Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

As the war on diversity upends government, corporate and education policies, the history of the idea of diversity has never been more important. David Oppenheimer, a diversity skeptic turned diversity admirer, chronicles how diversity became a foundational value of higher education over the last 200 years, how it evolved as it was adopted by commerce and science, and what the implications are of the current backlash.The diversity principle—the idea that people with different backgrounds, experiences, identities, and viewpoints produce better work by engaging with one another—was a core tenet of the first modern research university, founded in Germany in 1810. It was the inspiration for John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, a touchstone of academic freedom; a hallmark of Charles Eliot’s remaking of Harvard in the late 19th century to promote the “clash of ideas”; and a foundation of the 20th-century efforts toward equality of Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Pauli Murray. In telling the story of the diversity principle through the experiences of these and other remarkable thinkers, Oppenheimer argues for affirming diversity as a central value of education and an “essential ingredient for a robust intellectual and political culture.” Join us for a fascinating discussion about an important concept that underpins our intellectual, social, and economic lives. A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. ORGANIZER George Hammond Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than perhaps any other state, Hawaii has major incentives to decarbonize. Imported oil accounts for about 90% of Hawaii's total energy consumption, and electricity prices are more than three times the national average. So it may not be surprising that Hawaii was the first state in the nation to set a 100% renewable energy goal by 2045. But that’s a hard goal to achieve, especially given the realities of geographic isolation and the costs of importing fuel and materials.  Hawaii Governor Josh Green is bullish about the island state’s decarbonization and wants all options on the table. That includes making liquified natural gas part of the mix, along with solar, wind, and geothermal. His administration passed the first “green fee” which imposes a tax on Hawaii visitors and is expected to generate $100 million for climate resilience projects. What can we learn from Hawaii’s decarbonization process?  Guests:  Josh Green, Governor of Hawaii Rylee Brooke Kamahele, Youth Plaintiff, Navahine v. Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation Tessa M. Hill, Oceanographer and Professor, Earth and Planetary Sciences, UC DavisFor show notes and related links, visit ⁠ClimateOne.org⁠. Highlights: 00:00 Intro 03:08 Josh Green on achieving Hawaii’s climate goals 07:11 Josh Green on offshore wind 13:17 Josh Green on the effect of the wildfires and the recovery 18:09 Josh Green on decarbonizing 20:22 Josh Green on the health effects of the climate crisis 23:30 Rylee Brooke Kamahele on growing up 24:26 Rylee Brooke Kamahele on community action 29:06 Rylee Brooke Kamahele on the outcome of the lawsuit 34:27 Rylee Brooke Kamahele on the responsibility of older generations 37:55 Tessa M. Hill on rapidly changing oceans 41:43 Tessa M. Hill on the impact to common fish 44:44 Tessa M. Hill on the winners and losers of the changing oceans ********** Support Climate One by going ad-free! By subscribing to Climate One on ⁠Patreon⁠, you’ll receive exclusive access to all future episodes free of ads, opportunities to connect with fellow Climate One listeners, and access to the Climate One Discord. Sign up today at ⁠patreon.com/ClimateOne⁠.  Ad sales by ⁠Multitude⁠. Contact them for ad inquiries at ⁠multitude.productions/ads⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1993, the San Francisco organization that would become the Young Women’s Freedom Center made history by becoming one of the first nonprofits in the country run and led entirely by young women. Its mission was to create a support system and community to assist women and girls who had been living on the street and had experienced incarceration, foster care, poverty and trauma. In the decades since, it has developed a model for training and developing peer leaders with lived experience in the juvenile justice and foster care systems, creating a place of healing for young women and a force for community organizing and empowerment. The Center has helped lead the fight to end juvenile incarceration in California and has developed a set of powerful young leaders—including Rep. Lateefah Simon, the U.S. congresswoman who now represents Oakland and Berkeley and is a former executive director of the Center. The program has had remarkable success. For example, young people who complete YWFC programs are up to 85 percent less likely to recidivate or be incarcerated again. Up to 90 percent of those who complete the program maintain employment and reach educational goals. Its success has also enabled it to expand beyond its roots in San Francisco to operate programs in Los Angeles and Oakland, as well as Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties. In this Women’s History Month forum, MindSite News, the nation’s only news organization devoted to reporting on mental health, will be in conversation with Rep. Simon and two members of the current team at Young Women’s Freedom Center. We’ll explore the ways that the organization is nurturing young women, helping them to heal and develop their potential as individuals and community leaders. About the Speakers Congresswoman Lateefah Simon (D-Oakland) represents California’s 12th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. She has deep roots as a Bay Area leader and activist, with over three decades of experience in organizing, advocacy, and philanthropy. In one of her earliest positions, she served as executive director of the Young Women’s Freedom Center for 11 years, starting at the age of 19. Emani Davis is vice president of strategy & operations, NorCal, of the Young Women’s Freedom Center. A nationally recognized movement strategist with more than two decades of experience, she began publicly advocating as the teenaged daughter of an incarcerated father in the 1990s, helping elevate awareness of the impact of mass incarceration on children and families. Julia Arroyo is executive director of Young Women’s Freedom Center and a movement leader with more than two decades of experience in reproductive justice, community health and rape crisis intervention. She has lived experience in foster care, the underground street economy, and incarceration and is deeply committed to mentoring the next generation and helping shape a future rooted in healing, dignity, and collective power. Rob Waters is an award-winning health and mental health journalist and the founding editor of MindSite News. His articles have also appeared in The Washington Post, Kaiser Health News, STAT, theatlantic.com, Mother Jones and many other outlets. He was a 2005 fellow with the Carter Center for Mental Health Journalism. Nell Bernstein is the author of In Our Future We Are Free: The Dismantling of the Youth Prison, published in November, and two other books. She is a contributing writer for MindSite News, where she wrote about the work of Young Women’s Freedom Center. A Psychology Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. ORGANIZERVeronica Ortega & Patrik O'ReillyNOTES Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonathan Turley, law professor and bestselling author, reflects on the American Revolution and its lessons for today. He discusses Thomas Paine’s populist fury, Madison’s stabilizing structures, the rise of rage in media, threats to free speech, platform accountability, and AI’s new risks. Short, provocative takes on how historical principles can guide modern democracy.

Join Carly Schwartz, former San Francisco Examiner editor in chief and founding editor of HuffPost’s San Francisco bureau, for the launch of her debut memoir, I’ll Try Anything Twice: Misadventures of a Self-Medicated Life. In conversation with KQED’s Sydney Johnson, Schwartz will discuss how her quest to escape from depression and addiction led her on a dizzying international journey through multiple communities and a maze of mental health treatments, before she found recovery where she least expected it. She will explore the universal topics of mental illness stigmatization, substance use denial, privilege, power, and the pressure of navigating a cutthroat career—all through the lens of her wildly unconventional experience. Described by early readers as “Eat Pray Love gone horribly wrong,” Schwartz’s book offers a vivid, candid, and darkly humorous take on the search for belonging, the definition of success, and the risks we’re willing to take in order to learn how to love ourselves. The event will include a fireside chat, audience Q&A, live reading, and a book signing. Books will be available for purchase, or you can pre-order your copy with your ticket. This program contains EXPLICIT language.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A pioneer of social psychology, Stanford scholar Claude M. Steele is renowned for Whistling Vivaldi, a runaway bestseller that analyzed societal stereotypes—from beliefs about racial and gender test score gaps to the athletic prowess of Black men—and how to mitigate these “stereotype threats.”  In his new book Churn, Steele captures the most commonplace tensions of life in a multifaceted democracy and how to minimize their corrosive effects in everyday life. With “churn,” Steele has coined a new term to identify “the agitation we can feel in diverse settings,” such as everyday exchanges between teachers and students; police and the public; managers and employees; parents and children; and strangers, or even friends, of different sexes and races.  Steele braids together psychological research with his own biracial life story, demonstrating how initial wariness between people of different identities is as much a product of our history as of our biases. And his latest work reveals how trust building can be a fresh and surprisingly powerful strategy for mitigating these tensions in the real–life settings of our lives and for realizing the full potential of our multiracial, multiethnic, multi-classed democracy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sometimes, because of the current political pushback, one can get the false impression that the academic attention that has recently been paid to increasing a university’s diversity, equity and inclusion profile is a new phenomenon—one that developed after the civil rights gains of minorities and women in the 1950s-70s. But the idea that people with different backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints would produce better work by engaging with each other was a core principle of the first modern research university—which was founded in Germany in 1810. The health sciences are especially dependent on accurate data, and imaginative but reasoned analysis of that data, and both the accuracy of the data and the usefulness of its analysis are put at risk by pretending that diversity, equity and inclusion are harming universities, including medical research universities, rather than helping them. The known inaccuracies caused by a historical research emphasis on male health, and inappropriate applications of those conclusions to female health due to the lack of research data on women, are examples of the risks involved. Join us to hear Dr. Robert Hiatt, whose central focus at UCSF has been on building a strong transdisciplinary research and training program in epidemiology, make the case for how scientifically harmful deemphasizing diversity could be, and how the emergence of Big Data will be derailed quickly if the data that it uses has been corrupted by political whims distorting its scientific objectivity.  In association with The Lundberg Institute and the Philip R Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. Organizer: George Hammond  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, as it nears its 50th anniversary, Apple is a global behemoth, one of the most valuable companies on the planet. But it’s been a rough and wild ride from scrappy startup to market leader. On April Fool’s Day in 1976, two twentysomethings named Steve founded a little company with the intention of spreading the computer revolution to everyone. Over the next five decades, Apple reshaped the technology and cultural landscapes, introducing the public to breakthroughs like the mouse, laser printing, CD-ROM, WiFi, digital video, home networking, touchscreen phones, and tablets. Steve Jobs’s obsessive eye for detail set the stage for products—Mac, iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad, AirPods, Apple Watch—that married advanced technology with beauty, simplicity, and fine design.“CBS Sunday Morning” correspondent David Pogue comes to Commonwealth Club World Affairs to give the life story of Apple: how it was born, nearly died, was reborn under Steve Jobs, and became, under CEO Tim Cook, the giant it is today. He tells this story in his new book Apple: The First 50 Years, for which he conducted new interviews with 150 key people involved in the company’s growth, including Steve Wozniak, John Sculley, Jony Ive, and many current designers, engineers and executives. Come hear Pogue’s take of the little company that did. Pogue busts some long-held myths, goes backstage for big successes and big failures (remember Lisa?), and looks at what can challenge Apple in its second half century. Note: This podcast contains Explicit Language. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Once a marvel of modern science, plastic has become so inextricably woven into our lives that imagining a world without it seems impossible. Over the last 75 years, says author and environmentalist Judith Enck, plastic has cradled our planet in a synthetic embrace.  In her new book The Problem With Plastic, Enck critically examines the paradox of this material, first celebrated for its innovations and now recognized for its devastating environmental and public health impacts. A former regional administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Enck reveals how plastic pollution contributes to poisoned oceans, polluted air, and overwhelming waste, particularly affecting marginalized communities. Enck highlights the pervasive presence of microplastics in the environment and the human body, and she challenges the belief that recycling can solve the crisis.  Enck emphasizes the urgent need for action against what she calls plastic’s toxic legacy. Join us to hear her practical, actionable solutions, including a “household waste audit,” which people can use to track and reduce their own plastic consumption.  Judith Enck is the founder and president of Beyond Plastics and a professor at Bennington College. She is a former regional administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and deputy secretary for the environment in the New York Governor’s Office. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Called the “Godfather of the Silicon Valley’s Indian Mafia” by Fortune magazine, Kanwal Rekhi’s successful journey through the top ranks of the tech world in many ways mirrors the rise of modern India. Now Rekhi comes to Commonwealth Club World Affairs to share his personal account of business leadership and of U.S.-India relations.In his rapid rise through the tech industry, Rekhi rubbed shoulders with luminaries such as Gates, Jobs and Ellison, and he would go on to advise presidents and prime ministers on culture-shifting policies. He is perhaps best know for his work inspiring and launching the careers of thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs, many of whom have become millionaires and even billionaires. He shares stories of his life, career, and outlook in his new book The Groundbreaker, reflecting on what it meant to be an American at the dawn of the digital age, what it means to be an American now amid massive change and uncertainty, and why he believes democracy is crucial to the role that entrepreneurs play in building a better tomorrow. Drawing on his roles as an advisory board member at Stanford’s Institute of Economic Policy Research and Rand Corporation’s Center for Asian Pacific Policy, Rekhi explores the precarious but interdependent relationships between the United States, India, China and Russia; and how competition and alliances might evolve in the future, especially between America and India; and why the cooperation of the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest democracy is crucial to the continued balance of global power. Join us to hear Rekhi’s call to action—for dreamers, doers, and those brave enough to bet on themselves.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices