

Commonwealth Club of California Podcast
Commonwealth Club of California
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's largest public affairs forum. The nonpartisan and nonprofit Club produces and distributes programs featuring diverse viewpoints from thought leaders on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast — the oldest in the U.S., since 1924 — is carried on hundreds of stations. Our website features audio and video of our programs. This podcast feed is usually updated multiple times each week.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Feb 14, 2023 • 1h 7min
Does Technology Development Need a Soul?
Natalie Zeituny is a reality cosmologist and consciousness architect, clairvoyant, energy healer, mystic, generator of ensoulment and international speaker. She is dedicated to innovative applications of reality models that facilitate personal, social, and planetary transformation. As an information systems architect in 2002 she founded NZ Consulting, a management-consulting firm that has successfully advised corporations such as Apple, Yahoo and Safeway on how to meet corporate goals with technology solutions. As the founder of the Conscious Business Center, she is currently engaged in the creation of consciousness research ventures around the world.She will be interviewed by Gerald Harris, chair of the Technology & Society Member-led Forum. They will cover her life story as well as her ideas about helping technologists direct their efforts toward the use and commercialization of technology for the enhancement of human potential and benefits for all of mankind.MLF ORGANIZERGerald Anthony HarrisSPEAKERSNatalie ZeitunyAuthor, Ensoulment, Discover Your Soul's DNA and Ensoulment, The Future of RealityIn Conversation with Gerald Anthony HarrisChair, Technology & Society Member-led Forum, The Commonwealth Club of CaliforniaIn 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 February 8th, 2023 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feb 13, 2023 • 1h 1min
Creating Citizens Field Trip Series: #1, Not Too Young
Creating Citizens Field Trip Series: #1, Not Too Young Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feb 10, 2023 • 58min
CLIMATE ONE: What We’re Watching in Climate Now
2022 was a banner year for climate – both in terms of climate-fueled disaster and historic federal investments in clean energy, electric vehicles and home electrification. The questions now: How will the programs be implemented ? How will the money be spent – and who will benefit? This week, we examine the coming trends in raw material prices, the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act, new investments in clean tech, tighter rules on pollution and western water negotiations.Guests: Felicia Marcus, Visiting Fellow, Stanford University Nat Bullard, Senior Contributor, Bloomberg NEF, Bloomberg GreenCatherine Coleman Flowers, Vice Chair, White House Environmental Justice Advisory CouncilFor show notes and related links, visit ClimateOne.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feb 9, 2023 • 1h 6min
How to Best Age in Place: Creating a Safe and Delightful Home
Our homes are one of the most important contributors to a healthy aging experience. We are all so used to adapting to our environments. We make do with standards even though we all have different bodies and habits. That is easier when we are young, but in older age our homes should fit us like a glove. In this presentation, architect Susi Stadler, executive director of the Bay Area nonprofit At Home With Growing Older, and Candiece Milford, board president of At Home With Growing Older, will present a new perspective on age-friendly design and offer concrete ideas for living better at home.At Home With Growing Older is a nonprofit organization in the San Francisco Bay Area that seeks to improve the experience of aging by providing programming in support of the continued growth, connection and well-being of older adults. A wide variety of interdisciplinary forums and workshops inspire and empower individuals to prepare for, and adapt to, the changes of growing older, as well as to re-envision what it means to age well in their own homes and communities.About the SpeakersSusi Stadler is an architect and social entrepreneur focused on shifting the perspective on aging, and she is an advocate for imaginative and human-centered design solutions for the later phases of life. For the past 20 years, an important emphasis of her architecture work has been to provide sustainable design solutions for the complex needs of aging that allow people to age with safety and delight, at home and in the world. Her most recent architecture project was the interior design for the Wallis Annenberg GenSpace in Los Angeles. Susanne speaks and writes regularly on the subject of age-friendly environments.Candiece Milford has been in the field of retirement living for 17 years as a marketing director both at The Sequoias San Francisco and currently at Rhoda Goldman Plaza, a residence for people who are experiencing issues of aging and memory. She has previously spoken at The Commonwealth Club several times through the Grownups Forum on retirement living options both in the Bay Area and innovative housing solutions across the country. Having been a member of the At Home With Growing Older board for the past 6 years, she currently serves as board president.MLF ORGANIZERDenise M. MichaudSPEAKERSCandiece MilfordBoard President, At Home With Growing OlderSusanne StadlerMBA, M.Arch, Principal, Stadler & Architecture; Executive Director, Co-Founder, At Home With Growing OlderDenise M. MichaudChair Grownups 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 February 7th, 2023 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feb 7, 2023 • 1h 6min
Navigating A Turbulent Economy: Annual Economic Forecast 2023
High inflation, rising interest rates, sweeping tech layoffs, a crypto meltdown. The recent economic news has been less than encouraging, leading the International Monetary Fund to warn of “storm clouds” descending on the global economy. At the same time, GDP in the United States grew to more than $20 trillion in 2022. The Bay Area, largely thanks to tech, had the fastest growing economy in the United States, with GDP increasing 4.8 percent. The United States is at or near full employment. What does it all mean for workers, investors, and Americans’ pocketbooks? What impact are the Fed’s actions having?Michael Boskin of Stanford’s Hoover Institution, former chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, will share his insights into the U.S. economy, productivity, the evolution of work and impact of tech, and whether we will tip into a recession. UC Berkeley’s Maurice Obstfeld, former chief economist at the IMF, will assess the ongoing impact of the war in Ukraine, China’s COVID woes, and other trends shaping the global economy.Join us for The Commonwealth Club’s annual Walter E. Hoadley Bank of America economic forecast.This event is underwritten by Bank of America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feb 6, 2023 • 1h 9min
Philip Taubman On George P. Shultz: The Life And Legacy Of A Great Statesman
When former Secretary of State George Shultz turned 100, he published a piece in the Washington Post on what he had learned over his long career. “Trust is the coin of the realm,” he wrote. “If it is present, anything is possible. If it is absent, nothing is possible.” Three U.S. presidents put their trust in Shultz’s abilities, including Ronald Reagan, who tasked him to improve Cold War relations with the Soviet Union. Shultz, who died in 2021, also achieved success in the corporate world and in academia, serving as head of San Francisco’s Bechtel Corp. and as a distinguished fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. A new biography, In the Nation’s Service, offers an inside look at Shultz’s legacy, from his work on Middle East peace to later efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. Author Philip Taubman, longtime New York Times editor and reporter in Washington and Moscow, draws on Shultz’s personal papers to shed new light on how he helped shape U.S. foreign policy, and how his style of conservatism has all but vanished from today’s Republican Party. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feb 3, 2023 • 1h
CLIMATE ONE: Saket Soni on the People Who Make Disaster Recovery Possible
Who cleans up and rebuilds our communities after floods, fires, and hurricanes? COVID redefined America's definition of “essential workers,” but many who help communities recover from climate disasters remain underpaid and overlooked. In 2006, labor organizer Saket Soni got an anonymous call from an Indian migrant worker in Mississippi who had scraped together $20,000 to apply for the “opportunity” to rebuild oil rigs after Hurricane Katrina. The caller was only one of hundreds lured into Gulf Coast labor camps, surrounded by barbed wire, and watched by armed guards. Since then, the frequency and intensity of climate-related disasters has only increased – and disaster recovery has become big business. How are the lives of people displaced by disasters intertwined with those helping to rebuild?Guests:Saket Soni, Founder and Director, Resilience ForceDaniel Castellanos, Director Of Workforce Engagement, Resilience ForceFor show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feb 2, 2023 • 1h 9min
Debbie Chinn's 'Dancing in Their Light: A Daughter's Unfinished Memoir'
Debbie Chinn's primary professional and volunteer career focus on philanthropic work—to heal our society and bridge our cultural differences—was seeded via a 13-generation saga across continents.Dancing in Their Light: A Daughter's Unfinished Memoir is a biographical conversation program exploring the research that bought forth her family’s experiences assimilating in the United States. It is a specifically Chinese American immigration compilation that skillfully weaves together stories of the Chinn family restaurant, "The House of Mah Jong," and the distinct personality of a golden age of Polynesian floor shows ubiquitous in the 1960s on Long Island. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feb 1, 2023 • 1h 7min
Uncovering Brutality, Cover-Up and Corruption in Oakland
The killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the mass protests that followed opened many Americans’ eyes to cases of police brutality and misconduct. But two decades earlier, a civil rights lawsuit against Oakland police brought some of the same issues into focus. The suit alleged that a band of rogue veteran police officers known as "The Riders" beat, kidnapped and planted drugs on Oakland residents. A 2003 settlement led to federal monitoring of the Oakland Police Department, which continues to this day.In their new book The Riders Come Out at Night, journalists Ali Winston and Darwin BondGraham explore the history of policing in Oakland, the fallout from the trial, and why some promised reforms have failed.Join us to hear about their reporting and what it reveals about policing in the Bay Area and the United States.SPEAKERSAli WinstonIndependent Reporter; Co-author, The Riders Come Out at NightDarwin BondGrahamReporter; Co-author, The Riders Come Out at NightOtis R. Taylor JrManaging Editor, KQED NewsIn 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 25th, 2023 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jan 31, 2023 • 1h 9min
Congresswoman Jackie Speier: The Exit Interview
Congresswoman Jackie Speier chose to close out her congressional career at the end of 2022 and did not seek another term. Her departure from Congress brings to an end a Bay Area political career that spans more than 40 years in elected office. She represented California's 14th District in the House of Representatives—which includes San Mateo County and a portion of San Francisco County—from 2008 through 2022. Before serving in Congress, Speier was a California State Assembly member and California state senator; she started her career on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors.Speier is returning to The Commonwealth Club to discuss her historic career, one that was launched after her near-death experience in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978 when she and her boss, Congressman Leo Ryan, were shot on the tarmac during the People's Temple mass murder suicide. Congressman Ryan did not survive, while Speier recovered and went on to devote her career to public service. In Congress, Speier was known as a fierce advocate for women's rights, including pressing for laws addressing reproductive rights and sexual harassment and assault, including in the military. She served on the Oversight and Reform as well as Intelligence and Armed Services committees during her time in Congress.Please join us for a special event with a Bay Area political legend as she discusses her career as well as the changes she sees ahead for the institution she just departed and for the Democratic Party. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices