Past Events

Dr. Baumgartner describes how a warming climate some 20 million years ago led to the emergence of the famous grasslands of Kenya and other areas of East Africa. The introduced a better and more abundant form of nutrition for many creatures. The shift from forest/jungle to grasslands promoted species diversity and evolution, including that of our earliest human ancestors. Dr. Baumgartner explains how scientists use fossils to reconstruct the complex historical record of the Miocene.

Quiara Alegría Hudes tells her lyrical story of coming of age against the backdrop of a Philadelphia barrio, with her sprawling Puerto Rican family as a collective muse. She was awed by her aunts and uncles and cousins, but haunted by the secrets of the family and the unspoken, untold stories of the barrio—the sea of language around her, written and spoken, English and Spanish. Hudes has since found her language, and in this powerful work, “her sentences will take your breath away. How lucky we are to have her telling our stories,” said Lin-Manuel Miranda, award-winning creator of Hamilton. Hudes is joined by journalist Maria Hinojosa, whose work has informed millions about the changing cultural and political landscape in America and abroad. Image: book cover RESOURCES Explore the work of Quiara Alegría Hudes http://www.quiara.com/mybrokenlanguage Purchase Quiara’s memoir from Porter Square Books https://www.portersquarebooks.com/eve... Maria Hinojosa is the founder of Futuro Media Group https://www.futuromediagroup.org/mari... Check out Latino USA https://www.latinousa.org/ In the Thick podcast https://www.inthethick.org/ Emancipated Stories is a collection of writing and art by those behind bars. http://www.quiara.com/emancipatedstories Explore the work of Melinda Lopez http://www.melindalopez.com/ Huntington Theater https://www.huntingtontheatre.org/

The 100-day mark is an important yardstick for assessing a modern President’s performance. It has traditionally been the “honeymoon” period, providing a window of opportunity for new administrations to move campaign promises from rhetoric to reality. Although most Americans can’t seem to agree on much these days, we can probably agree that these are atypical times, and that makes Biden’s “honeymoon” a complex one. The Biden-Harris administration faces numerous historic challenges at home and abroad, all while attempting to move its agenda forward. Join Dr. Esther Choo, a health policy researcher; Joel Clement, Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Julie Kashen, director for women's economic justice at The Century Foundation; and Jonathan Gruber, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The panel discusses where the Biden administration has and has not made headway and what comes next. POLITICO White House correspondent Eugene Daniels moderates the discussion. ## Resources: Read Joel Clement’s “Biden Deletes Trump’s Climate Negligence with a Single Event,” [here](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-deletes-trumps-climate-negligence-with-a-single-event/ar-BB1g4bQZ ). Learn about the [American Rescue Plan](https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/fact-sheet-the-american-rescue-plan-will-deliver-immediate-economic-relief-to-families). Read Dr. Choo’s Suffolk Journal article on [Racism in Public Healthcare](https://thesuffolkjournal.com/33332/news/renowned-physician-speaks-on-racism-during-the-pandemic-within-healthcare/). Check out Julie Kasha’s commentary on “[Why Caregiving is key to Biden’s American Jobs and Families Plan](https://tcf.org/content/commentary/caregiving-key-bidens-american-jobs-families-plan/).” You can check out this Facts Sheet on the American Jobs Plan, [here](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/31/fact-sheet-the-american-jobs-plan/). Learn about the long-term financial impact of COVID-19 from in [the Pew Research Center's report](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/03/05/a-year-into-the-pandemic-long-term-financial-impact-weighs-heavily-on-many-americans/) .

Many of the problems we face in the world today – the global pandemic, the economic crisis, political violence of the kind that rocked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 – are the result of our severe information disorder. How do we create a universe of truthful and verifiable information, available to everyone? We are swimming in a sea of lies, but what can we do about it? MIT Open Learning’s Peter Kaufman has some suggestions. For starters, it might be time to think anew about our rights to knowledge, our approach to the public sphere, and our concept of information and the public good. In his book, The New Enlightenment And The Fight To Free Knowledge, Kaufman fills us in on the history of knowledge and the price that was exacted to disseminate it. What can we do to counter the powerful forces that have purposely crippled our efforts to share knowledge widely and freely?

Dr. Lieberman is a leading authority on the evolution of human language. In this discussion, he explains how the cognitive and physical apparatus for language evolved. He addresses the distinction between human language and the communication systems of diverse animals. He also discusses the issue of whether Neanderthals developed real language. Image: Belmont Media Center

Amid conversations around budget and services cuts for the MBTA, advocates, transit administrators and policymakers are asking the question: Can free buses save public transportation in Massachusetts? Hear from panelists Vineet Gupta, Director of Transportation for the City of Boston, Laurel Paget-Seekins, a public transportation expert formerly of the MBTA, and Martha Velez, the City of Lawrence’s Director of Health and Human Services and point person on its free bus program. The fare free movement is gaining momentum on Beacon Hill and in Gateway Cities like Lawrence and Worcester. Many are touting free fares as a way to make public transit more accessible to low income riders, and increase the use of public transit, which took a big hit during the pandemic. Is it time to change the way we provide public transportation? What is the impact on riders, cities, and transit agencies? Can we afford to do it?

Debra Lee is the former CEO of Black Entertainment Television, and she is known as a disruptor and as a champion for change. She joins BPL President David Leonard to share lessons learned from her career as one of very few African American women who has served on an executive or board leadership level for a multi-national brand. Lee provides essential approaches for individuals and organizations to thrive and triumph in a constantly changing world. ## Resources This is the first time we have talked so much about race in a board room. Four hundred signatories added their names to [this letter to the NY Times & WSJ.](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/business/voting-rights-georgia-corporations.html) [The Monarch's Collective ](https://huntscanlon.com/monarchs-collective-launches-to-boost-leadership-diversity/) One of Debra’s heroes: [Constance Baker Motley](https://www.uscourts.gov/news/2020/02/20/constance-baker-motley-judiciarys-unsung-rights-hero )

We are last minute arrivals to the region of the Earth where life can be found and thrives: the biosphere. The 3.8 billion year history of the Earth shows to this day that life — particularly microbial — has been the consistent major contributor to building features of the biosphere, giving us rocky landscapes, myriad ecosystems, healthy soils, oxygenated air, and the cyclic flow of key elements. Ecologists Doug Zook and David Morimoto examine how the biosphere is the story of connections and reciprocating systems over extraordinary long distances. Doug will share examples from the science known as "global ecology" and David will moderate the discussion. Photo: Doug Zook ### Resources from our speakers National Geographic, [a definition of the biosphere](https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/biosphere/) NASA [Earth Observatory](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/7279/bodele-depression-dust-feeds-amazon) Nature, [“African dust keeps Amazon blooming”](https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100809/full/news.2010.396.html) University of Maryland and Geophysical Research, [“Massive Amounts of Saharan Dust Fertilize the Amazon RainforestMassive Amounts of Saharan Dust Fertilize the Amazon Rainforest”](https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/features/2822) US Geological Survey, [“Iron oxide minerals in dust-source sediments from the Bodélé Depression, Chad: Implications for radiative properties and Fe bioavailability of dust plumes from the Sahara”](https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70185032) Stetson University Geology Research Dept., [“Florida Formations: Shifting Sea and Sediment”](https://www.stetson.edu/other/gillespie-museum/media/Florida%20Formations%20EXHIBIT%20TEXT-FULL%20for%20website.pdf) Science Director: [Coccolithophore](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/coccolithophore)

Fourteen days after a mob stormed the Capitol attempting to “stop the steal,” President Biden declared in his Inaugural Address that we must “end this Uncivil War” threatening our democracy. Hyperpolarization, partisan tribalism, the politics of outrage, incivility, refusal to compromise and truth decay have led to a state of division and politically motivated violence we’ve not seen since the Civil War. GBH News political reporter Mike Deehan moderates a discussion with U.S. Congressman Jim McGovern, political scientist Lilliana Mason, and political strategist Ron Christie on what can be done to turn the temperature down, answer President Biden’s call for “unity” and focus on the urgent business of governing our nation. ## Resources Learn about partisan protest trends, [here](https://www.voterstudygroup.org/blog/has-american-partisanship-gone-too-far) . Look at [Executive Orders organized by date and administration](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/executive-orders) . See George McGovern’s party reforms, [here](https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-McGovern) . Read about the [bipartisan danger of dehumanizing language](https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/pro-trump-capitol-riot-violence-underscores-bipartisan-danger-dehumanizing-language-ncna1254530) . Learn about the link between polarization and civic education in [Ron Christie’s article](https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2020/07/03/civics-courses-can-help-diffuse-our-nations-explosive-divisions/3281063001/ ) . Read Lilliana’s article, [“Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, & What It Means for Democracy.”](https://nathankalmoe.com/radical-american-partisanship/)

The accelerating Arctic and Antarctic glacial melts will affect sea levels and land masses in different areas of the globe unevenly – and often far from the polar regions. Natalya Gomez, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at McGill University discusses the impacts of the glacial melts. Image: [Belmont Media Center](https://scienceforthepublic.org/earth/the-long-reach-of-polar-glacial-melts)