Podcast Episodes

Sam Bloch: Shade, The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource

On a 90-degree day in Los Angeles, bus riders across the city line up behind the shadows cast by street signs and telephone poles, looking for a little relief from the sun’s glaring heat. Every summe…

Published on 4 months, 2 weeks ago

Scorching Premiums: Climate Costs Hit Insurance Market

Climate disruptions and growing risk are upending insurance markets, leading many insurers to abandon parts of the country all together. Due to fires, floods and other extreme events, more and more h…

Published on 4 months, 2 weeks ago

Vali Nasr: Iran's Grand Strategy

Iran has for decades been one of the most significant—and tricky—foreign policy challenges facing America and the West. Unfortunately, most people do not know much about the country’s true goals. Joi…

Published on 4 months, 2 weeks ago

“The Playbook of a Dictator”: UC Berkeley’s Erwin Chemerinsky on Trump and the Rule of Law

UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky’s 2024 book No Democracy Lasts Forever examined how democracies collapse and give way to authoritarian regimes. 

Trump’s second term, Chemerinsky says, i…

Published on 4 months, 2 weeks ago

Raising AI: An Essential Guide to Its Use

In a world in which artificial intelligence will change everything, we need a leader to illuminate the impact of “the automation of thought” on our way of life. How is the widespread use of AI impact…

Published on 4 months, 2 weeks ago

ENCORE: AI’s Power Demands: Do We Really Have the Energy for This?

In a previous Climate One episode, we discussed the good, the bad, and the ugly impacts of artificial intelligence. But AI isn’t going away. Humans rarely give up a nifty new tool unless something be…

Published on 4 months, 3 weeks ago

Crystal Haryanto on Taylor Swift: An Icon in the Music and Business Worlds

Taylor Swift is world-famous as a singer and cultural icon, even as a political influencer. But as a business leader? Absolutely, says Crystal Haryanto, a Bay Area economic consultant who has created…

Published on 4 months, 3 weeks ago

Gil Duran on Trump, Tech, and the Nerd Reich

The Bay Area is typically known as an incubator of left-of-center ideas. But in recent years, it has become known as the source of an ideology influencing the Trump administration, a belief system jo…

Published on 4 months, 3 weeks ago

Midsummer Political Roundtable: A Week to Week Special

There are no midsummer doldrums in politics, so get ready for a lively and timely look at the people, topics and trends driving the political conversation in 2025. 

Commonwealth Club World Affairs of…

Published on 4 months, 3 weeks ago

Trump’s Megabill Comes for the Clean Energy Transition

Three years ago, Congress passed President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment in climate action in U.S. history. The IRA set in motion a sweeping set of investments in nearly eve…

Published on 4 months, 4 weeks ago