Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

How do we build communities that are more resilient than the ones we were raised in? As severe weather hammers cities and spurs more migration, who will pay to shore up infrastructure and secure the border? Experts at the highest levels of U.S. government are now working to uncover the ways that climate could threaten critical infrastructure and reshape the way communities respond to risk. Meanwhile, as damages increase, so do insurance claims, making homeownership nearly impossible in areas with the greatest risk of fires, floods and hurricanes. Pricing that risk and spreading the costs across society will test American democracy and could further exacerbate the growing wealth gap. Join us for a conversation with Alice Hill, senior fellow for climate change policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Building a Resilient Tomorrow: How to Prepare for the Coming Climate Disruption, and Janet Ruiz, strategic communication director at the Insurance Information Institute. Joining remotely is Sherri Goodman, senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center and former U.S. deputy under secretary of defense for environmental security. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With a presidential election looming in 2020, what are the progressives in Congress doing to build political power and move their agenda forward? As the elected co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus—representing nearly 40 percent of the House Democratic majority, Representative Pramila Jayapal is on the forefront of the national progressive movement. In February 2019, Jayapal introduced the most comprehensive and progressive Medicare-for-all bill in history and has since secured four hearings on the bill—the first four hearings on Medicare for all in the history of Congress—and the support of more than half of the House Democratic Caucus. Prior to her election to Congress, Jayapal worked for two decades as an advocate for immigrant rights and racial justice and served in the Washington State Senate from 2015–2017. Jayapal serves on the House Judiciary, Budget, and Education and Labor committees and has been an outspoken leader on expanding access to college, fighting for climate justice, taking on corporate greed and holding the administration accountable for its immigration policies. Join us for a conversation with one of the Democratic Party’s rising stars as she discusses the path ahead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ussama Makdisi, who was born in Washington, D.C., spent his early years in Lebanon and earned his Ph.D. at Princeton University. He will discuss his latest book, Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World, which has been described as an easily accessible, provocative engagement with existing literature about sectarian, secular, colonialism and Arab nationalists. And, although headlines paint the Middle East as a collection of war-torn countries and extremist groups consumed by sectarian rage, Makdisi shows how people of different faiths have tried to build modern societies that transcend religious and sectarian differences. MLF ORGANIZER Celia Menczel NOTES MLF: Middle East Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most recently, Felicia Marcus was chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, responsible for drinking water, water quality and water rights. Importantly, she led the state board through California's worst drought in modern history. As regional administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 9, she was responsible for environmental issues under the EPA's jurisdiction. In the the nonprofit world, Marcus was the western director for the Natural Resources Defense Council and the executive vice president and chief operating officer for the Trust for Public Land. In her prior work, she was a private and nonprofit sector attorney and organizer in Los Angeles. She has a law degree from New York University and an AB in East Asian studies from Harvard University. Marcus is also known as a devoted whale watcher. Join us to discuss her important environmental work and her outstanding commitment and dedication for the planet, the environment, the present and the future. MLF ORGANIZER Ann Clark NOTES MLF: Environment & Natural Resources Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco’s newest top prosecutor Chesa Boudin first experienced the criminal justice system as a toddler, when his parents were convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. This transformative experience left an indelible mark on Boudin, who has dedicated much of his life to criminal justice reform. After graduating from Yale, becoming a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and earning his J.D. from Yale Law School, Boudin began work at the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. While he handled over 300 felony cases, Boudin never prosecuted a single case, instead favoring to work directly with victims of crimes and families of prisoners. After a tightly contested race in 2019, Boudin emerged as DA-elect of San Francisco, where he hopes to make significant changes to a broken criminal justice system. With a focus on reducing mass incarceration and recidivism and increasing opportunities for restorative justice, Boudin is part of a larger trend of progressives appointed to top prosecutorial positions in cities that hope to end policies such as cash bail, the war on drugs and racial disparities in sentencing. Bring your questions as newly confirmed DA Chesa Boudin forges a different path for crime, punishment and justice in the city. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the broader #MeToo movement, the political slogan “believe women” has become a rallying cry for the era. First used as a call to end false accusations of deception against women, agenda-setting feminist editors Jessica Valenti and Jaclyn Friedman go beyond the slogan with their new anthology to ask and answer the crucial question: What would happen if we didn't just believe women but acted as though they matter? Building on the success of the #MeToo movement’s demand for accountability—not just discouraging actions generally but naming names—Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World is part exposé on misogyny in our culture and part outline for how trusting women creates the foundation for future progress. With essays spanning a call to action by Representative Ayanna Pressley (D–MA) and an interview with #TimesUp activist and Emmy award winner Tatiana Maslany, Valenti and Friedman bring together a powerful group of women whose diverse experiences and thoughtful solutions give us a vision of what a better future could look like. Join Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti at INFORUM this February for an honest discussion on how we might make tomorrow a brighter day in the fight for women’s empowerment. ** This Podcast Contains Explicit Language ** Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the effects of aggressive policing and mass incarceration harm historically marginalized communities and tear families apart, how do we define safety? Community leader and lawyer Zach Norris believes in a radical way to shift the conversation about public safety away from fear and punishment and toward growth and support systems for our families and communities. In order to truly be safe, Norris says we have to dismantle the mentality of us versus them and bridge our divides. Norris’s new book, We Keep Us Safe, is a blueprint of how to hold people accountable while still holding them in community. The result reinstates full humanity and agency for everyone who has been dehumanized and traumatized so they can participate fully in life, in society and in the fabric of our democracy. He makes the case that directing resources to stability and well-being, such as health care and housing, education and living-wage jobs, result in real safety. Join us for a powerful conversation with Bay Area leaders Zach Norris and Fred Blackwell NOTES Norris photo by Eurydice Thomas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alzheimer’s disease is a global health problem with more than 5.8 million people living with the disease in the United States alone. The only way to solve that problem is through research, and this talk will focus on the scientific advancements and progress in the field. Tremendous gains have been made in the understanding of the science and basic biology underlying Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and these advances are leading to great strides in prevention, detection, diagnostics and therapeutic interventions. MLF Organizer: Patrick O'Reilly MLF: Psychology Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Border walls and immigration were hot-button issues in the 2016 federal election, and the Trump administration’s evolving policies and practices have been the subject of numerous media stories and segments. Join Julie Small of KQED and Clara Long of Human Rights Watch in a discussion of conditions for asylum seekers on the southern border and what you need to know. MLF ORGANIZER Ian McCuaig NOTES MLF: International Relations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Monday Night Philosophy welcomes back Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward Larson to discuss his joint biography of our two most influential Founding Fathers. Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, though divided by a 26-year age gap and vastly different life experiences, underwent a similarly dramatic transformation from loyal British colonists to American nationalists, and Larson makes a persuasive case that neither one could have succeeded without the other's help. Washington's military skills required Franklin's diplomatic skills to win the Revolutionary War. Their partnership was also key to the success of the Constitutional Convention. In an enlightening and dramatic account of these two men’s intertwined lives, Larson covers from the French and Indian War through the Revolution and Constitutional Convention, and he concludes with Franklin's last political maneuver: forcing the issue of slavery before the new republic’s first Congress. MLF Organizer: George Hammond MLF: Humanities Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices