Why are we violent?

786As CARTA co-director Ajit Varki so aptly put it in his concluding remarks, “It was an intellectually stimulating and fascinating but deeply disturbing symposium.”

From interactions in lions and our hominid cousins the chimpanzees, to our Pleistocene ancestors and early human cultures to modern society, CARTA gathered scientists across the spectrum from neurophysiology to sociology to bring their respective microscopes to bear upon the question of aggression within the human species, its role in our development, its causes and its consequences.

While the data are at times grim, disturbing and depressing, it is an important look at an inescapable (or is it?) feature of human evolution, the use of aggression and violence.

Hopefully, if one can remain dispassionate, we are led to ask, can it evolve out of us?

Watch the latest programs from CARTA on Male Aggression and Violence in Human Evolution to learn more.

Weapons of Mass Distraction: Keeping Our Sanity and Balance in a High-Speed, Displacing World, with Pico Iyer

27682In today’s fast-paced digital world, it’s easy to overdose on information and become dizzy from the barrage of instant news and events. While recent technology has made our lives much brighter, longer, fuller and healthier than ever before, how can we ensure that we’re not drowning in information and still have offline lives as well?

Born in England to parents from India, raised in ’60s California, educated at Eton, Oxford, and Harvard, and living in rural Japan, essayist and novelist Pico Iyer writes frequently on globalism for Harper’s, on culture and politics for The New York Times, on literature for The New York Review of Books, and on many topics for magazines from National Geographic to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In an interview with UC San Diego’s Peter Gourevitch, Iyer draws upon 40 years of travel across five continents to explore how to make the most of new opportunities, without being depleted — or devoured — by them. This program is presented by the Helen Edison Lecture Series at UC San Diego.

Watch Weapons of Mass Distraction.

Get Serious About Climate Change

27846“Climate change is no longer in the future — its impacts are upon us, already.”

So begins this Keeling Lecture featuring David Victor, an internationally recognized leader in research on energy and climate change policy.

With the inevitability of climate change, we now must consider adaptation. How will we deal with its effects socially? Politically? How can we help wildlife and plant life to adapt? Perhaps most importantly, what political changes should we start making today?

“We have become incredibly skilled at designing treaties precisely so that they have no impact,” says Victor. In many cases, while some countries have reduced their emissions “on paper,” they’ve essentially outsourced those emissions to other countries. (For example, steel produced in China that gets sent to the U.S.)

While attempts to improve carbon dioxide and other emissions have been made in the last 20-30 years, it hasn’t been nearly enough. In the last decade, emissions grew more rapidly than in any decade since 1970.

Watch this enlightening (and hopefully motivating) Charles David Keeling lecture, Getting Serious About Climate Change, with David Victor to learn more.

Turbo Charge Your Job Hunt

28254Because he loves his job as an employment industry expert, few people think more about work than Phil Blair.

Beginning in 1977, he has built Manpower San Diego into the largest Manpower franchise in the U.S. It is San Diego’s fourth largest for-profit employer providing approximately 2,500 jobs daily.

Watch Job Won and learn strategies and techniques to leverage your education and experience into a career you’re passionate about.

For more career videos, check out The Career Channel.

Innovation Crossroads

27683A little bit of The Atlantic Meets the Pacific in the spring this year.

Editor-at-large Steve Clemons presses Paul Jacobs of Qualcomm, Greg Lucier of Sanford-Burnham and Congressman Scott Peters on what San Diego does right and where it falls short in attracting the talent and capital needed to spur innovation in technology and the life sciences. One point of agreement – Washington needs to do better by San Diego, starting with immigration reform!

Check out this fascinating, candid conversation among some of the region’s most influential and interesting leaders. Watch Innovation Crossroads: Creating a Policy Climate for Global Innovation in San Diego.