KQED's Forum

“As the planet slowly cooks, people will do what they have done for thousands of years in response to climate change in their environment,” writes journalist and author Abrahm Lustgarten, “they will move.” Less than one percent of the earth’s surface is now considered too hot or dry to support human civilization, but climate researchers estimate that by 2070 nearly one-fifth of the planet will be...

You might not think that 224 pages devoted to a sixth grader’s tricky journey with braces would make for a bestseller, but since its publication in 2010, Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novel “Smile” has remained hugely popular with the kid set. And her follow ups “Guts,” “Drama” and “Ghosts” have earned her rave reviews from kids, tweens, parents and librarians for the humorous, hopeful, and honest de...

The explosion of online dating apps has made meeting new people radically convenient. But more of those looking for love complain that the platforms take the romance out of dating and turn it into nothing but a game of odds. Perhaps that’s why dating apps are losing their appeal, especially among Gen Z. According to one study, Gen Z-ers make up only 26% of dating app users. We’ll discuss how diffe...

The rules that guide real estate transactions could soon change dramatically. As part of a $418 million legal settlement, the powerful National Association of Realtors has agreed to eliminate the standard 6-percent sales commission. Under the settlement, subject to a judge’s approval, home listings will no longer automatically offer commission to buyers’ agents, requiring buyers to negotiate fees...

There was a time when the nation was gripped by an epidemic that leaders felt went to the moral core of the country: bad posture. In her new book, “Slouch,” University of Pennsylvania historian Beth Linker recounts how curved spines, rounded shoulders, and slumped backs were considered reflections of moral fitness, the ability to hold a job, and even intelligence. We’ll talk to Linker about this “...

When Judith Butler wrote the pioneering book “Gender Trouble” in 1990, they introduced us to the nascent field of gender theory. Now, more than three decades later, gender has become a catch-all term and bogeyman for conservative movements around the world. It’s become a lightning rod for social anxieties, Butler argues, about sex, feminism, racial equality and queer existence. In their latest boo...

A drenching rainy season that isn’t over yet has given California another gift, besides a big snowpack and gnarly skiing: a “superbloom.” A superbloom is not a scientific term according to botanists, but this year’s bloom promises to deliver a spectacular display. Anza-Borrego Desert is already reaching its peak, the park currently awash in a carpet of desert sunflowers, dune primrose and dandelio...

Chiura Obata had a promising career when he left Japan for California in 1903. But the pull of this new country was compelling. A long-time arts professor at Berkeley, Obata was a leading figure of the Northern California arts community. His watercolor and ink paintings of the natural world, including vistas of the Sierras and Yosemite, as well as finely wrought and closely observed paintings of f...

For decades, it’s been primarily women and girls who tend to be diagnosed with eating disorders. But recent research shows that adolescent boys are prone to disordered eating as well, though they may exhibit different symptoms from girls. Where disordered eating in girls can focus on thinness, in boys, eating disorders can be complicated by athletic training or a desire for increased muscle mass,...

Famine is imminent in the northern Gaza Strip, according to a report released this week by United Nations-backed food experts. The analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) also finds that half of Gaza’s population, 1.1 million people, , would most likely experience “catastrophic” shortages of food by mid-July. We’ll discuss the IPC report and get the latest on efforts to...

James and Jennifer Crumbley are set to be sentenced next month after separate juries convicted them of involuntary manslaughter for failing to prevent their son from killing four classmates in a 2021 mass shooting at a Michigan high school. The Crumbleys’ convictions mark the first time in U.S. legal history that the parents of a school shooter have been found criminally liable for their child’s a...

The Ninja Loop is a 12-mile trail that starts in the Marin Headlands and climbs 2,000 feet to a crest from which runners can witness the rising sun if they time it right. Since its christening in 2008, the trail has become a popular stalwart among many fabled Bay Area trail runs, like the Dipsea, and 3,500 attempts have been made to break its course record of one hour and six minutes. We’ll talk a...

Anthropologist Jason De León has spent a career documenting the stories of migrants making their way across the Sonoran Desert at the Southern US border. But in his new book, “Soldiers And Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling,” De León turns his gaze towards the smugglers. For nearly seven years, he embedded with a group of smugglers moving migrants across Central America and M...

The City of Berkeley will soon return sacred land to an Indigenous trust, in what Berkeley’s mayor has called the largest urban land give-back in California history. After nearly a decade of litigation the city acquired a 2.2 acre parking lot in West Berkeley which sits on the last undeveloped land of the oldest Ohlone shellmound, which was designated as a city landmark in 2000. The city acquired...

Heart disease is by far the leading cause of death for women in the United States. Yet, women with heart conditions are less likely than men to receive aggressive treatment and preventive medication and more likely to have their symptoms dismissed by doctors. It’s one of the many gender inequities that oncologist Elizabeth Comen explores in her new book “All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early M...

The warden of the troubled federal women’s prison in Dublin was ousted last Monday amid an FBI raid of the facility. Art Dulgov was removed just months into his tenure in the wake of allegations of retaliation against an inmate who spoke out about abuse at the prison. Despite prior leadership changes and promises to fix problems, the prison – which has been known as the “rape club” – has remained...

Deepfakes are already affecting the 2024 election, and the technology is only becoming more convincing. UC Berkeley computer scientist Hany Farid shared the stage with Mina Kim on March 2 at the Night of Ideas, held at the San Francisco Public Library before a live audience. We listen back to their conversation about how easy it to make fake digital content with generative A.I. and the impact that...

Earlier this month we brought some of our favorite Forum guests – a poet, a novelist, a sociologist and a musician – who all work with themes of cross-cultural identity for a conversation, and live music and readings, before an audience. We discussed the complexities of racial and ethnic identity and how the hyphens we sometimes use to bridge our identities – Mexican-American, Chinese-American etc...

For many of us, conflict is something to be avoided, but according to longtime negotiation and mediation expert William Ury, we actually need more conflict in our lives. In a new memoir called Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict, Ury says conflict can “produce better ideas and, ultimately, better relationships.” We talk to Ury, who’s also the author of the bestselling book...

Laurence Ralph is a Princeton professor who studies gangs and youth violence. Five years ago it all became very personal when a family member, 19-year old Luis Alberto Quiñonez, was killed in San Francisco in retaliation for a gang-related murder he didn’t commit. That tragic story is the subject of his new book, Sito: An American Teenager and the City That Failed Him. We’ll talk with him about th...

After a yearlong wait, the San Francisco Chronicle has a new lead restaurant critic, MacKenzie Chung Fegan. She grew up in San Francisco, has deep roots in its restaurant scene and knows the power of the written word: 50 years ago her grandparents opened Henry’s Hunan, which exploded in popularity after the New Yorker deemed it “the best Chinese restaurant in the world”. We’ll talk with Fegan abou...

For the first time in over a century, the 250-mile Klamath River will soon flow freely as the nation’s largest dam removal project in history nears completion. Indigenous tribes, fishermen and environmentalists had been fighting to dismantle four hydroelectric dams along the river for more than two decades, owing to the dams’ devastating effects on salmon populations among other environmental impa...

Every year a ceremony is held at Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles for the county’s unclaimed deceased; the most recent ceremony, held in December, honored nearly 1500 people. In a new book sociologists Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans tell the stories of four of the deceased and how they came to be laid to rest in a common grave after their ashes were left behind. We’ll talk about what makes...

Americans famously hang on to false ideas about politics, even after being presented with the facts. Part of the problem, of course, is misinformation. But according to political scientist Emily Thorson, people also tend to assume that they already know how existing policies work…and they are often wrong. In her new book, “The Invented State,” Thorson argues that providing facts and context in the...

Electrical vehicle purchases in California dropped significantly in the second half of last year, for the first time in a decade. It’s unclear if this is a trend or just a blip, but some potential EV buyers say that they’re holding off because of concerns over public charger access and reliability. Things may be improving: California approved a $1.9 billion dollar investment in EV charging infrast...