Category: Public Affairs

A Conversation with Joan Williams on Legally Speaking

8232Gender equality is nothing new. It gained public attention in the 1960s with the rebirth of the feminist movement. During that time, the typical worker was a man, married to a homemaker, who worked long hours for forty years without a break. While the workforce has changed, several decades later, the masculine ideal worker stereotype still exists.

Professor Joan C. Williams, one of the nation’s most cited experts on women and work, has played a central role in reshaping the debates over gender, class, and work-family issues.

Professor Williams has been described by The New York Times as having “something approaching rock star status.” For more than a quarter of a century, her work in the areas of pregnancy discrimination and work-family accommodation have helped define the issue of gender equality under the law.

In August, Hastings colleague Veena Dubal spoke with Williams about her career and about what she thinks American businesses must do to achieve more gender equality. This program is part of a series of in-depth interviews with prominent lawyers, judges, and academics presented by UC Hastings College of the Law and California Lawyer.

Watch A Conversation with Joan Williams and browse more Legally Speaking programs.

Water Policy and the Drought

8232If you’ve spent anytime in California in the last few years, you know this: California is in the midst of a severe drought. But while the lack of rainfall is not in dispute, there is widespread disagreement on how to respond.

A panel convened for Cal Day at UC Berkeley explores policy options that could attract support throughout the state, even from groups with conflicting interests. These experts argue that despite the diversity of perspectives in California, the state is well-positioned to achieve bipartisan consensus on solutions that will affect everyone.

Just what do they have in mind? Watch Water Policy and the Drought to find out!

Browse more programs from The Public Policy Channel.

Up Next: Perspectives on the Future of Everything

8232Some folks believe that peering into a crystal ball can predict the future. Others believe in the power of divination or fortune telling. While the methods differ, the question is usually the same. What does the future have in store?

Marty Lasden and co-producer, lawyer/author Eric Berkowitz, try to distinguish the prophets from the crackpots as they consider everything from genetic engineering to Judaism to the future of work in the series Up Next: Perspectives on the Future of Everything.

8232The Future of Work

Way back in 1987, when the Internet was still a novelty, Thomas Malone predicted the advent of electronic buying, selling, and outsourcing. Then, just a few years later, he coined the term “E-lancer” to describe the new crop of freelance workers emerging in the information economy. And in 2004, he published a book called The Future of Work. In this edition of Up Next, Malone, who is a professor of management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, considers how, if at all, workers will be able to survive and thrive in the decades ahead.

8232The Future of Marriage

In Medieval times, marriage was very different than it is today. Marriages were often based on political arrangements, and women often didn’t get to choose whom they would marry, or even know their future husband beforehand. If love was involved at all, it came after the couple had been married. In this edition of Up Next, leading family studies scholar Stephanie Coontz talks about the changing nature of marriage and how well the institution is likely to fare in the decades ahead.

Browse all of the programs in the series Up Next: Perspectives on the Future of Everything.

Understand Climate Change – and What You Can Do About It

Learn more about climate change with new programs that examine its impact from a variety of perspectives. Discover how humans and climate interact and affect one another, learn what you can do to reduce greenhouse emissions, and get a behind-the-scenes look at the Pope’s call to protect the environment.

8232Climate Change, Consumerism and the Pope with Daniel Kammen and Jennifer Granholm

After being summoned to the Vatican to advise on climate change, Dan Kammen of UC Berkeley shares an insider’s view on what inspired Pope Francis to issue such a passionate plea to protect the earth in Laudato Si, his 2015 encyclical on the environment. As a practicing Catholic, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm praises the Pope for presenting “human ecology” as a moral issue in this lively exchange with Kammen and Henry E. Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.

Watch Climate Change, Consumerism and the Pope with Daniel Kammen and Jennifer Granholm.

8232What Are You Going to Do About It? The Effect of Uncertainty on Climate Change Policy

Taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions imposes costs now in order to avoid potentially very large costs from more severe climate change in the future. Steve Polasky, Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics University of Minnesota, reviews major sources of uncertainty and how that alters the choice of optimal climate change policy. He discusses current debates on how best to frame climate change policy, and whether it should be framed as setting limits on greenhouse gas concentrations to avoid potentially catastrophic damages or as an application of benefit-cost analysis.

Watch What Are You Going to Do About It? The Effect of Uncertainty on Climate Change Policy.

8232CARTA: Human-Climate Interactions and Evolution: Past and Future

According to earth scientists, paleontologists, and scholars in other fields, the planet has entered a new geological phase – the Anthropocene, the age of humans. How did this transition of our species from an apelike ancestor in Africa to the current planetary force occur? What are the prospects for the future of world climate, ecosystems, and our species? This symposium presents varied perspectives on these critical questions from earth scientists, ecologists, and paleoanthropologists.

Watch CARTA: Human-Climate Interactions and Evolution: Past and Future.

Climate Change, Consumerism and the Pope

8232Why is this Pope different from all other Popes? What inspired his cry from the heart to preserve “our home” in Laudato Si, his recent letter to Catholics and all residents of this glorious, yet troubled, planet?

Dan Kammen of UC Berkeley was among those summoned to the Vatican to advise on climate change and he shares what happened there, as former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and Henry E. Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy, respond with passion to the Pope’s critique of our consumer-driven way of life. A fourth guest joins midway, this one with black fur and four legs, presumably comforted by the Pope’s call to protect all creatures great and small.

Watch Climate Change, Consumerism and the Pope on the UC Public Policy Channel.