Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

As America faces another election as a deeply divided country, Steve Phillips has strong views on what the United States needs to do to strengthen its multiracial democracy. For Phillips, understanding why the country is so divided requires recognizing that many of our divisions are historic in nature, resulting in a contest between democracy and white supremacy that is still left unresolved after...

For Leslie Absher, secrecy is just another member of the family. Throughout childhood, her father's shadowy government job was ill-defined, her mother's mental health stayed off limits—even her queer identity remained hidden from her family and unacknowledged by Leslie herself. In Spy Daughter, Queer Girl, Absher pursues the truth: of her family, her identity, and her father's role in Greece's CIA...

Providing nutritious, safe and affordable food in the face of the Earth’s changing climate is an urgent global challenge. How can we produce enough food for everyone at the same time as improving our relationship with our environment? And can what we eat contribute to a more sustainable future for communities on the West Coast, across North America and around the world? Join the conversation with...

What are the issues and opportunities for cities as autonomous vehicles hit the road? How can we plan for and accommodate new forms of transport and smart city infrastructure that serves the public good? Join us on November 7 as a part of the 6th international Autonomous Vehicles and the City symposium. We will feature international discussions on the different ways that new platforms are being us...

Join us to explore the history of how, where and why we bury our dead. Melville will take us on a lively, wide-ranging tour of the history of famous American cemeteries—places that have mirrored passing eras but have also shaped them. Cemeteries gave birth to landscape architecture and famous parks, as well as influenced architectural styles. They’ve inspired and motivated some of our greatest poe...

The 27th UN convention on climate change, known as COP27, is now underway in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. When Climate One spoke with Egyptian Ambassador Wael Aboulmagd in October, he argued that progress at this year’s summit would be more rapid than in past years, because this year, the focus is on implementation rather than negotiation. And for the first time, loss and damage — what richer nations o...

During the depths of the pandemic, one of the most important companies in America was Grubhub. The online food delivery service was a lifesaver for residents sheltering in place and for restaurants struggling to make revenue. But where did this company come from? The story of how Grubhub was founded and what its founder, Mike Evans, learned along the way is a story important for anyone who cares a...

After two and a half years of struggle, San Francisco's downtown stands at a crossroads. Employees have increasingly returned to offices—with overall attendance at offices reaching 50 percent on some days—streets are busier, tourism is increasing, and corporations have returned to hosting major events and attending conventions in and around the Moscone Center. Yet is it enough to return San Franci...

Long a fringe part of the American political landscape, conspiracy theories are now mainstream: 147 members of Congress voted in favor of objections to the 2020 presidential election based on an unproven theory about a rigged electoral process promoted, in part, by followers of the mysterious QAnon community, itself a network of believers of a wide-ranging conspiracy involving pedophilia among ele...

Financial Times columnist and CNN global economic analyst Rana Foroohar offers a deep look at the vulnerabilities of globalization. She makes the case that the reign of globalization as we’ve known it is over and the rise of local, regional and homegrown business is now at hand. She says that for decades, the neoliberal economic philosophy of prioritizing efficiency over resilience and profits ove...

In the 1970s, the United States faced stagflation: high rates of inflation combined with stagnant employment and growth. Global economist Nouriel Roubini predicts we are heading toward another Great Stagflation that will be difficult to recover from. Is it too late to avoid this economic catastrophe? Financial and geopolitical certainties that we once took for granted have disappeared, and Roubini...

It’s been a big year for U.S. climate policy. Three major pieces of legislation: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act have all become law, ushering in the largest commitment of federal money toward the climate crisis to date. In a bipartisan vote, the Senate also finally ratified the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which will help...

This November, San Francisco voters are being asked to vote on a number of ballot measures, local and statewide. One of those local measures is Proposition D, which aims to spur the development of affordable housing in a city that was recognized by the state government as having "the longest timelines in the state for advancing housing projects, . . . among the highest housing and construction cos...

In his new book Bridge to the Sun coming out on September 27, 2022, Bruce Henderson, master storyteller, historian and New York Times best-selling author, tells a gripping true tale of the courage of the Japanese-American U.S. Army soldiers who fought in the Pacific theater, while many of their families back home in America were incarcerated behind barbed wire in camps by the U.S. government. Thei...

With the recent appointments of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, the balance on the U.S. Supreme Court has shifted fundamentally toward the conservatives, and a series of precedent-breaking decisions issued during the 2022 session confirms it. The implications of the Dodd decision alone are far reaching for individual rights, not to mention those cases that focus on the governm...

Ruha Benjamin has been called one of the country's most insightful scholars on issues related to race, technology and justice. In her new book, Viral Justice, Benjamin explores—in a very personal way—two social issues that have received extensive attention over the past two years: police violence and the pandemic of COVID-19. For Prof. Benjamin, these two issues existed in tandem for a reason: the...

In a democracy, meaningful change often requires adapting views and building coalitions. Some believe finding common ground and building rapport is the best way to change minds. Others believe activism and protests are key to raising awareness. Increasingly, however, the acts of listening and persuasion are left out, as each side is convinced that the other is unmovable.  Anand Giridharadas is a j...

Reza Aslan is a leading expert in world religions and his bestselling books have touched on a range of issues related to history, extremism and spirituality. His latest work, An American Martyr in Persia, challenges us to look at how seriously we take our ideals of constitutional democracy and whose freedom do we support. Aslan illuminates these issues by exploring the real-story of Howard Baskerv...

Who is Donald Trump? In her highly anticipated new book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman chronicles his life from his rise in New York City to the White House. Join us as Haberman discusses what she learned during interviews with hundreds of sources as well as numerous interviews over the yea...

Over the last several years, the COVID-19 global pandemic has helped illustrate to the nation that we are only as healthy as those who are most vulnerable among us. Disparities impacting a person’s health ultimately also impact the health of our larger society. Many of these disparities have deeply rooted causes that stem from unjust policies and programs across the country. This session in our Hu...

Adam Hochschild returns to The Commonwealth Club with his revelatory new account of a pivotal but neglected period in American history: World War I and its stormy aftermath, when bloodshed and repression on the home front nearly doomed American democracy. The nation was on the brink. Angry mobs burned Black churches to the ground and chased down pacifists and immigrants. Well over a thousand men a...

Last year, drug-related overdoses killed more people than COVID-19 in San Francisco, and Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency in the Tenderloin. Fentanyl and COVID-19 have only fueled our overdose crisis. While addressing this might seem overwhelming, we can respond in practical and evidence-based ways. Come learn how we can address this crisis with solutions that might surprise you fr...

Women are breaking through the tired and hurtful stereotypes of aging to better reflect who they are, how they live, and what they want as they age. Who hasn't heard the stereotypes about women of a "certain age?" That's the age when women become invisible, irrelevant, undesirable, asexual, unhinged, dried-up, hormonal messes. It's when women quickly slide into fragility and become forgetful, pass...

Join us for an online conversation with the author of a striking and remarkable literary memoir about one family’s transformation, with almost all of them embracing their queer identities. It might sound like a sitcom plot, but for Jessi Hempel, it's a true story. Jessi Hempel was raised in a picture-perfect, middle-class American family. But the truth was far from perfect. Her lawyer-father was c...

Twenty of the world’s richest countries – mostly in the Global North – are responsible for 80 percent of the carbon pollution that’s driving extreme weather and supercharging natural disasters. Yet poorer countries in the Global South are experiencing climate-induced disasters first and worst. Wealthier and whiter countries in the Global North are being hit by climate disruption as well, but they...