Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Who is the most successful woman ever to compete on "Jeopardy"?Amy Schneider’s impressive 40-game winning streak was accompanied by an even greater prize—the joy of being herself on national television and blazing a trail for openly queer and transgender people around the world.Her new memoir, In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life explores some of the innumerable topics that have fascinated Amy throughout her life—books and music, Tarot and astrology, popular culture and computers, sex and relationships—but they all share the same purpose: to illustrate, and celebrate, the results of a lifetime spent asking, why?Join Amy as she returns to The Commonwealth Club and shares her singular journey that led to becoming an unlikely icon and hero to millions. NOTESThis program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.See more  Michelle Meow Show programs at The Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jane Fonda has spent the last several decades fighting for Indigenous peoples' rights, economic justice, LGBTQ rights, peace, gender equality and more. Now, she is devoting herself to the climate emergency, beginning with Fire Drill Fridays, the national movement to protest government inaction on climate change she started in October 2019.Now, through the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, she is focused on defeating political allies of the fossil fuel industry. At 85, Fonda continues to fight for the most vulnerable among us, consistently pointing out the intersection between the myriad of causes. What keeps the iconic Jane Fonda going strong?Guest:Jane Fonda, actor, activistFor show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/audio/jane-fonda-lifetime-activism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feel like you are always running out of time? What would you do differently with an extra 25 years of longevity to build a fulfilled life? Please join us for a conversation on making the most of our increased longevity and designing lives with greater well-being, meaning and purpose. Dr. Laura Carstensen and Mark T. Johnsen will touch on the multiple facets of building a wealthier life with increased life spans.Health—align health spans to life spans: One-hundred-year lives are quickly becoming commonplace, but healthy long lives require us to consider what we should be doing at all life stages to promote well-being. Career—working more flexible years to provide well-being beyond just financial stability: Having a fulfilling career helps give us a sense of purpose but can also be taxing on us in this fast-paced world, particularly when we have so many obligations to our families, friends and communities. How should we be thinking of education and work in order to foster meaningful and healthy career spans?Building Financial Stability—assessing the risks and rewards of a 100-year life span: Supporting 100-year lives requires creative and flexible roadmaps at all stages of life from early education for children and teaching financial literacy at an early age to re-thinking the safety nets of Medicare and Social Security. Family and Friends—multigenerational families and communities: The energy and curiosity of youth combined with wisdom and life experiences of older generations creates opportunities for families, friends and workplaces to reap the benefits of age diversity. Life Transitions—opportunities to reset: One-hundred-year lives can present multiple transitions, such as retirement, birth of a child, divorce, death of a loved one, and provide us with lifelong learning opportunities and ways to discover and pave a new path, course-correct, and find purpose.MLF ORGANIZERDenise MichaudNOTESA Grownups 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The climate crisis can be difficult to cover in a way that most people can relate to. The mechanism of harm goes from a person's gas car or stove to the Earth's atmosphere and back again in the form of floods and fires. That's why true stories of individuals and families experiencing the fallout of the climate crisis can be so impactful. They help us relate to each other on a more direct level, the way humans naturally do: person to person. Covering Climate Now Journalism Award winners Naomi Klein and Carolyn Beeler bring those stories to light. This episode was produced in collaboration with Covering Climate Now.Guests: Carolyn Beeler, Environment Reporter, Editor, The WorldNaomi Klein, author, social activistFor show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/audio/naomi-klein-and-carolyn-beeler-covering-big-ideas-and-personal-stories Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Bay Lights by artist Leo Villareal first went live on March 5, 2013. Exactly one decade later, the beloved artwork went dark. Ben Davis is the driving force behind The Bay Lights and the effort to bring the artwork back with twice the number of LEDs in a radically accessible new configuration. With the project 75 percent funded—and $2.5 million more needed to proceed—Davis will reveal what's next for the historic effort: organizational vulnerability. Davis is the founder and leader of Illuminate, the art nonprofit behind many of San Francisco's large-scale and iconic public artworks, including lighting The Pink Triangle on Twin Peaks, activation of the Golden Mile on JFK Promenade, the Summer of Love lighting on the Conservatory of Flowers, Grace Light in Grace Cathedral, the revival of the Golden Gate Bandshell, and the series of giant laser art installations across San Francisco this summer. Davis will also talk about his vision for San Francisco as the City of Awe. The program talk will be followed by a reception and live music by "KAVIN" on the rooftop. In-kind food donations provided by local SF Hot Cookies and Casa Sanchez.  Community partner: Beyond The Fog RadioMLF ORGANIZERRobert Melton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fourteen years after receiving its permit, the nation’s first new nuclear reactors in decades just fired up in Georgia. Massive, traditional nuclear reactors like this have faced so many cost overruns and construction delays that the investment market for them all but vanished. Despite a handful of recent technical breakthroughs in fusion power, its promise of virtually limitless power remains just a promise. But could a new wave of small, modular fission reactors bring new carbon-free power onto the market faster and cheaper (and safer?) than traditional nuclear plants in time to help the world decarbonize?Guests:Melissa Lott, Senior Research Scholar and the Senior Director of Research at the Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia UniversityJacopo Buongiorno, TEPCO Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, MIT Allison MacFarlane, Director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia; Former Chair, Nuclear Regulatory CommissionFor show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/audio/nuclear-option Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Educators discuss the challenges of teaching civics education, including partisan divides and limitations on controversial topics. They highlight the importance of racially minoritized children's fluency in math and the connection between STEM education and civics. Trust in the classroom and collaboration between teachers are emphasized. The challenges faced by students riding the school bus and the need for more funding and resources in classrooms are also discussed.

Join us for a discussion with journalist Katie Hafner, who covers scientific advances, especially those by women, and her husband, Dr. Robert Wachter of UCSF, who is on the forefront of the digital transformation of health care and has been influential in advancing public understanding of the COVID crisis. Dr. Wachter coined the term “hospitalist” in 1996 and has overseen that medical specialty, the fastest growing specialty in modern medical history. His tweets on COVID-19 have been a trusted source of information on the clinical, public health, and policy issues surrounding the pandemic, garnering more than 500 million views.Hafner and Wachter are at the center of advancing public understanding of science and health care through various media. We will discuss Hafner’s popular "Lost Women of Science" podcast, her groundbreaking nonfiction books, and her recent switch to fiction with The Boys. We’ll also discuss Dr. Wachter’s perspective on COVID—including lessons learned—as we enter a new phase of the pandemic, how health care will be transformed by digital tools like ChatGPT, and how to communicate about science in the face of uncertainty, political polarization, and misinformation. In addition, they’ll discuss the experience of working and writing together as a married couple, particularly when the pandemic forced them—like so many couples—into the same bubble.   MLF ORGANIZERGeorge HammondNOTESA 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.In Association with Wonderfest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since the industrial revolution, the global north has seen massive economic growth. Yet that growth has been linked to increasing greenhouse gas emissions. We also live on a planet with finite resources, so it's hard to believe that we can continue to consume resources and release emissions and not sail right past our collective climate goals. That’s why some people are starting to rethink perpetual economic growth as the best measure of a healthy economy. But what would an economy focused on metrics other than growth look like?  Guests: Anuna De Wever, Climate and Social Justice activistLeigh Phillips, journalist and author of Austerity Ecology & The Collapse-Porn AddictsMarieke van Doorninck, Director, Kennisland, former Deputy Mayor, AmsterdamFor show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/audio/rethinking-economic-growth-wealth-and-health Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Famed astronomer Avi Loeb returns to The Commonwealth Club to answer some of the biggest questions facing humankind: How do we prepare ourselves for interaction with interstellar extraterrestrial life? And can our species itself become interstellar?Loeb, the longest-serving chair of Harvard's Astronomy Department, shook the scientific community when he theorized that our solar system had been visited by a piece of advanced alien technology from a distant star. The object, dubbed 'Oumuamua, sparked worldwide discussions and arguments, and Loeb was at the center of it all. Now, in his new book Interstellar, Loeb builds on that original idea and asks, What's next? He gives a call to arms that reimagines the idea of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. Dismantling our science-fiction-fueled visions of a human and alien life encounter, he provides a blueprint for how such an interaction might actually occur, resetting our cultural understanding and expectation of what it means to identify an extraterrestrial object. From awe-inspiring searches for extraterrestrial technology, to the heated debate of the existence of unidentified aerial phenomena, Loeb provides a thrilling, front-row view of the monumental progress in science and technology currently preparing us for contact. He also lays out the profound implications of becoming—or not becoming—interstellar; in an urgent, eloquent appeal for more proactive engagement with the world beyond ours, he contends why we must seek out other life forms, and in the process, choose who and what we are within the universe.Tens of thousands of people have viewed Dr. Loeb's 2022 Commonwealth Club program. Don't miss his return engagement as he raises some of the most important questions facing us as humans and argues that scientific curiosity is the key to our survival.NOTESIn association with the Club's Humanities Forum and Wonderfest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices