Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

The pandemic put into stark relief the undue burden faced by working poor women in America. Many were laid off or had to quit for COVID-related reasons, such as school closures. Often, they struggled in low-paid jobs as essential workers, while facing greater demands at home.But even in the best of times, women in low-wage industries must cope with daunting challenges. In their new book Getting Me Cheap, sociologists Lisa Dodson and Amanda Freeman argue that the conveniences many Americans enjoy—things such as grocery delivery and nanny care—are made possible by the sacrifices of these women. The book reveals how discrimination, unpredictable work schedules, and lack of affordable childcare trap women in poverty and make “work-life balance” impossible.Join us as we hear from Dodson and Freeman about their research and possible solutions.SPEAKERSLisa DodsonResearch Professor Emerita, Boston College; Co-author, Getting Me Cheap: How Low Wage Work Traps Women and Girls in PovertyAmanda FreemanAssistant Professor of Sociology, University of Hartford; Writer and Researcher of Motherhood and Work; Co-author, Getting Me Cheap: How Low Wage Work Traps Women and Girls in PovertySaru JayaramanPresident, One Fair Wage; Director, Food Labor Research Center, University of California, BerkeleyBernice YeungManaging Editor, The Investigative Reporting Program, University of California, BerkeleyThis program contains EXPLICIT languageIn 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 19th, 2023 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does stress really age us? Everyone experiences different levels of stress from family, friends, work, or just uncertainty in the world. And while we can’t avoid living with stress, we can learn how to embrace it and transform it.Stress scientist Dr. Elissa Epel and Nobel Prize winner Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn will discuss the latest science on how we age and the role of stress and well-being. They will also address what we can do to improve mental health and slow aging.Hear more on how to develop a more robust mindset and “stress better.”SPEAKERSElissa EpelPh.D., Director of the Aging, Metabolism, and Emotion Center, University of California San Francisco; Co-author, The Telomere Effect; Author, The Stress Prescription: Seven Days to More Joy and EaseIn Conversation with Dr. Elizabeth BlackburnNobel Laureate, Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology and Physiology, University of California San Francisco; Co-author, The Telomere EffectIn 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 17th, 2023 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Art can inspire community and conversation, provide fresh insights into understanding history, and cultivate connection. It can challenge your worldview and shift perspectives. This week we discuss how art and activism can work together to elevate some of the vast inequities that exist between those who benefit from fossil fuel energy and resource extraction and those who suffer its impacts.Guests:Ladonna Williams, Program Director, All Positives PossibleDoug Harris, documentary filmmakerChristine Abadilla Fogarty, Associate Director, Global Museum at San Francisco State UniversitySofía Córdova, multimedia artist and musicianFor show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeff Korzenik will be in conversation with Ken Oliver, the executive director of San Francisco-based Checkr Foundation. Oliver leads one of the country’s most important initiatives for encouraging second chance/fair chance hiring within technology and other industries. With perspective gained from his own experience incarcerated in the California prison system, Oliver will question Korzenik on the origins on the business perspective on people involved in the justice system, the barriers to employment faced by returning citizens, and why he believes business is a critical partner to a more just world. The conversation will rely heavily on real-world examples or success and the necessary investments employers must make for fair chance hiring to succeed in business terms.Jeffrey Korzenik is the author of Untapped Talent: How Second Chance Hiring Works for Your Business and the Community (HarperCollins Leadership, April 2021). The chief investment strategist for one of the country’s largest commercial banks, Korzenik is an unlikely advocate for those with a criminal record. From speaking engagements to his regular appearances on CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox Business News, and in his articles in Harvard Business Review, the Stanford Social Innovation Review and numerous regional outlets, Korzenik argues that offering career opportunities to those overlooked because of a mistake in the past are our single best solution to our labor shortage. Such second chance/fair chance hiring, in his view, not only strengthens the economy, but offers a critical path to safer and healthier communities. In 2020, Korzenik was elected to membership in the Council on Criminal Justice in recognition of his work on the intersection of the labor force and the justice system. Korzenik is a graduate of Princeton University and has served on numerous nonprofit boards.MLF ORGANIZERPatrick O'ReillySPEAKERSJeffrey KorzenikAuthor, Untapped Talent: How Second Chance Hiring Works for Your Business and the Community Ken OliverExecutive Director, Checkr FoundationIn 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 14th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Democracy is under siege—in the United States and around the globe. Efforts to undermine democracy erode human rights, destabilize governments, and exacerbate global health crises.Join Nancy Lindborg, president and CEO of The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and Carter Center CEO Paige Alexander for a conversation about the evolving threats to democracy—and a new framework for action to mitigate the risks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Music and social movements have historically gone hand in hand. Folk music played a unifying role for the labor movements in the United States. Music was central to the protests against the Vietnam War and in favor of Civil Rights. As more people become aware of the climate crisis, music is starting to reflect that. But there is still no one song or artist inspiring climate action the way music catalyzed other movements. Why aren’t more musical artists raising the alarm over the growing climate catastrophe? And for the artists who are, how do they express the anxiety and grief that they and their listeners are experiencing? Guests:Tamara Lindeman, Musician, The Weather StationJayson Greene, Contributing Editor, PitchforkFor show notes and related links, visit ClimateOne.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny last reported in November that he had been placed in permanent solitary confinement in the Russian penal colony where he is serving an 11-year sentence. This is just the latest attempt to silence the longtime anti-corruption activist and foe of Vladimir Putin.  Navalny was famously hospitalized in 2020 after being poisoned by a Russian-developed nerve agent. The gripping 2022 documentary Navalny chronicles his efforts to investigate his own poisoning . . . with shocking results. One of Navalny’s allies has called the film “life insurance” for the jailed opposition leader, since it is keeping him and his cause in the public consciousness. Join us for a screening and discussion with the director of Navalny, which made the shortlist for the 2023 Academy Award for Best Documentary.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After a 20-year career as a tech reporter for CNET, the New York Times, and the public radio program Marketplace, Molly Wood has come to see the climate crisis as an engineering problem requiring an acceleration of investment. And so, after producing the acclaimed climate podcast “How We Survive” for Marketplace, she left that program to begin a new career in venture capital. What are the limits of media in changing human behavior? And what is the role of capital in addressing the climate crisis, even while considering that capitalism itself may be incompatible with survival? Guests:Molly Wood, Climate Solutions Investor, Podcaster Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For years, fossil fuel companies have claimed to support climate science and policy. Many have recently pledged to hit net zero emissions by midcentury. Yet behind the scenes, they fight those very same policies through industry associations, shadow groups, and lobbying – all while spending vast sums on advertising and PR campaigns touting their climate commitments. This week we focus on the PR and consultancy firms helping fossil fuel companies delay the transition to clean energy while claiming they are on the side of climate protection.Guests: Michael Forsythe, Reporter, New York TimesDr. Benjamin Franta, Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Climate Litigation Lab, Oxford Sustainable Law Programme.Jamie Henn, Founder and Director, Fossil Free MediaChristine Arena, former Executive Vice President, Edelman; Founder, Generous FilmsFor show notes and related links, visit ClimateOne.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In what we hope is the late phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, we'll take a look at other long-running issues relating to health care, healthy living, and access to care for the LGBTQ+ community. Our expert panelists for this discussion are leaders in the efforts to reach LGBTQ+ people, informing them and connecting them to appropriate health care services.About the SpeakersDr. Monica Ghandi, M.D., M.P.H., was a recipient of The Commonwealth Club's Distinguished Citizens Award in 2021. She is an infectious diseases doctor, professor of medicine and associate chief in the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She is also the director of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and the medical director of the HIV Clinic ("Ward 86") at San Francisco General Hospital. Craig Rouskey is the co-founder and CEO of Renegade.bio. Rouskey was also a co-founder and CSO at Pando Nutrition, an animal nutrition company. At Avant Immunotherapeutics, he worked on vaccine projects against avian influenza (H5N1) and anthrax. He co-founded the Gonorrhea Eradication Team (GET) and served as principal scientist for the Immunity Project, creating an open source vaccine against HIV. Rouskey has also served as a scientist in the Antibody Therapy Group at Novartis and in product development with the Next Generation Sequencing group at Thermofisher.Antwan Matthews, BS, serves as director of youth programs at Code Tenderloin and is a consultant. A leader in the community, he previously served as a LINCS Navigator with the San Francisco Department of Public Health. He has been an advocate on many issues connected to the National AIDS Memorial, having served on its board of directors and being a recipient of the Pedro Zamora Youth Scholarship. His work includes being a sexual and reproductive health advocate who cares deeply about the physical, emotional, and psychological health of individuals globally, especially the Black community. His career includes working at Glide and Peer HEALTH Educators. His work today continues around supporting, educating, advising, teaching, and healing people receiving health care impacted by the history of medical abuse inflicted on communities of color. Antwan uses his voice to raise issues about health and social justice. You can read some of his work here. Dr. Alexis Petra, M.D. is the founder and CEO of TransClinique. Petra was a practicing emergency medicine physician for more than 10 years prior to founding TransClinique. In 2019, she was named one of Phoenix magazine’s Top Doctors in the Valley. Dr. Petra is board-certified in emergency medicine and licensed in more than 30 states. She is a member in good standing with WPATH. Petra has been personally and professionally involved in the transgender and non-binary community for more than 20 years. She founded TransClinique in April 2020 to give back to and create a safe space for members of the community to receive care. She provides hormone replacement therapy (HRT), letters of referral, and trans life coaching across the country through telemedicine. As a trans woman herself, Alexis understands the unique needs that members of this community have and knows firsthand both the hardships and rewards of the journey. Learn more at her website.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices