that relationship with water has underpinned human civilization, forming an integral part of society, government and land use systems. But despite its essential nature, access to water has never been equal or entirely fair. Climate disruption will further destabilize the systems we’ve built to control water in our environment –...

Duration:00:56:32

Extraction: Art on the Edge of the Abyss

9/9/2021
Extraction: Art on the Edge of the Abyss is a special project of the Codex Foundation. Extraction is a multimedia, multi-venue, cross-border art intervention focused on the suicidal consumption of the planet’s natural resources, which the artists say is the most pressing environmental issue of our time, encompassing all others, including climate change. Extraction is an international "art ruckus" for 2021! Peter Koch's intervention includes a multimedia focus on dual aspects of Northern...

Duration:01:02:01

The Economic State of Black America

9/9/2021
As with many aspects of American life, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacted BIPOC communities. For Black businesses, this meant closing their doors and for Black workers, either being laid off or made to work in unsafe conditions. In a system where Black workers are proportionally overrepresented in low-wage work and sharply underrepresented in executive positions, this negative impact is exacerbated. However discouraging this reality is, it serves as a call to...

Duration:01:02:55

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