Free Forum with Terrence McNally

Originally Aired August 2002 BILL McKIBBEN is a great writer - hundreds of New Yorker articles (1982-87), The End of Nature (1989), The Age of Missing Information (1992), Deep Economy,(2007) and Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist (2013). He is an impactful if reluctant activist, founder of perhaps our most effective climate change organization, 350.org. In this 2002 interview, me...

(originally aired July 2006) In their earlier POWERSHIFT, the Tofflers coined the word "prosumer" for people who consume what they themselves produce. Think of all the tasks - from ATM deposits to online airline reservations - that we now do for ourselves. In REVOLUTIONARY WEALTH they expand the concept to reveal how many of our activities - parenting, volunteering, blogging, organizing a neighbor...

In this podcast, I go solo. Rather than interviewing others, I share with you the best of the work I do to help organizations develop more engaging narratives and tell better stories. Learn why narrative is uniquely powerful as well as the recipe for a good story – whether in a Hollywood screenplay or a one-to-one conversation.

Originally aired: June 2011 Pulitzer-prize winning author Ed Humes starts with skepticism, asks tough questions, and ends up delivering good news. Wal-Mart embraced an unprecedented green makeover, leveraging the power of 200 million weekly customers to reduce waste, toxics, and carbon emissions. Neither an act of charity nor an empty greenwash, Wal-Mart's move reflects a simple philosophy: that t...

Originally Aired: November 2013 After 3.8 billion years of R&D on this planet, failures are fossils. What surrounds us in the natural world has succeeded and survived. So why not learn as much as we can from what works? JAY HARMON translates nature's lessons into technologies that solve problems and perform tasks more elegantly, efficiently, and economically. JAY HARMAN has founded and grown m...

Welcome to DISRUPTIVE the podcast from Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. In this episode of DISRUPTIVE, we will focus on a cancer vaccine and hydrogel drug depots – both being developed by Wyss Founding Core Faculty Member, DAVE MOONEY. Mooney says the human immune system is the most efficient weapon on the planet to fight disease. Cancer, however, resists treatment a...

On November 15, InsightLA, the leading Los Angeles-based Mindfulness Meditation organization, will host LIVING WITH A JOYFUL SPIRIT AND A WISE HEART, a day of deep teachings and timeless wisdom that will feature Trudy Goodman and Jack Cornfield in dialogue via video with a "who's who" of the pioneers of mindfulness meditation in the West - Jon Kabat-Zinn (Wherever You Go, There You Are), Ram Dass...

Hello, I’m Terrence McNally and you’re listening to DISRUPTIVE the podcast from Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. The mission of the Wyss is to: Transform healthcare, industry, and the environment by emulating the way nature builds. Our bodies — and all living systems — accomplish tasks far more sophisticated and dynamic than any entity yet designed by humans. By emul...

Originally Aired October 2010 In his new book, WERE YOU BORN ON THE WRONG CONTINENT?, this week's guest, THOMAS GEOGHEGAN, makes a strong case that European social democracies - particularly Germany - have some lessons and models that might make life a lot more livable. Not only that, they could help us keep our jobs. In comparison to the U.S., the Germans have free university tuition, nursing car...

Originally Aired September 2011 "It is the American Dream that the GOP's "slash and burn" agenda is killing off. We need a movement dedicated to renewing the idea that hard work pays in our country; that you can make it if you try; that America remains a land committed to dignity, justice and opportunity for all. Right now, this very idea is on the GOP chopping block. And we must rescue it now --...

Originally Aierd May 2010 We hear a lot about Europe's troubles - overrun by migrants, the debt crisis in Greece, threats to the Euro and the European Union. We seldom hear that Europe is also making capitalism and democracy work for people, not just corporations. The European Union, 27 nations with a half billion people, is the largest, wealthiest trading bloc in the world, nearly as large as the...

Originally November 2010 1. The world's people have never have been so connected - in terms of communication, commerce, and culture - yes or no? 2. The world's people have never been more in conflict or threatened - in terms of war, violence, inequity, environmental harms and climate change - yes or no? 3. When confronting the challenges of this globalizing and threatened world, the human race see...

Originally aired: November 2013 JARON LANIER writes: "At the height of its power, Kodak employed more than 140,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. Today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography is Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people. Where did all those jobs disappe...

Welcome to the second episode of my new monthly podcast series produced with Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. DISRUPTIVE: BIO-INSPIRED ROBOTICS features three separate interviews with (1) RADHIKA NAGPAL, (2) ROBERT WOOD, and (3) CONOR WALSH. From insects in your backyard, to creatures in the sea, to what you see in the mirror, engineers and scientists at Wyss are dra...

Welcome to the second episode of my new monthly podcast series produced with Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. DISRUPTIVE: BIO-INSPIRED ROBOTICS features three separate interviews with (1) RADHIKA NAGPAL, (2) ROBERT WOOD, and (3) CONOR WALSH. From insects in your backyard, to creatures in the sea, to what you see in the mirror, engineers and scientists at Wyss are dra...

Welcome to the second episode of my new monthly podcast series produced with Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. DISRUPTIVE: BIO-INSPIRED ROBOTICS features three separate interviews with (1) RADHIKA NAGPAL, (2) ROBERT WOOD, and (3) CONOR WALSH. From insects in your backyard, to creatures in the sea, to what you see in the mirror, engineers and scientists at Wyss are dra...

Originally aired October 2011 As the two countries play a high stakes game of chicken, it's a good time to see what Greece and Germany looked like in the aftermath of the global crash. Who better to be our tour guide than best-selling author MICHAEL LEWIS? Lewis's book, BOOMERANG: Travels in the New Third World is made up of articles originally published in Vanity Fair and picks up where 2010's TH...

Roko Belic (Originally aired January 2012) Rafe Esquith (Originally aired September 2007) Do you want to feel better? Listen to this week's show. In the first half hour, I talk with Academy-Award-nominated filmmaker ROKO BELIC about his documentary, HAPPY, and in the second half with award-winning LA school teacher and author, RAFE ESQUITH about his book, TEACH LIKE YOUR HAIR'S ON FIRE. Are you ha...

Originally aired September 2010 You startle awake to a rude alarm clock. Nothing you'd rather do than sleep a bit more. Coffee gets you going enough to make it out the door. On your morning commute you zone out, oblivious to radio reports of weather disasters or war casualties. At work, juggling your cell phone, landline, and email, you speak to countless faceless people without leaving your desk....

I’m excited to offer the first episode of DISRUPTIVE, my new monthly podcast series produced with Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. The mission of the Wyss Institute is to: Transform healthcare, industry, and the environment by emulating the way nature builds, with a focus on technology development and its translation into products and therapies that will have an impa...

(1) FRITJOF CAPRA - Originally aired April 2009 (2) NORA BATESON - Originally aired July 2012 Both interviews this week explore systems thinking - one of the key ingredients of a world that just might work. First. I speak with FRITJOF CAPRA, who wrote a book in 1981 that greatly influenced my view not only of science, medicine, agriculture, energy, and even politics - it influenced my view of real...

(Originally aired November 2010) According to Scientific American, "Experts guesstimate that about 50,000 chemicals are used in U.S. consumer products and industrial processes. Why the uncertainty? The 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act does not require chemicals to be registered or proven safe before use. Because the Environmental Protection Agency must show, after the fact, that a substance is da...

Ben Skinner(Originally aired April 2009) Gabor Mate (Originally aired May 2011) These interviews pursue a world that just might work. That pursuit, however, demands looking honestly at the darker aspects of human behavior, and this week's interviews deal with slavery and addiction. In both cases, my guests draw on years of personal experience to frame their analyses and their proposed solutions. T...