Elon Musk is one of the most influential and controversial tech icons in Silicon Valley. He has talked about forward-thinking projects like mind-uploading and space travel, but by far his most bold

Elon Musk is one of the most influential and controversial tech icons in Silicon Valley. He has talked about forward-thinking projects like mind-uploading and space travel, but by far his most bold and effective vision led to Tesla and the creation of a widely available and affordable electric vehicle. Before Tesla was founded in the early 2000s, electric cars were considered novelties. But as many cars were gas guzzlers, there was a great need for a more sustainable mode of transportation. Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century explores the Tesla phenomenon. Tim Higgins traces its history of a hellish first 15 years, attacks by rivals, pressure from investors and surprises by whistleblowers. As a Wall Street Journal tech and auto reporter, Higgins had a front-row seat for all the drama. He spent almost a decade reporting on the car business from Detroit before he moved to San Francisco and focused his writing more on Apple, Tesla and other tech companies. Power Play is Tesla’s story of power, recklessness, struggle and triumph coming together to change the future. Join us as Tim Higgins discusses Tesla’s rise and what it means for a tech-driven future. NOTES Higgins photo by K. Fischer. SPEAKERS Tim Higgins Automotive and Technology Reporter, The Wall Street Journal; Author Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century In Conversation with Joanna Stern Senior Personal Technology Columnist, The Wall Street Journal 💯SUBSCRIBE for more VIDEOS: https://www.youtube.com/user/commonwealthclub 📆 UPCOMING EVENTS: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events 🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership 💰 DONATE NOW: https://support.commonwealthclub.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=298 📺➕📻 Watch & Listen https://www.commonwealthclub.org/watch-listen CWC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonwealthclub/ CWC Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cwclub/ CWC Twitter https://twitter.com/cwclub The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 400 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy. Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Hillary Clinton in 2010. Along the way, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton have all given landmark speeches at the Club.

...

Mary Roach wants to let us in on a secret: The greatest number of repeat criminal offenders are outside, all around us, and you’ve probably even seen some today—animals. It has only been three

Mary Roach wants to let us in on a secret: The greatest number of repeat criminal offenders are outside, all around us, and you’ve probably even seen some today—animals. It has only been three centuries since animals had to stand trial for their misconduct, in a court of law, with legal representation. Yes, really. In her newest book, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, the science enthusiast turned writer deep-dives into human-animal conflict. As human land consumption creeps further into the natural habitats of these so-called troublemakers, it becomes more pressing to realize a symbiotic coexistence. The question becomes: Who is in the wrong, animals living according to their instincts or the humans that increasingly police them? To answer this question, Roach trots the globe from the Himalayas to Vatican City making friends with rats and foes with a macaque. Ultimately she reaches the conclusion that there is true, untamed hope for working with rather than against our critter counterparts. At INFORUM Roach will regale us with stories as wild as they are true, such as her foray into rat-bait taste testing. Further she will serve as our safari-guide in the conversation of how to bring outdoor and indoor worlds together safely and justly at a time when this work is needed most. This conversation is moderated by Kara Platoni, Wired's science editor NOTES Roach photo by Jen Siska. SEPTEMBER 21, 2021 SPEAKERS Mary Roach Author, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law Kara Platoni Science Editor, Wired—Moderator 💯SUBSCRIBE for more VIDEOS: https://www.youtube.com/user/commonwealthclub 📆 UPCOMING EVENTS: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events 🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership 💰 DONATE NOW: https://support.commonwealthclub.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=298 📺➕📻 Watch & Listen https://www.commonwealthclub.org/watch-listen CWC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonwealthclub/ CWC Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cwclub/ CWC Twitter https://twitter.com/cwclub The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 400 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy. Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Hillary Clinton in 2010. Along the way, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton have all given landmark speeches at the Club.

...

After One Hundred Winters confronts the harsh truth that the United States has thrived on land violently taken away from Indigenous people. Settler historian Margaret Jacobs asks what reconciliation

After One Hundred Winters confronts the harsh truth that the United States has thrived on land violently taken away from Indigenous people. Settler historian Margaret Jacobs asks what reconciliation might mean in light of this haunted history. She argues that we have much to gain by learning from our history instead of denying it, even as she lays out the brutal legacy of systemic racial injustice to Indigenous people. Jacobs also explains how early attempts at reconciliation were only successful in further robbing tribal nations of their already reduced land holdings and forcing their children into abusive boarding schools. True reconciliation, she insists, can only emerge through Indigenous leadership and sustained relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people rooted in specific places and histories. In the absence of an official apology and a federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a movement for transformative reconciliation is unofficially underway that puts Indigenous land rights, sovereignty, and values at the forefront. With historical sensitivity and an eye to the future, Jacobs urges people to face the past and learn from it, and once they have done so, to redress past abuses. OCTOBER 6, 2021 SPEAKERS Margaret Jacobs Professor of History and Director, The Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln; Author, After One Hundred Winters: In Search of Reconciliation on America's Stolen Lands In Conversation with George Hammond Author, Conversations With Socrates 💯SUBSCRIBE for more VIDEOS: https://www.youtube.com/user/commonwealthclub 📆 UPCOMING EVENTS: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events 🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership 💰 DONATE NOW: https://support.commonwealthclub.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=298 📺➕📻 Watch & Listen https://www.commonwealthclub.org/watch-listen CWC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonwealthclub/ CWC Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cwclub/ CWC Twitter https://twitter.com/cwclub The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 400 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy. Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Hillary Clinton in 2010. Along the way, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton have all given landmark speeches at the Club.

...

Black communities have a long and complicated relationship with American soil. The ongoing call to address systemic racism, patterns of abuse, violence and dispossession have brought back to the

Black communities have a long and complicated relationship with American soil. The ongoing call to address systemic racism, patterns of abuse, violence and dispossession have brought back to the mainstream the conversation of BIPOC communities' historical connections to land.

What are the connections between this history and current "food apartheid" (food deserts)? How is the Black farming movement connected to changes in larger food systems and the growth of worker cooperatives? How are people incorporating environmental sustainability into their work? And what can we learn from both the rich history of resistance and current strategies to inform how we resource a world where all people have access to healthy, fresh and locally sourced food?

Join the San Francisco Foundation and The Commonwealth Club of California as Doria Robinson, executive director of Urban Tilth, and Andrea Talley, worker-owner of the Mandela Grocery Cooperative, explore multiple issues and interconnections that surround farming and food access for BIPOC communities. In conversation with Natalie Baszile, noted author of Queen Sugar and We Are Each Other’s Harvest.

NOTES

Marcus Books
This program is made possible by San Francisco Foundation's Bay Area Leads donors.

San Francisco Foundation Bay Area Leads

NOVEMBER 8, 2021

SPEAKERS

Fred Blackwell
CEO, San Francisco Foundation

Doria Robinson
Executive Director, Urban Tilth

Andrea Talley
Worker-Owner, Mandela Grocery Cooperative

Natalie Baszile
Author, Queen Sugar and We Are Each Other's Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy

🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership

The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 400 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.

Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Hillary Clinton in 2010. Along the way, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton have all given landmark speeches at the Club.

...

The unprecedented level of economic inequality in America is undeniable. In an extended essay, Bill shares examples of the striking extremes of wealth and poverty across the country, including a video report on California's Silicon Valley. There, Facebook, Google, and Apple are minting millionaires, while the area's homeless -- who've grown 20 percent in the last two years -- are living in tent cities at their virtual doorsteps.

Social equality illustration by Brandon Cripps.

Published on Apr 11, 2013

 

...

NOTE FROM TED: TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here:

NOTE FROM TED: TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here: http://storage.ted.com/tedx/manuals/tedx_content_guidelines.pdf Dr. Bill Weihl shares his perspective on how companies can change the game on climate by advocating for stronger public policy. Through his non-profit initiative, ClimateVoice, Dr. Weihl aims to mobilize the workforce to encourage companies to go "all in" on climate -- especially by using their voice and influence to support public policy, everywhere they operate. Note: References to "John" and "Hal" throughout the talk are to John Doerr and Hal Harvey, whose Countdown talk was featured before this one at the TEDxClimateChangeAI event. The referenced talk can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4Cy16uOdLM Bill Weihl is the Founder and Executive Director of ClimateVoice, a non-profit initiative launched in February 2020 that is mobilizing the workforce to encourage companies to go “all in” on climate - especially in their use of their voice and influence to support public policy, everywhere they operate. Previously, Bill was Director of Sustainability at Facebook, leading work on sustainability across the company; Green Energy Czar at Google, where his team pioneered Google’s work to buy clean energy for its data centers, among other initiatives; a Professor of Computer Science at MIT; a researcher at Digital's Systems Research Center; and CTO of Akamai Technologies. Bill is on the board of directors of the Sierra Club Foundation and of Acterra, and also on the boards of WeSpire and Common Energy. He has received numerous awards, including Time Magazine's Hero of the Environment (2009), the Global Green Award for environmental leadership (2016), and the VERGE Vanguard Award (2018). This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

...

Yellowstone's supervolcano: The greatest threat to humanity? with Bryan Walsh Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ►► https://www.youtube.com/c/bigthink Up next ►► Are solar storms a threat to

Yellowstone's supervolcano: The greatest threat to humanity? with Bryan Walsh Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ►► https://www.youtube.com/c/bigthink Up next ►► Are solar storms a threat to humanity? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGYMgU7d00Q Although they might occur infrequently, supervolcanoes are by no means insignificant. When an extreme magnitude of volcanic materials are ejected into the atmosphere, sunlight can’t reach the Earth’s surface - making global starvation a very real threat. Fortunately, there are steps we can take to prepare the human race for the looming threat of supervolcanoes. This video was originally created and shared by Freethink. Read the video transcript: https://bigthink.com/videos/supervolcano/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Bryan Walsh: Bryan Walsh is the editor of Vox's Future Perfect section, overseeing coverage on policies and technologies that will make the future a better place. Previously he worked at Axios as the Future Correspondent, wrote the 2019 book "End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World," and worked at TIME magazine for 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, a climate change writer and as the international editor. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Read more of our stories on volcano eruptions: Tonga volcano eruption was a once-in-a-millennium event ►► https://bigthink.com/hard-science/tonga-volcano-eruption/ What are dormant volcanoes good for? Copper mining ►►https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/dormant-volcanoes-copper-mining/ See remarkable NASA photos of a new volcano eruption ►► https://bigthink.com/hard-science/volcano-eruption/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Big Think | Smarter Faster™ ► Big Think The leading source of expert-driven, educational content. With thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, Big Think helps you get smarter, faster by exploring the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century. ► Big Think+ Make your business smarter, faster: https://bigthink.com/plus/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Want more Big Think? ► Daily editorial features: https://bigthink.com/popular/ ► Get the best of Big Think right to your inbox: https://bigthink.com/st/newsletter ► Facebook: https://bigth.ink/facebook ► Instagram: https://bigth.ink/Instagram ► Twitter: https://bigth.ink/twitter

...

Here is a link to an electronic print program describing the event and

Here is a link to an electronic print program describing the event and panelists: https://transweb.sjsu.edu/sites/default/files/2021%20Finance%20Summit%20Program_FINAL%20%2806.10%29.pdf Transportation policymakers face two overlapping, once-in-a-generation opportunities: electrifying the nation’s vehicle fleet and re-establishing a stable source of federal and state revenue for transportation. As states and the Biden administration begin a push to rapidly electrify the U.S. fleet for climate reasons, policymakers are under increasing pressure to rethink how states and the federal government fund transportation infrastructure and services. For decades, motor fuel taxes have generated the majority of state and federal funds spent on transportation, even if recently these taxes have been losing their purchasing power. However, a shift to electric vehicles will require a new transportation funding model. The speakers will discuss the challenges and opportunities with such options as mileage fees, carbon taxes, higher vehicle registration fees, or a shift entirely away from user-generated revenue. NOTES This program is supported by the Mineta Transportation Institute at San José State University. SPEAKERS Just added: Special Guest, The Honorable Pete Buttigieg U.S. Secretary of Transportation Karen Philbrick Ph.D., Executive Director, Mineta Transportation Institute—Program Emcee Opening Remarks: U.S. Senator Alex Padilla U.S. Senator (D-CA); Former California Secretary of State Keynote: Toks Omishakin Director, California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) Event Moderator: Therese McMillan Executive Director, Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Ph.D. Director, MTI National Transportation Finance Center Carl Guardino Executive Vice President, Government Affairs and Policy, Bloom Energy Carlos Braceras, P.E. Executive Director, Utah Department of Transportation Dan Sperling, Ph.D. Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California Davis 💯SUBSCRIBE for more VIDEOS: https://www.youtube.com/user/commonwealthclub 📆 UPCOMING EVENTS: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events 🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership 💰 DONATE NOW: https://support.commonwealthclub.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=298 📺➕📻 Watch & Listen https://www.commonwealthclub.org/watch-listen CWC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonwealthclub/ CWC Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cwclub/ CWC Twitter https://twitter.com/cwclub The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 400 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.  Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Hillary Clinton in 2010. Along the way, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton have all given landmark speeches at the Club.

...