6min chapter

Commonwealth Club of California Podcast cover image

"Charging Forward: Lithium Valley, Electric Vehicles and a Just Future

Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

CHAPTER

Intro

This chapter explores the partnership between two long-time collaborators as they reflect on their shared experiences and inspirations over 25 years. They discuss how their research has addressed community concerns and share insights on their latest book about lithium development and its potential benefits for communities.

00:00
Speaker 3
Thank you for joining us for another podcast from the Commonwealth Club. Welcome to today's programme at the Commonwealth Club World Affairs, the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. Every year we present more than 450 forums on topics ranging across politics, business, society, climate and the economy. I'm Andrew Dudley, chair of the People and Nature Forum, and it's a delight to see so many faces in the audience here tonight. I wish to thank you for taking the time to attend this in-person event at our club this evening. As is customary for this forum I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the land on which we gather as traditional homelands of the Ramatouche people. Let's take this opportunity to express our gratitude as guests and to thank the original stewards of this land. As we travel beyond this Ramatouche territory let us commit to acknowledging the first peoples of every community we visit. Introducing our guest tonight, we have Chris Benner here to my right. He's the director of the Institute for Social Transformation and the Everett Programme for Technology and Social Change at UC Santa Cruz. He lives in Santa Cruz in California. Welcome.
Speaker 2
Thank you. Pleasure to be here.
Speaker 3
And to his right is Manuel Pasteur, the director of Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California and the author of State of Resistance, The New Press. He lives in Los Angeles. Welcome. Good to be with you. So please join me in giving a warm welcome to Chris Emanuel. So gentlemen, welcome. It's a real honour to have you join us this evening at Commonwealth Club World Affairs. So to begin, this question is for both of you. Your partnership spans over 25 years. Can you share how the two of you first met and what sparked the beginning of your long-term collaboration on various research projects? And I'm curious to ask whose idea it was to write your first book.
Speaker 2
Well, we first met in the mid-90s. I was in graduate school at UC Berkeley in city planning and working for a research institute connected to the labor movement in Silicon Valley. And we were doing research on a living wage policy that was being considered at that time in the city of San Jose. It was a precursor to many of the increased local efforts to increase a living wage and minimum wage. And we got in touch with Manuel, who was a professor at UC Santa Cruz at that time, for some help on the research project. So it started off really doing work just on that small policy, but that led to a much larger project, which actually turned into our first book together, that was looking at different ways that people get access to jobs, labor market intermediaries. There was concern about the increased rise of temporary help agencies. But the key point about that is that was emerging from concerns of local community activists, labor organizers. And for both of us, that's what's taken the cue for us in the direction of our work ever since then, is the key questions that these activists that we work with care about. And then we bring our expertise as researchers to help try and contribute to solutions to those problems. So that was the first of what is now six books together over the last quarter century.
Speaker 3
Brilliant. Manuel, what's Trish like to work with?
Speaker 1
Well, wonderful to work with. That's what I have to say, but I mean it. But the one thing I would kind of add to that story, which I think is a great story, is that yes, every thing we've written has actually been prompted by working with community-based organizations and the issues that they lift up around economic, social, and environmental justice. I would note that our first book was kind of unreadable. But it got me tenure, so it really paid off. So it was a very obscure book. It did serve a purpose for community. It did get Chris tenure. Very academic. But as time has gone on, what we've tried to do is to get much more accessible in storytelling for the public. So we've done books on what's called regional equity, fairness and inclusion at a regional level, how communities have fought for that. Our last book before this one was called Solidarity Economics. It actually came with a comic book available in English and Spanish for popular education. But we are incredibly proud of this book. This book was inspired by community-based organizations in the Salton Sea region saying, how do we grapple with this opportunity of lithium, but make it into something that can actually deliver for the community? It's also a book that was inspired by a conversation over martinis. So it has that element to it as well. And it's also a book where we try to practice the art of storytelling. And I was saying in another conversation, this is probably the book where I feel like I really don't know where my sentences began and Chris's picked up. That is, there's really a mind melt on this book. So this is our crowning achievement, our planning on retiring after this.

Get the Snipd
podcast app

Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
App store bannerPlay store banner

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode