On today’s Your Call’s One Planet Series, entomologist professor Doug Tallamy, TA Baker Professor of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Delaware, joins us to discuss his book, “Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard.”
Tallamy says we can no longer tolerate actions that degrade our local environment. We must now act collectively to put our ecosystems back together again. What actions can we take to heal our damaged landscapes right now, starting in our backyards and urban spaces?
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for Dr. Tallamy? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
On today’s Your Call Media Roundtable, we’ll get the latest on the wildfires in the greater Los Angeles area from Noah Haggerty, environment, health and science reporter at the Los Angeles Times.
So far, at least 10 people have died, and nearly 180,000 have been ordered to leave their homes around Los Angeles as five fires continue to burn. Officials say, more than 9,000 homes and other structures have been damaged or destroyed in the Palisades and Eaton fires.
Then we discuss a recent expose by Propublica about how UnitedHealth is strategically limiting access to a treatment for thousands of children with autism across the country. Reporter Annie Waldman, ProPublica health reporter, joins us for the details.
ProPublica has obtained what is effectively the company’s strategic playbook, developed by Optum, the division that manages mental health benefits for United. In internal reports, the company acknowledges that the therapy, called applied behavior analysis, is the “evidence-based gold standard treatment for those with medically necessary needs.”
But the company’s costs have climbed as the number of children diagnosed with autism has ballooned; experts say greater awareness and improved screening have contributed to a fourfold increase in the past two decades — from 1 in 150 to 1 in 36.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
I’m guest hosting today’s Your Call, where Dr. Michael Greger, founding member and fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and founder of NutritionFacts.org, will discuss the crucial role food plays in determining health outcomes.
Though dietary choices have the power to prevent, treat, and even reverse the progression of deadly diseases, few people understand how to make the best decisions for themselves amidst a constant stream of conflicting nutritional information. Dr. Greger empowers individuals to improve their health by sharing the benefits of a whole-food, plant-based diet. What do we need to know to eat healthier for ourselves and the planet?
Dr. Greger is an internationally recognized speaker on nutrition, and author of many books, including How Not to Die, How Not to Diet, and his latest, How Not to Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guest? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
Happy 2025! For the first State of the Bay of the year, I’ll talk to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Sophia Bollag about the new laws Californians must follow now.
Then Berkeley’s new Mayor Adina Ishii will take questions about her priorities. What do you think her priorities should be? What questions do you have for her? Email us at stateofthebay@kalw.org.
Finally, we’ll meet San Francisco’s new poet laureate Genny Lim.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live tonight at 6pm PT. Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
On tonight’s State of the Bay: could warnings on social media platforms help protect young people’s mental health? We’ll discuss with:
- James Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense Media
- California Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda)
- Author and psychologist Dr. Jean Twenge explore the potential impact of AB 56, a new bill aiming to hold platforms accountable.
Then we’ll talk to Shomik Mukherjee of the Bay Area News Group about into Oakland’s deepening budget woes and the challenges facing its leadership.
Finally, step into the holiday season with a festive preview of the Bay Area’s beloved Great Dickens Christmas Fair, featuring insights from CEO Kevin Patterson and actor Shelby Bond!
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live tonight at 6pm PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
On today’s Your Call Media Roundtable, I’ll be guest hosting a discussion of an investigation by the San Francisco Public Press: Exposed: The Human Radiation Experiments at Hunters Point. It details how the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, based at a shipyard in San Francisco, exposed at least 1,073 dockworkers, military personnel, lab employees and others to radiation in technical exercises and medical experiments early in the Cold War.
Joining us for the hour will be Chris Roberts, award winning investigative journalist.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guest? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
I’m guest hosting today’s Your Call, when we’ll start with a debrief on San Francisco’s election results with the reporting team of Mission Local – and look ahead to 2025.
Daniel Lurie assumes office as San Francisco’s 46th mayor on Jan. 8. He’ll arrive to find a $867 million budget deficit on his doorstep. And that could spike to $1 billion if Trump decides to withhold federal funds promised to the city.
Lurie beat out incumbent mayoral candidate London Breed by 10 percentage points in the second round of ranked choice voting. The new mayor-elect and Levi Strauss heir’s campaign was largely self-funded, and this will be his first time ever holding political office. So what glimpses has he shown the public so far of how he will govern?
Joining us will be Joe Eskenazi, managing editor for Mission Local, and Kelly Waldron, reporter at Mission Local.
Then later in the show, we’ll talk about about rising hunger and a drop in donations to Bay Area food banks. The leaders of 5 major food banks — San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano, Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, Redwood Empire Food Bank and Alameda County Community Food Bank — held a joint press conference last week. Together, those organizations provided enough food for 270-million meals last year.
We’ll discuss with Lauren Lathan Reid, CEO of the California Association of Food Banks, and Liz Gomez, chief impact officer at the Alameda County Community Food Bank, and 2023 Bay Area Jefferson Award winner.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guest? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
I’m guest hosting today’s Your Call at 10am PT, when we’ll discuss what Donald Trump’s return to the White House means for US nuclear policy and worldwide anti-proliferation efforts.
The US has over 5,000 nuclear warheads, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Just one of those bombs could destroy a city. Trump’s allies want to build more.
Project 2025, the playbook led by the Heritage Foundation to guide Trump’s second term, recommends significantly ramping up the nation’s nuclear arsenal. It also wants Trump to pave the way to restart nuclear bomb testing in Nevada — something the US hasn’t done since 1992.
Our guest will be national security expert Joe Cirincione, who writes that we’re embarking on a new and dangerous nuclear era worldwide, one in which Trump will once again have “the unfettered ability to launch nuclear weapons whenever he wants, for whatever reason.”
Mr. Cirincione is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, former president of Ploughshares Fund, and author of “Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late.”
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live at 10am PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guest? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
Tonight on State of the Bay, we’ll hear from CLEE’s Louise Bedsworth and Isabel Rewick, both of whom took part in this year’s United Nations climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.
AND we interview Assemblymember Damon Connolly, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, and Senator Scott Wiener about how new Trump administration policies might impact life here in the Bay Area.
PLUS, we’ll get advice from Luisa Smith of Book Passage on the perfect gift for the booklover on your holiday list.
Tune in at 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area or stream live tonight at 6pm PT. What comments or questions do you have for our guests? Call 866-798-TALK to join the conversation!
Yesterday I appeared on two radio shows, now available for streaming or podcast download. First, on KQED Forum, I was on a panel discussing what climate efforts may look like during a Trump Administration, and how California will respond. Joining me was:
- Lisa Friedman, reporter on the climate desk, New York Times
- Jesse Jenkins, assistant professor, engineering, Princeton University
- Aru Shiney-Ajay, Executive Director, Sunrise movement, a grassroots organization of students and young people focused on climate change
You can stream it here.
Then last night I hosted State of the Bay on KALW, where I spoke to UC Berkeley Professor of Chemistry Omar Yaghi about a newly developed carbon-capturing material that has the potential to transform how we address climate change.
Then, we broke down local election results and discussed what they tell us about the priorities and concerns of Bay Area residents with San Francisco Chronicle opinion columnist and editorial writer, Emily Hoeven.
And finally, we talked with Rae Black of Oakland’s For the Win Boxing, a boxing gym that offers professional coaching for women and non-binary people who want to pursue “the sweet science” of boxing.
You can listen to that show here.
