Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

When Iuliia Mendel got the call telling her she had been hired to work for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, she had no idea what was to come. Mendel had a front row seat to many of the key events and meetings between President Zelenskyy, Vladimir Putin, and other European leaders preceding the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. She saw firsthand President Zelenskyy’s efforts to transform Uk...

In May 2022, an outbreak of monkeypox, a viral disease, was confirmed. It quickly spread from the United Kingdom to many countries around the world. Everyone is able to contract monkeypox, but its most rapid spread so far has been through men who have sex with men with new or multiple partners. How has the LGBTQ community responded? What is the current state of the disease's spread? What treatment...

An alarming new reality is emerging in China, where a new kind of political control is being waged through the optimization of technology. Journalists Josh Chin and Liza Lin describe the journey through the new world China is building within its borders, and beyond. They reveal a future that is already underway―a new society engineered around the power of data and digital surveillance. Hear more a...

Author Katherine Blunt provides what is being called a "revelatory, urgent narrative with national implications," exploring the decline of California’s largest utility company that led to countless wildfires—including the one that destroyed the town of Paradise—and the human cost of infrastructure failure Pacific Gas and Electric was a legacy company built by innovators and visionaries, establishi...

From post-Watergate reforms, to the fall of the Soviet Union, the impeachment of Bill Clinton, 9/11 and the Iraq War, the Great Recession, the two Trump impeachment trials, and the January 6 insurrection, Senator Patrick Leahy has been at the heart of the discussion of the country's politics and direction for nearly half a century. In his memoir, The Road Taken, Senator Leahy gives a first-hand re...

In August, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. The IRA allocates around $370 billion over ten years to invest in renewable energy, make EVs more affordable, address climate inequities, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help mitigate the climate crisis.  But like any law, the way the money is doled out matters, and the law’s implementation will ultimately determine its su...

Fake news? Alternative facts? Overly hyped "breakthroughs"? Irreproducible scientific research results? Preprints? Gaslighting the medical literature? What to do? Finding and trusting the best published primary medical literature is the answer. Our speakers for the 12th Annual Lundberg Institute Lecture at The Commonwealth Club, JAMA Editor in Chief Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo and BMJ Editor in Chief...

Author of That Is Not Your Mind: Zen Reflections on the Surangama Sutra, Robert Rosenbaum explores that question by taking forum participants on a magical journey through the Surangama Sutra based in a context of Zen practice. Like the arts world, Surangama sutra is a springboard for exploring sensory experiences—sight, sound ,taste, smell, touch and the Buddhist “sixth sense” of mind or cognition...

Join us for a conversation about family, faith and responsibility, with Valerie Biden Owens and Dr. Gloria Duffy. Valerie Biden Owens is Biden Institute chair at the University of Delaware, campaign manager, political strategist, and New York Times best-selling author of Growing Up Biden. Welcome remarks will be delivered by Paul J. Fitzgerald, S. J., president of the University of San Francisco,...

Is today’s America really the one the Founding Fathers envisioned? That is the question constitutional scholar Kermit Roosevelt asks, tracing the majority of American political sentiments from the modern day not back as far as the Revolution, but to the Reconstruction era. Kermit Roosevelt is a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the great-great grandson of President Theodore Roose...

After a 20-year career as a tech reporter for CNET, the New York Times, and the public radio program Marketplace, Molly Wood has come to see the climate crisis as an engineering problem requiring an acceleration of investment. And so, after producing the acclaimed climate podcast “How We Survive” for Marketplace, she recently left that program to begin a new career in venture capital. Now, in conv...

When people talk about the many attacks on Asian and Pacific Islander (API) people, they usually don’t talk about gay or queer people. These attacks have been going on for a long time, and seemingly nobody pays attention to it. This special panel will highlight how these attacks are affecting the queer Asian community and how this silent violence is impacting their lives and the lives of their lov...

Oysters are one of humanity’s oldest foods and have great historical significance and current-day importance. For John Finger, founding partner and CEO of Hog Island Oyster Company, the shellfish are not only a vocation but a way of life. Finger is a marine biologist who has helped Hog Island become one of the premier producers of certified sustainable shellfish in the country. And Finger's work a...

In March 1938, German soldiers, under Hitler's orders, crossed the border and absorbed Austria into the Third Reich. Anticipating these events, many Jews had fled Austria, but the most famous Austrian Jew remained in Vienna, where he had lived since early childhood. Sigmund Freud was 81 years old, ill with cancer, and still unconvinced that his life was in danger. But those close to Freud thought...

Over the past two years, Rhode Island congressman David N. Cicilline has become an outspoken voice on some of the most critical issues facing the country and the Bay Area, including regulating and reining in big social media companies, reducing gun violence, and promoting economic development. As chair of the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus, Rep. Cicilline is leading efforts to promote equali...

In this second part of our series on conspiracy theories and other false narratives, we'll look at practical actions we can take and tools we can use to have fruitful discussions with friends and family who have been misled. There are ways that we can help untangle the snare of a mind-gripping false narrative. They're usually not easy, and they're usually not fast, but they can work in most cases....

In the tech world, there’s a common belief that once a new device hits 5% market penetration, it rapidly goes from a niche to mass adoption. According to Bloomberg, the US has just passed that critical 5% tipping point for new EV purchases. Norway, an oil-rich country, was first to hit that 5% mark in 2013 and today boasts a stunning 86% of new cars being fully electric. Now California is driving...

Why does a lie travel around the world while the truth is still lacing up its boots? In all areas, not just politics, science, and medicine, outrageous or fascinating false information outpaces truth, which is often more nuanced. False narratives pose a real danger to democracy, to our health, and to society. This series will discuss the reasons for that destructive state of affairs and what we ca...

Most Americans support climate action, but you wouldn’t know it from Congress or the courts – or from most of the media. People on both the left and the right experience the same devastating floods, the same life-threatening heatwaves and the same catastrophic wildfires. Yet individuals tend to socialize within insulated political tribes, operate in completely different information bubbles and see...

Join us online for a discussion and reading of Gods of Want: Stories, with author K-Ming Chang. Chang's new book features fictional short stories of a Taiwanese American family exploring displacement, queerness and more. Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. She is also the author of the novel Bestiary, which was longlisted...

With less than three months before the November election (and even less time before people start mailing in their ballots), come out to the Club for a lively political discussion of the big issues and key races in the fall contest for Congress. Will Republicans capture both houses of Congress? Or will Democrats hold onto the Senate? What are the issues that will drive people to the polls, the cand...

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused horrific damage and casualties, in spite of Ukraine’s remarkable efforts to defend itself. The conflict has disrupted energy markets, grain shipments and is still destabilizing the global economy. All of this has shoved climate further down the list of international priorities, as has happened so many times before.  Yet within conflict zones, many brave indi...

In the early 1970s, a 20-year-old Korean immigrant named Chol Soo Lee was convicted of a Chinatown gang murder. Sentenced to life, he spent years fighting to survive, until investigative journalist K.W. Lee took a special interest in his case, igniting an unprecedented social justice movement that would unite Asian Americans and inspire a new generation of activists. Nearly five decades later, the...

The Milky Way—its hundred billion stars, supermassive black holes and countless unsolved mysteries—is as intriguing as it is colossal. And for astrophysicist Dr. Moiya McTier, merely studying it is not enough, as she combines myth and science into a whimsical, fanciful and fascinating “autobiography” of our home galaxy. Dr. McTier holds a Ph. D. in astronomy from Columbia University and studies as...

More than one in four adults in the United States has a disability. And yet: Do you know how to be a true ally to someone, maybe yourself, with a disability? Have you felt awkward around people with a disability and not known what to say and do? Have you wanted to tell your friend how you understand yourself as a disabled person, but not known how to tell your story? Fret not! Here comes Nina G.,...