Climate One

Sun Up: Scaling Solar Power in California Bob Epstein, Founder, Environmental Entrepreneurs Mike Peevey, Chair, California Public Utilities Commission Mike Splinter, CEO, Applied Materials Nancy McFadden, Senior Vice President, PG&E Solar power is surging in popularity as a renewable energy source, yet still remains a small part of California’s overall energy supply. How will this situation change...

Climate One in Copenhagen Segment One Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor, California Huang Ming, Founder and CEO, Himin Solar (one of China's largest renewable energy companies) Segment Two Rajendra Pachauri, Chair, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Caio Koch-Weser, Vice Chair, Deutsche Bank As the tumultuous climate negotiations in Copenhagen near the end, California Governor Arnold Schwarze...

The Future of Cars and the Auto Industry James Lentz, President/COO, Toyota, USA, Inc. Toyota is known for creativity and a commitment to sustainable development, but is it enough in today's ultra-competitive globalized car industry? Come hear the unique perspective of industry veteran Lentz, who launched the innovative Scion brand in 2001, on what automakers are doing to ensure vehicles are a ben...

India: Deal Maker or Deal Breaker? India plays a critical role in the global climate chess game. It’s hard line stance has been softening slightly recently as the Copenhagen negotiations approach. What is India’s approach to the international negotiations? What are the prospects for reforming its electricity sector? How is clean technology faring in India now? These questions are addressed by Varu...

Saving Civilization Is Not a Spectator Sport Lester Brown, President, Earth Policy Institute Brown sees concern in the merging of world food and energy economies. Putting corn ethanol in gas tanks and grain-intensive food (beef) into more human bellies will drive up commodity prices and exacerbate fresh water scarcity. Though he believes the Earth is under stress, Brown is hopeful, in part because...

Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse David Orr, Professor, Environmental Studies and Politics, Oberlin College Due to our refusal to live within the Earth’s natural limits, we now face a multitude of problems that will have a severe negative impact on human civilization. Orr, an expert on environmental literacy and ecological design, further argues that political negligence, an economy d...

What’s Science Got to Do with Climate Change? Stephen Schneider, Professor of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, Stanford Greg Dalton, Founder, Climate One What risks does the changing climate pose to the global economy and how can we manage those risks? Rather than betting so much on a cap-and-trade regime for carbon pollution, Schneider says policymakers should fund more research to invent...

A World Without Ice: Man’s Impact on Climate Change Henry N. Pollack, Ph. D., Professor of Geophysics, University of Michigan It has taken just three centuries for human growth and rising industrial economies to bring the delicate relationship between ice and humans to a dangerous precipice. Ice carved Earth’s landscape to its present state – the sharp Alpine peaks of Europe, the vast Great Lakes...

Tim Flannery Chairman, Copenhagen Climate Council; Author, Now or Never: Why We Must Act Now to End Climate Change and Create a Sustainable Future Greg Dalton, Founder, Climate One - Moderator One of the world's leading scientists and notable climate experts offers a pragmatic roadmap of the environmental challenges we face in dealing with climate change and the potential solutions toward sustaina...

EPA + You = A Greener Future Lisa Jackson, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency After winning higher auto fuel economy earlier this year, what are the EPA’s next big priorities? In her first visit to California as the country’s chief environmental regulator, Jackson will lay out her vision for cleaning up America’s air, water and land. What are her plans on toxics, mining and other...

Arnold Schwarzenegger: California - Carbon = A Cleaner World? Governor of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will soon convene a global summit of governors from developing countries to advance the transition to a clean-energy economy. Before that happens, he visited Climate One for a discussion of California's role managing greenhouse gases, promoting green jobs and developing clean technol...

Hopenhagen: Seth Farbman, Jon Krosnick, Adam Werbach - Public Support for a Deal in Copenhagen Adam Werbach, CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi S Seth Farbman, Managing Director, Ogilvy & Mather Jon Krosnick, Professor of Communication and Political Science, Stanford University Greg Dalton, Founder, Climate One What do people around the world think about the threat of climate change and the promise of a new c...

Carbon Exchange 101 Eileen Tutt, Deputy Secretary for Climate Change and Environmental Justice, Cal EPA Lawrence Goulder, Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics, Stanford University Josh Margolis, CEO, Cantor CO2e Greg Dalton, Vice President, The Commonwealth Club – Moderator Could carbon exchange be the best route to controlling emissions? Some argue that the cap-and-trade approach let...

Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered Woody Tasch, Chair and President, Slow Money; Author Tasch is the chairman and president of Slow Money, a new nonprofit intermediary dedicated to catalyzing the flow of capital to enterprises that support the values that underline slow money, Tasch explains how we can “slow down” the flow of money to support soil fertility and local co...

The Truth About Green Business: The Potential for Jobs and Prosperity Gil Friend, Founder/CEO, Natural Logic, Inc.; Author, The Truth About Green Business Running a profitable business that takes care of the environment, provides meaningful jobs, and helps the community is an oxymoron, right? Not so fast. Friend suggests that green business practices are good for business and the world. This progr...

World Bank: Driving Incomes Up, Carbon Down Katherine Sierra, Vice President for Sustainable Development, World Bank Group Awais Khan, Lead, Clean Tech Venture Capital Practice, KPMG Greg Dalton, Founder of Climate One at The Commonwealth Club Are the world’s poor going to get shafted in the clean economy, just as they did in the dirty one? The World Bank is at the center of the great 21st-century...

Curtailing Suburban Sprawl in California Ted Droettboom, Joint Policy Director, Association of Bay Area Governments Laura Hall, Principal, Hall Alminana, Inc. Paul Campos, Vice President and General Counsel, Northern California Home Builders Association As California’s population has grown, so too has the state’s thirst for expansion and elbow-room. As a result, Californians are spending more time...

Chevron + Sierra Club: Drilling for Common Ground Dave O’Reilly, CEO, Chevron Carl Pope, Executive Director, The Sierra Club Alan Murray, Deputy Managing Editor, The Wall Street Journal – Moderator Chevron and the Sierra Club both see renewable fuels as a growing part of our future. Yet as the world transitions to a low-carbon economy, they have different views on how that change should occur and...

The Road to Copenhagen: Are We on Track? Bill Reilly, Chairman, Climate Works Foundation; Former Administrator, EPA Larry Schweiger, President, National Wildlife Federation; Board Member, Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection John Bryson, Retired CEO, Southern California Edison; Co-founder, National Resources Defense Council Greg Dalton, Vice President, Commonwealth Club of California In six m...

Rethinking Buying and Building: A New Sustainability Chain Andy Ball, CEO, Webcor Builders Beth Springer, EVP, Clorox Dave Steiner, CEO, Waste Management, Inc. Greg Dalton, Vice President, Commonwealth Club, moderator Companies and consumers are being asked to think more about the full life-cycle of the products they make and buy. Whether making consumer goods or constructing skyscrapers, companie...

Clean Coal: Myth, or Reality? S. Julio Friedmann, Carbon Management Program Leader, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Ray Lane, Managing Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Bruce Nilles, Director, Beyond Coal Campaign at Sierra Club Joe Lucas, Senior Vice President, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity Jeff Goodell, Author, Big Coal – Moderator Coal-fired power plants are the l...

Biologist Birute Mary Galdikas discusses the connection between Indonesian rainforests and climate change. In conversation with Greg Dalton, Commonwealth Club Vice President, founder of Climate One Deforestation in Indonesia, driven largely by large palm oil plantations, has caused that country to become the third largest emitter of greenhouses gases in the world. Galdikas, who studied under anthr...

Getting Green Done: Hard Truths from the Front Lines of the Sustainability Revolution Auden Schendler, Executive Director of Sustainability, Aspen Skiing Company; Author, Getting Green Done What does the mechanic say when you ask him to put french fry oil in his $250,000 tractor? How do you actually make sustainability happen? Schendler will give us a peek under the hood of the green movement – wh...

Andrew Vincent Alder, Senior Fellow, Institute for Environmental Security Holmes Hummel, Lecturer, Climate Policy, University of California, Berkeley Tom Spencer, Vice Chair, The Institute for Climate Security Greg Dalton, Vice President, The Commonwealth Club, Moderator What is the geopolitical context in which the “Carbon Quad” – The United States, European Union, China and India – are posturing...

Clean Tech for California: Emerging Winners Jennifer Billock, Founder, Over the Moon Diapers – Air, Water, and Waste Winner Tuyen Vo, Founder and CTO, Viridis Earth – Energy Efficiency Winner Michael Looney, CEO and President, BottleStone – Green Building Winner Allen Bronstein, Founder and CTO, Focal Point Energy – Renewables Winner Donnie Foster, CEO and President, Power Assure – Smart Power Win...