Writers Lauren Duca and Martin Lukacs, author of The Trudeau Formula, discuss collective action and non-violent protest with members of the climate action group, Extinction Rebellion.
Read up:
Recorded 12/4/19 WGBH Forum Network VIDEO
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APPALACHIA
A CULTURAL CROSSROADS
This forum is a co-production with the Revels organization and will feature performances by musicians Jake Blount and Libby Weitnauer and interviews with the Revel’s creative team who will explore the history and roots of traditional music of Appalachia.
The Appalachian Mountains south of the Mason-Dixon Line, is one of the birthplaces of American music: the mountains of southern Appalachia, where Native American, African American, and European traditions combined to foster an astonishing wealth of artistic expression.
The forum will celebrate the quiet of the mountains in the songs passed on by Appalachian musicians from generation to generation, and examine the ideas that resonate in this music that speaks of the natural world, the hardship, the dark and light in human relationships.
Recorded November 6, 2019
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Naomi Klein, internationally bestselling author and journalist, describes her latest book, On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal explaining how bold climate action can be a blueprint for a just and thriving society.
Recorded October 10, 2019
She was joined by JULIET B. SCHOR, Professor of Sociology at Boston College. This event is co-sponsored by Harvard Book Store, 350 Mass, The Intercept, The Leap, and Sunrise.
With reports spanning from the ghostly Great Barrier Reef, to the annual smoke-choked skies of the Pacific Northwest, to post-hurricane Puerto Rico, to a Vatican attempting an unprecedented “ecological conversion,” Naomi Klein makes the case that we will rise to the existential challenge of climate change only if we are willing to transform the systems that produced this crisis.
An expansive, far-ranging exploration that sees the battle for a greener world as indistinguishable from the fight for our lives, On Fire captures the burning urgency of the climate crisis, as well as the fiery energy of a rising political movement demanding a catalytic Green New Deal.
If you want to understand how we destroyed unions in this country, how we widened the income divide, how we stalled progress on climate change, and how corporate America bought the influence industry, you have to understand the story of Koch Industries.
Recorded 10/9/2019
Koch Industries is one of the largest private companies in the world, a sprawling conglomerate whose operations span the entire landscape of the American economy.
.Charles Koch and his brother David, who own roughly 80 percent of Koch Industries, are together worth $120 billion—more than Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett or Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Koch also has one of the largest, most well-funded lobbying operations in the United States—a political influence network that is arguably the most powerful and far-reaching operation ever run out of an American CEO’s office.
Christopher Leonard is a business reporter whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and Bloomberg Businessweek.
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Can Americans survive without their hamburgers? This juicy question raises many fundamental issues – nutritional, moral and environmental.
Recorded 9/25/2019
Cows are big methane machines and not very efficient ones, and everyone agrees that we need to reduce our carbon footprint. As people are becoming better informed about choices and what they’re putting into their bodies, they are looking at the “costs” from a health perspective, for animals and for the environment. Changes are afoot.
Who knew that Burger King would be offering the Impossible Whopper made from plant-based protein instead of meat? And veganism, which used to be a fringe-movement, has now morphed into a hip lifestyle. Scientists are already working on cell-based meat products which will be on sale to the public next year.
To help us understand the issues, we have scientists, philosophers and businessmen. Dr. Walter Willett, Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at Harvard will be joined by Nina Gheihman, a sociologist at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and two entrepreneurs, Truman French and Tucker Pforzheimer, who are running a business, growing shiitake mushrooms on Martha’s Vineyard.
Can a burger help combat climate change?
Support our mission to provide free and open discussions about the pertinent issues and ideas confronting us, in the world today.
In light of the escalating developments in Hong Kong with pro-Democracy demonstrators becoming increasingly galvanized in response to the Chinese government’s crackdown, we examine the current situation both inside and outside mainland China with regard to human rights.
Teng Biao, is a human rights lawyer currently attached to the U.S.-Asia Law Institute, at NYU and he will be joined by Uyghur-American Salih Hudayar and activist Kyle Olbert, who will discuss the challenges facing both the Chinese Communist party and the ethnic minorities who resist the Chinese policy of oppression which they say is being carried out under the guise of “counter-terrorism”.
Recorded September 11, 2019
Are we living in a post-truth world where “alternative facts” replace actual facts and feelings have more weight than evidence? How did we get here?
Lee McIntrye from the Center for Philosophy and History of Science, at Boston University discusses our modern dilemma: FAKE NEWS vs FACTS: Living in a Post-Truth World.
Recorded June 12, 2019
McIntyre traces the development of the post-truth phenomenon from science denial through the rise of “fake news,” from our psychological blind spots to the public’s retreat into “information silos.”
Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and an Instructor in Ethics at Harvard Extension School.
Recorded 5/1/19
Former poet laureate Richard Blanco reads from his new book How To Love A Country.
As presidential inaugural poet and educator, Richard Blanco has crisscrossed the nation inviting communities to connect to the heart of human experience and our shared identity as a country. In this new collection of poems, his first in over seven years, Blanco continues to invite a conversation with all Americans.
This forum is a collaboration with the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation in Waltham.
Blanco’s poems form a mosaic of seemingly varied topics: the Pulse Nightclub massacre; an unexpected encounter on a visit to Cuba; the forced exile of 8,500 Navajos in 1868; a lynching in Alabama; the arrival of a young Chinese woman at Angel Island in 1938; the incarceration of a gifted writer; and the poet’s abiding love for his partner, who he is finally allowed to wed as a gay man. But despite each poem’s unique concern or occasion, all are fundamentally struggling with the overwhelming question of how to love this country.
Blanco unravels the very fabric of the American narrative and pursues a resolution to the inherent contradiction of our nation’s psyche and mandate: e pluribus unum (out of many, one). Charged with the utopian idea that no single narrative is more important than another, this book asserts that America could and ought someday to be a country where all narratives converge into one, a country we can all be proud to love and where we can all truly thrive.
RECORDED 3/5/19
Happiness is a choice you make.
So says author John Leland who reflects on the timeless subject in his new book Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons From a Year Among the Oldest Old. It’s based on his interviews with some of New York City’s oldest residents in order to understand the experience of aging during the twilight years . Read an excerpt here.
LISTEN!
Can we really just choose to be happy? ?
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John Leland is a reporter for The New York Times. Since joining The Times in 2000, he has covered topics ranging from the poetry of rock lyrics to the housing crisis.
Leland is the author of two books: Hip: The History (HarperCollins, 2004), a cultural history of hipness, and Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of ‘On the Road’ (They’re Not What You Think) (Viking, 2007).
Recorded 1/30/19 video hereComputers are learning to read our emotions and it is big business. Alexa will soon be servicing all our needs. But can we really trust the robots?
Judith Shulevitz, from the Atlantic Monthly and Maxim Pozdorovkin, film-maker of The Truth About Killer Robots discuss the future of robots.
