Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

The story of January 6, 2021 is one that will go down in the history books. In the 64 days between November 3 and January 6, President Donald Trump and his allies fought to reverse the outcome of the vote. Focusing on six states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—Trump’s supporters claimed widespread voter fraud. In The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who Stopped It, veteran journalists Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague offer a week-by-week, state-by-state account of the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.Working with a team of researchers and reporters, Bowden and Teague uncover never-before-told accounts from the election officials fighting to do their jobs amid outlandish claims and threats to themselves, their colleagues and their families. They provide an engaging, in-depth report on what happened during those crucial nine weeks and a portrait of the heroic individuals who did their duty and stood firm against the unprecedented, sustained attack on our election system to ensure that every legal vote was counted and the will of the people prevailed.Join us as Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague discuss their research and offer their thoughts and commentary on the events leading up to January 6.SPEAKERSMark BowdenContributing Writer, The Atlantic; Co-author, The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who Stopped ItMatthew TeagueContributor, National Geographic, The Atlantic, and Esquire; Executive Producer, "Our Friend"; Co-author, The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who Stopped ItIn Conversation with John BolandPresident Emeritus, KQED Public Media; Vice Chair, Commonwealth Club Board of GovernorsIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on January 12th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If corporations can be legal persons, why can’t Mother Earth? In 2017, New Zealand granted the Whanganui River the full legal rights of a person. India granted full legal rights to the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, and recognized that the Himalayan Glaciers have a right to exist. In 2019, the city of Toledo passed the Lake Erie Bill of Rights with 61 percent of the vote, but then a year later, a federal judge struck it down.As Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin, an attorney who represented Lake Erie, explains, the problem stems from a 500-year history of Western property law. Our legal system grants rights to property owners, but not to property itself. “If we’re treating ecosystems as property, then ultimately, we as property owners have the right to destroy our property and that fundamentally has to change,” Schromen-Wawrin says.Rebecca Tsosie, a law professor focused on Federal Indian law and Indigenous peoples’ human rights, says there are other rights frameworks to consider. “If we go into Indigenous epistemology, many times it’s a relational universe that comes with mutual responsibility.”Guests:Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin, attorney, formerly with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund Rebecca Tsosie, Regents Professor of Law at the University of Arizona; Co-Chair, Indigenous Peoples’ Law and Policy ProgramCarol Van Strum, author of A Bitter Fog, activist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The February 2019 New York Times Magazine reported on Susan Gerbic and her team's successful work exposing psychic medium Thomas John in a sting called Operation Pizza Roll. Throughout the pandemic Gerbic's team (Guerilla Skeptics) researched and exposed multiple mediums operating on Zoom using hot and cold reading to appear to be in communication with the dead; this series of reports was called Operation Lemon Meringue.In April 2021, medium Thomas John scheduled an 8-person Spirit Circle for children ages 5–12, charging $400 per reading. After trying unsuccessfully to get the Spirit Circle cancelled, the Guerilla Skeptics decided to attend and report back on the event. Susan will be discussing what happened in Operation Onion Ring and how they say they once again caught "grief vampire" Thomas John.  For more information on the work the Guerilla Skeptics have done concerning various "grief vampires," visit their website. About the SpeakerAffectionately called the Wikipediatrician, Susan Gerbic is the founder of Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) and the Monterey County Skeptics, and is a self-proclaimed skeptical junkie. A Skeptical Inquirer contributor Gerbic is a fellow of CSI and winner of the James Randi Foundation award for 2017. In 2018, Susan founded and manages About Time, a nonprofit organization focusing on scientific skepticism and activism. While her particular focus has been “Grief Vampires” (psychics), her activism encompasses all areas of skepticism. You can find out more at AboutTimeProject.org.MLF ORGANIZERPatrick O'ReillyNOTESMLF: PsychologySPEAKERSSusan GerbicFounder, Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW); Founder, Monterey County Skeptics; Founder and Manager, About TimePatrick O'ReillyPh.D., Clinical Psychologist; Chair, Psychology Member-Led Forum, The Commonwealth Club of California—ModeratorIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on January 10th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With a significant increase in hate crimes on the streets of America's cities as well as a rise in online hate, America finds itself on a terrifying path, one that could hardly be imagined just several years ago. Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt's current mission is making sure that what has happened in our lifetimes in Europe, the Middle East and Asia does not happen here.In his new book, It Could Happen Here: Why America Is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable—And How We Can Stop It, Greenblatt demonstrates how antisemitism, racism, and other insidious forms of intolerance can destroy a society, taking root as quiet prejudices but mutating over time into horrific acts of brutality. His book sounds an alarm, warning that this age-old trend is gathering momentum in the United States—and that violence on an even larger, more catastrophic scale could be around the corner if we don't change our direction.Greenblatt believes a more positive future can awaits us and that society doesn't have to succumb to hatred. Drawing on ADL’s decades of experience in fighting hate through investigative research, education programs, and legislative victories, as well as his own personal story and his background in business and government, Greenblatt offers a bracing primer on how we—as individuals, as organizations, and as a society—can strike back against hate.Please join us for an important conversation with a national leader on the frontlines of fighting prejudice.SPEAKERSJonathan GreenblattCEO, Anti-Defamation League; Author, It Could Happen Here: Why America Is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable—And How We Can Stop ItRoger McNameeSilicon Valley Investor, Author, Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe—ModeratorIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on January 10th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The threat to American democracy and the U.S. electoral system did not end when the U.S. Capitol building was cleared and the presidential vote was certified on January 6, 2021. In fact, because of actions taken in states around the country throughout 2021, the threat today is as serious as it was one year ago, according to one prominent writer.In his new and troubling cover story article for The Atlantic's January/February 2022 issue, journalist Barton Gellman explains that the collapse of America's democratic principles and underpinnings is already underway and that the country is close—closer than most ever thought possible—to losing not only the country's constitutional democracy, but what’s left of America's shared understanding of civic reality.Gellman's new article,  “January 6 Was Practice,” builds on an article he wrote before the 2020 election for The Atlantic. That piece, “The Election That Could Break America," focused on the ways that then-President Trump was weakening the norms and structures of American democracy. In many ways, Gellman predicated what would happen on January 6, 2021. What he could not predict is that though the system held one year ago, former President Trump and his supporters would continue their attack on America's electoral system by enacting restrictive new voting laws, removing nonpartisan election administrators in key states, and shifting how elections are administered at the state levels. He says what the country may find in 2024 is that what happened in 2021 was, indeed, just a practice run toward the end of American democracy as it is known, in favor of autocracy.Please join us for a special conversation with Gellman on the one-year anniversary of the January 6, 2021 attack, and hear why he is more concerned than ever about the future of America democracy, and what he sees as the very real threats to the country's constitutional order.SPEAKERSBarton GellmanInvestigative Reporter; Writer, The Washington Post; Author, Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance StateRoy EisenhardtLecturer, University of California Berkeley School of Law—ModeratorIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on January 6th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Exactly 12 months after a riot at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, we are going to take a look at what January 6 wrought, how it has affected the first year of Joe Biden's presidency, and what are the prospects for another violent attempt to overturn a democratic election.SPEAKERSMelissa CaenPolitical Analyst; AttorneyFrancis FukuyamaOlivier Nomellini Senior Fellow, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law; Director, Ford Dorsey Masters in International Policy, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University; Twitter @FukuyamaFrancisTim MillerFounder, Light Fuse Communications; Contributor, The Bulwark; Communications Director, Jeb Bush 2016; Founder, America Rising; Twitter @timodcJohn ZippererProducer and Host, Week to Week Political Roundtable; Vice President of Media & Editorial, The Commonwealth Club—Co-hostIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on January 6th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beyond his position as chairman of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, John Doerr rose to global prominence in the business world with his popularization of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), which he promoted in his best-selling book, Measure What Matters. Could the same set of management tools be applied to preventing the growing climate crisis? In Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now, John Doerr and Kleiner Perkins advisor Ryan Panchadsaram argue that it can. For transcripts and other information, visit: https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts Guests:John Doerr, Chairman, Kleiner PerkinsRyan Panchadsaram, Advisor, Kleiner Perkins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's almost 2022, and it's time to gather together #IRL for our annual year-end Michelle Meow celebration.Join us for a celebration of another successful year of "The Michelle Meow Show" at The Commonwealth Club of California. Enjoy some great speakers, food and wine, artwork and fun.SPEAKERSCésar CadabesPerformance Artist; HIV/AIDS Activist; Advisory Board Member, Castro LGBTQ Cultural DistrictJacqueline ChiangArtistAnjali RimiPresident and Co-Founder, Parivar; Board Member, The LGBT Asylum Project and San Francisco Pride; Rans Advisory Committee Member, Office of Transgender Initiatives, San Francisco Mayor's OfficeMichelle Mijung KimAuthor, The Wake Up: Closing the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real ChangeDenise HuynhOwner, Tay HoMichelle MeowProducer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW TV and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors—HostIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on December 17th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Each year, Climate One gives an award to a natural or social scientist for excellence in science communication. This year’s recipient of the Stephen H. Schneider Award is marine biologist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, co-founder of the Urban Ocean Lab and co-creator of the All We Can Save project. “What gets me out of bed in the morning, what makes this work of communicating about climate science and policy so important, is that we have such a huge spectrum of possible futures available to us. And which one we get depends on what we do,” Johnson says.This episode also features past award winner and noted climate historian Naomi Oreskes discussing sexism in the sciences and the ongoing disinformation campaigns perpetrated by fossil fuel companies.For transcripts and other information, visit: https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts Guests:Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, marine biologist, writerNaomi Oreskes, Professor, History of Science, Harvard University Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Southeastern Virginia currently experiences the fastest rate of sea level rise on the Atlantic seaboard, and that’s only projected to accelerate. For many neighborhoods, it’s not a question of if they will go underwater, but when. On the west coast, between $8 billion and $10 billion of existing property in California is likely to be underwater by 2050, with an additional $6 billion to $10 billion at risk during high tides. Increasingly, local and regional governments are considering – and starting – buyouts of flood-prone properties. How will we manage the homes, farms, naval bases and infrastructure destined to go under water? How do federal and private insurance programs hamper or help moves away from climate-disrupted regions? And what are the equity issues with managed retreat?For transcripts and other information, visit: https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts Guests:Sam Turken, reporter, “At A Crossroads” series for WHRO Amy Chester, Managing Director, Rebuild By DesignKia Javanmardian, Senior Partner, McKinsey and Company Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices