Kqeds Forum

A new report this week from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change presents a brutal picture of the devastation already caused by human-created climate change. It is a dire warning about a worsening future without swift, dramatic action to reduce warming. To slow down the pace of climate change, the report says, we need to stop emitting carbon dioxide altogether and dramatically reduce other greenhouse gas emissions. Most of this we’ve known for a long time. But what will it actually take to make the change? In this hour we talk about actionable political, social and technological solutions to climate change.  

While 63% of Californians are now vaccinated against COVID-19, in many parts of the state health officials are struggling with how to convince those who are reluctant. Forum looks at the varied reasons for vaccine hesitancy by training a spotlight on Fresno county, where less than half of residents are fully vaccinated. We check in with residents about how they’re making vaccine decisions and talk with health officials about what they’re doing to change minds, address concerns and improve access.

The Dixie Fire, which has ravaged hundreds of thousands of acres in Northern California and leveled the town of Greenville, has become the second largest fire in state history. Of the ten fires with the widest acreage devastation in recorded California history, seven have taken place in the past three years. On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Siskiyou, Nevada and Plumas Counties. We provide the latest updates on Northern California’s fires, how the state is responding and what lies ahead.

Scientists project that Bay Area sea levels are likely to rise as much as seven feet by the end of this century, directly affecting the millions of people in homes and commercial spaces along the water. In response, cities across the region are grappling with how to afford the cost of defending their shorelines.  As Facebook and Google’s tech campuses expand even further into these vulnerable areas, calls are growing for the tech industry to provide more funding for building defenses. We discuss who should pay to protect Bay Area land from rising seas.

Deadlines inspire a range of reactions. For some, blood runs cold at the mere mention. Others claim their best work comes about when running against the clock — or they so they say as they procrastinate into the night. And still for others, a due date is a mere suggestion. We’ll explore the psychology that shapes our attitudes toward deadlines, as well as how industries focused on maximizing time and productivity can make matters worse for everyone. We want to hear how you tackle deadlines — just don’t wait until the last minute to tell us.

In the Oakland Museum of California’s new exhibition “Mothership: Voyage into Afrofuturism,” artists of all mediums imagine the world through a Black cultural lens. As such, “Afrofuturism” is represented in many different visuals, sounds and ideas throughout the exhibition, with one striking quote printed on a wall stating, “In Afrofuturism, science, magic, and the divine feminine are interconnected.” And for fans of funk group Parliament, you can even be “beamed up” by a replica of the mothership that was a mainstay of their live performances. We’ll talk with the show’s curators and one of the participating artists about the exhibition, which highlights author Octavia E. Butler, jazz musician Sun Ra, filmmaker Khalil Joseph and more.

"A tocsin that Americans then chose to ignore, its warnings remain strikingly relevant today." That's how New Yorker staff Jelani Cobb writer characterizes the landmark 1968 Kerner Commission report that analyzed the systemic racism that led to a dozen urban uprisings between 1964 and 1967. We'll talk to Cobb about "The Essential Kerner Commission Report" which re-examines and re-contextualizes its recommendations in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police. And we'll talk to Cobb about his new HBO documentary series "Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union" and how the former president shaped our national discourse on race.

Journalist Courtney Martin thought long and hard about where to send her budding kindergartener to school, deciding between private school or the neighborhood public school designated as “failing” by its test scores. The Oakland-based writer chronicles the experience in her new book, “Learning in Public: Lessons for a Racially Divided America From My Daughter’s School.” In choosing to send her white child to a majority-Black school, Martin comes to better understand the racial segregation still present within U.S. schools, and she analyzes why so many self-described progressive white parents still favor private schools. Martin joins us to share her thoughts on why supporting public education benefits us all.

Postpartum depression is not just the province of women. According to studies, about ten percent of men in the United States experience paternal postpartum depression during the first year of their baby's life. That depression can be expressed as irritability, anger and substance abuse, but it often goes undiagnosed. We talk about the latest research on paternal postpartum depression, the stigma associated with it and how to encourage fathers to seek support.

Janice Mirikitani, a beloved local icon who was San Francisco's second poet laureate and a co-founder of GLIDE, died last week at the age of 80. Known equally for her poetry and her fierce advocacy on behalf of San Francisco's most vulnerable residents, Mirikitani played a pivotal role in shaping the community and work of Glide Memorial Church, alongside her husband Cecil Williams. As a poet, she poignantly blended her art and activism, publishing four books including "Shedding Silence" and "We, The Dangerous." Mirikitani believed in "caring dangerously" saying in a talk at Glide Memorial Church in 2014 that "caring dangerously means that you dare to take the risk to open yourself up to somebody else." We'll reflect on the life and legacy of Janice Mirikitani.

More than 344 people died from accidental overdoses in San Francisco between January and June this year, according to the city’s chief medical examiner. Most of these overdoses involved fentanyl, a synthetic opiate that acts more quickly than heroin and is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. Fentanyl also caused the majority of 2020’s 710 overdose deaths. On Monday, San Francisco launched its Street Overdose Response Team, which provides resources and follow-up services for overdose survivors; the city also plans to allocate $13.2 million to additional overdose prevention efforts. We’ll talk about San Francisco’s response to the overdose crisis as well as its root causes.

“Right now,” writes Shugri Said Salh at the outset of her new memoir, “I should be married to an old nomadic man, leading a nasty-tempered camel through the desert in search of water.” That’s if war and family circumstances had not wrested Salh from her nomadic childhood in the Somali desert, sending her on a migratory journey that ended in Northern California. We’ll talk to Salh about her life’s arc as a goat herder, a refugee and a suburban mother of three -- and how her early nomadic years inform her daily life now.

With new evidence that the delta variant of COVID-19 is highly contagious and spreads as easily as chickenpox, questions and concerns are being raised by parents with children under 12 who are not yet eligible for vaccination. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control still recommend in-person learning for the return to school this fall, with both recommending all children over age 2 wear masks at school, regardless of vaccination status. We’ll speak with infectious disease expert Dr. Yvonne Maldonado about the latest on how the delta variant affects children and what precautions parents can take.

On the front lines of California’s raging wildfires, teams of incarcerated men and women work alongside free-world crews to stop our state’s increasingly dangerous forest fires. They make a fraction of the pay to confront the same dangers and show the same bravery. In a new book, Breathing Fire, Jaime Lowe paints a deep portrait of one group of incarcerated women firefighters, delving into how they got to prison, the dangerous work they do to get themselves out, and what happens when the fires end, and they’re back out in the world. We’ll talk with Lowe and two of the firefighters she chronicles in the book about life, inside and out.

For more than 100 years, the U.S. government forcibly relocated tens of thousands of Native American children to boarding schools under a federal assimilation program meant to suppress their languages, beliefs and identities. Historians estimate that by the early 20th century, more than three-quarters of all Native children attended one of more than 350 re-education schools, including an estimated 10 in California. In June, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland launched the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to investigate the loss of life, abuse and generational trauma associated with the schools. We’ll talk about the painful legacy of indigenous boarding schools in California and nationally.

Last fall, in search of a way to cope with his grief over the death of his fiancée eight years prior, Joshua Barbeau used artificial intelligence software to program a chatbot to simulate his fiancée, based on old texts she’d sent him. Barbeau told the San Francisco Chronicle that his conversations with the A.I. bot allowed him to feel a sense of closure and to better handle his grief. Barbeau isn’t the first to chat with digital imitations of lost loved ones, and as A.I software improves, he’s not likely to be the last. It’s all spawning ethics concerns and broader conversations around grief itself. We’ll talk about postmortem A.I. ethics and how A.I. might impact our mourning processes in the years to come.

Podcasts are booming, and it’s hard work to choose among the more than 2 million titles now available on popular streaming services like Spotify and iTunes. Whether your tastes veer toward pop culture, true crime or narrative storytelling, we want to hear from you. What’s the podcast you can’t stop telling your friends about? What do you look for in a podcast? We’ll hear your top picks and get recommendations from a panel of critics and podcasters.

On Thursday, U.S. gymnast Sunisa Lee won all-around gold as fellow gymnast and defending champion Simone Biles celebrated in the stands following her withdrawal from the event earlier this week. We’ll catch up on the big news--and the controversies around women’s uniforms and athlete mental health--in the first big week of the Olympics. And we hear how the Olympians with Bay Area ties are faring, including in mountain biking, softball, and swimming.

"It is 2020 and the City of Flint Says, / 'Don't boil the water' / And I refuse to drink a single drop / from any tap or bottle now. I've stopped / bathing completely, waiting for rain to slick / my skin back on. So begins Jonah Mixon-Webster's poem "Incubation," featured in his debut poetry collection, Stereo(TYPE). Initially published by Ahsahta Press in 2018 and re-published by Knopf Doubleday this month, "Stereo(TYPE)" describes Mixon-Webster's experiences and traumas endured as a Black queer man and criticizes the governmental neglect and treatment of his hometown, Flint, Michigan. In poems that vary in form and use words that overlap and span pages, balancing harshness with tenderness, Mixon-Webster's poetry collection explores what it means to tell one's story - and the story of one's community - through experiments in language.

A new poll by UC Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies shows that among likely voters, 47% favor the recall of Governor Gavin Newsom, and 50% oppose. While the referendum date is September 14th, mail-in voting starts next month and campaigning for and against the proposal is heating up across the state. We look at where the recall currently stands and how voter turnout might affect the outcome.