Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Has California’s climate law created new jobs and industries? Or has it been a drag on the economy and raised energy prices? What happens when the law’s clock runs out in 2020? Join us for a lively discussion with the AB 32’s co-author, its primary enforcer, and its chief adversary.

With election day just a few weeks away, Nancy Cohen, a frequent writer and commentator on women's political leadership, will draw on some 125 interviews with elected officials and strategists of both parties to assess the history of women's experience in politics, the changing political climate, and the current prospects for Hillary Clinton to win the country's highest elective office. Dr. Cohen is author of four books, including the widely acclaimed Delirium: The Politics of Sex in America and The Reconstruction of American Liberalism. Her writing on American politics has appeared in the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, and Rolling Stone. She has taught politics and history at Occidental College, UCLA and Cal State Long Beach, and holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

In the 40 years that have passed since he crafted the iconic Chateau Montelena Chardonnay that beat its French counterpart in the famous 1976 Judgment of Paris wine tasting competition, Miljenko "Mike" Grgich has garnered wide acclaim as an industry pioneer while his wines have been served at White House state dinners. Having grown up alongside her father in the winery, trying her hand at everything from the bottling line to the tasting room, Violet Ggrich will share her personal recollections on publishing her father’s newly released memoir, A Glass Full of Miracles, as well as the family's plans for the future.

Luvvie Ajayi, writer and humorist, is that friend who brings up all the “touchy” topics you’re not supposed to talk about at dinner, like love, sex, money and politics. In her new book, the New York Times best-seller I’m Judging You: The Do Better Manual, Luvvie deftly dissects everything from feminism to friendship to social media to sex tapes, all the while encouraging readers to take a hard look at why they think and act the way they do in today’s crazy-connected, digital world. Luvvie can and does school her readers on everything from proper Facebook etiquette to race relations; she tells you to “do better,” and people will want to listen. Recently named a member of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100, Luvvie’s award-winning blog AwesomelyLuvvie reaches more than 500,000 readers. She’s a highly coveted speaker all over the world, and she’s the executive director of the Red Pump Project, a national HIV/AIDS non-profit. Luvvie’s bringing the awesome to the INFORUM stage, and we can’t wait!

Parkinson’s disease involves a deficiency of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Symptoms can include tremor, rigidity and slow movements. In this program, you will learn about changes in dietary protein that have been found to reduce these symptoms by half. Neurodegeneration is the loss of function and death of our brain cells. Why do our brain cells lose function and die? Learn about specific pollutants in certain foods that can damage our ability to make dopamine, and which foods harbor these persistent organic pollutants and how to avoid them. In contrast, certain foods and nutrients can help protect brain cells and slow degeneration. Since Parkinson’s disease symptoms do not often show up before half of the dopamine-producing brain cells are gone, all of us can benefit from proactive risk reduction. Steve Blake is faculty nutritional biochemist at Hawaii Pacific Neuroscience. He is a research scientist who has just finished a clinical study successfully using nutrients to combat neurodegeneration. Among his publications, he authored the Diet Doctor software to analyze dietary nutrients.

Monday Night Philosophy unearths a late 1950s "source of creativity" study whose data has finally been analyzed and published. Forty eminent architects—including Eero Saarinen, Louis Kahn, Philip Johnson, George Nelson, Richard Neutra, Eliot Noyes, Pietro Belluschi, Serge Chermayeff and A. Quincy Jones—descended on UC Berkeley for three days of intensive testing in an attempt to discover the sources of their creativity. Pierluigi Serraino charts the development and implementation of this historic study, producing the first look at an amazing and matchless episode in the annals of modern architecture and psychology.

GMO products are among the most-consumed and the least-understood substances in the United States today. They appear not only in the food we eat, but in everything from the interior coating of paper coffee cups and medicines to diapers and toothpaste. Shetterly discovered the importance of GMOs the hard way. Shortly after she learned that her son had an alarming sensitivity to GMO corn, she was told that she had the same condition, and her family’s daily existence changed forever. She takes a deeper look at how GMO products are currently infiltrating our food, our land, and how that affects our health and future.

Brilliant’s life has taken him across continents and countercultural movements. He is responsible for some of the most significant medical, spiritual and social achievements of the past century, working with leaders and icons including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, Wavy Gravy, the Dalai Lama, and President Barack Obama. Brilliant was the executive director of Google.org and chaired the Presidential Advisory Committee on Bio-Surveillance. He lived in India for more than 10 years working as a United Nations medical officer, where he played a key role in the World Health Organization smallpox eradication program in South Asia. He also co-founded The Seva Foundation, an international NGO whose programs and grantees have given back sight to more than 3.5 million blind people in more than 20 countries. Learn more about Brilliant’s inspiring life and journey.

Come get nasty with Nasty Gal’s #Girlboss Sophia Amoruso, at INFORUM! An entrepreneur and style-setter, Sophia’s life has been one wild ride, and we know it’s just the beginning! In the 2000s, she was a security monitor at the San Francisco Academy of Art, dumpster diving for food and selling stolen books on eBay before founding Nasty Gal in 2006. Just a decade later, in 2016, Forbes named Sophia one of the youngest and richest self-made women in America—surpassing fellow #Girlboss Beyonce. Sophia launched her company, Nasty Gal, on eBay, reselling vintage clothes she scavenged from thrift stores. Nasty Gal quickly grew, growing from a makeshift store in Sophia’s living room to a fashion powerhouse, both online and brick-and-mortar, in less than a decade. Women around the world snap up Nasty Gal’s cutting-edge fashions with a vintage touch, and Sophia’s influence is evident on magazine covers, Pinterest, the runway and beyond. Sophia’s success isn’t just limited to fashion—she’s creating an empire. Sophia champions aspiring female entrepreneurs through her #Girlboss Foundation, and shares stories of other creative, successful women on her popular podcast #Girlboss Radio, with guests like Charlize Theron. Her first book, #Girlboss, dubbed “Lean In for misfits,” is a New York Times bestseller and is currently being turned into a Netflix original series (taping in San Francisco this fall!). Sophia will take INFORUM on a trip into her latest book, Nasty Galaxy, giving us the inside scoop about her unconventional approach to style, music, philosophy and advice.

In the Media J.K. Dineen, Reporter, San Francisco Chronicle Lauren Sommer, Science and Environment Reporter, KQED Michael Stoll, Executive Director, San Francisco Public Press The mainstream media, and human brain, are not well-suited to handling slow-moving threats that will appear in the distant future. Yet flooding of Bay Area roads this year can be partly attributed to rising tides and severe weather. How is the Bay Area media covering this reality? Does climate change coverage take a back seat to more immediate concerns about race, safety and health? Are those issues connected? At Your Doorstep Charles Long, Real Estate Developer, Co-Chair, Tackling Sea Level Rise Initiative, Urban Land Institute Margie O’Driscoll, Competition Advisor, Resilient by Design Will Travis, Former Executive Director, BCDC Bay waters are topping the Embarcadero during king tides, and repairing the seawall along the downtown waterfront will cost about $4 billion. Mission Bay and many other areas of the city are also threatened by the certainty of an expanding bay. This section of our program will probe what the city is doing to prepare for a soggy future and protect people in vulnerable communities. It also will explore what the real estate industry is doing to protect property that accounts for much of the wealth in San Francisco.

Dr. Keynoush and Dr. Ibrahim will trace the demise of the Arab Spring and the violent rise and threat of Islamic State with Robert Rosenthal, a former managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Dr. Keynoush is an advisor to policy centers in the Middle East, translator to four Iranian presidents, and author of Saudi Arabia and Iran: Friends or Foes. Dr.Ibrahim is associate professor of broadcast and electronic communication arts at San Francisco State, associate producer of Hope and Fear: Egypt at the Tipping Point, and she has contributed to BBC, NPR, CNN and other news outlets.

If you think your plans for serious illness are all set, think again. Congresswoman Jackie Speier, despite considerable forethought, struggled to ensure her dying loved ones were well-served. She will share her personal experiences navigating the medical system for her aging relatives. Following the congresswoman’s personal discussion, UCSF’s Dr. Rebecca Sudore will discuss how to prepare for future medical decisions and to get the care that is right for you. She will share video stories from an easy-to-use website and answer your questions about how best to ensure your wishes are honored during serious illness. Come gain a better understanding of how best to plan for future medical decision making, and explore tools to prepare for the end-of-life.

With China's growth slower than it has been in 25 years, it is undoubtable that China is experiencing an economic slowdown. The government has made changes to stabilize the situation and move the economy toward "a new normal." Our panelists will discuss the different kinds of reforms China is working on now, and how likely these reforms are to succeed. What does it mean for Americans if these reforms succeed—or if these reforms fail? Do we need to fear a stronger China, or moreso, a weaker one?

The best laws in the world are useless if they are misunderstood by the courts. Yet the debate over judicial review—proper interpretation of laws—tends to be a minefield of loaded concepts, straw men and false alternatives. Tara Smith explains the pillars of objective law and the essentials needed to restore objective judicial review. Hear Smith's unique perspective on the originalism vs. living constitution vs. minimalism debate.

Michael Krasny has been telling Jewish jokes since his bar mitvah, and it’s been said that he knows more of them than anyone on the planet. He has now put together a compendium of Jewish jokes that packs the punches with hilarious riff after riff and also offers a window into Jewish culture. Let There Be Laughter borrows from traditional humor and such Jewish comedy legends and new voices as Jackie Mason, Mel Brooks, Joan Rivers, Larry David, Sarah Silverman, Jerry Seinfeld and Amy Schumer. With his background as a scholar and public radio host, Krasny also delves deeply into the themes, topics and form of Jewish humor: chauvinism undercut by irony and self-mockery, the fear of losing cultural identity through assimilation, the importance of vocal inflection in joke-telling, and calls to communal memory, including the use of Yiddish. Above all, come ready to laugh a lot.