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Cambridge Forum

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Cambridge Forum hosts free, public discussions that inform and engage, so that people can better explore the varied issues and ideas that shape our changing world. CF broadcasts its live events via podcasts, weekly NPR shows and online presentations via GBH Forum Network on YouTube.

http://www.cambridgeforum.org

Modeling the Impact of Sea Level Change (Audio)

Thu, Jan 28, 2010

Paul Kirshen examines the threat of rising sea levels brought about by climate change, and discusses how serious the threat is. An internationally recognized expert in integrated water resources management, he has developed detailed models mapping the impact of sea level rise on coastal communities in New England, Florida, and California. Kirshen has been conducting research on climate change since 1988 and leads an initiative to develop a climate change adaptation practice that will address the multidimensional impacts of climate change. This talk is part of Cambridge Forum's After Copenhagen: Global Climate Change Conference, recorded by Steve MacAusland. Photo: [Klem@s/Flicker](https://www.flickr.com/photos/klemas/4136180558 "")

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Arctic Warming: Risks for Methane Emissions

Thu, Jan 28, 2010

Dr. Ronald Prinn, TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science, shares the result of his project measuring the rates of change in atmospheric concentrations of trace greenhouse gases. After more than 30 years of research, he and his colleagues recently noted an unexplained increase in methane concentrations which led them to reconsider the impact of methane vis-a-vis climate change. He outlines those risks in his discussion of "Arctic Warming: Risks for Methane Emissions, Sea Ice Loss, and Ocean Overturn." This talk is part of Cambridge Forum's After Copenhagen: Global Climate Change Conference, recorded by Steve MacAusland.

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Daniel Mendelsohn and Charles McGrath on Criticizing Creativity

Wed, Mar 17, 2010

Literary and cultural critic Daniel Mendelsohn and former editor of *The New York Times Book Review* Charles McGrath examine the ways in which criticism itself becomes a creative act.

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Marcia Bartusiak and Lisa Randall: Science and Creativity

Wed, Apr 7, 2010

Marcia Bartusiak and Lisa Randall explore the creative inspiration involved in scientific research and science writing. Marcia Bartusiak is an acclaimed science journalist, and has written a number of books on the history of science. Her most recent book, *The Day We Found the Universe*, describes the day in 1925 when 35-year-old Edwin Hubble announced the observation that ultimately established that our universe was a thousand trillion times larger than previously believed, filled with myriad galaxies like our own. This discovery dramatically reshaped how humans understood their place in the cosmos, and once and for all laid to rest the idea that the Milky Way galaxy was alone in the universe. Six years later, continuing research by Hubble and others forced Albert Einstein to renounce his own cosmic model and finally accept the astonishing fact that the universe was not immobile but instead expanding. Lisa Randall is both a writer and an expert in particle physics and string theory who has done groundbreaking work on the physics that lies beyond the so-called "Standard Model of particle physics," including theories about extra dimensions of space. Her most recent book, *Warped Passages*, takes us into the incredible world of warped, hidden dimensions that underpin the universe we live in, describing how we might prove their existence, while examining the questions that they still leave unanswered. It provides an overview that tracks the arc of discovery from early 20th century physics to the razor's edge of today's particle physics and string theory, unweaving the current debates about relativity, quantum mechanics, and gravity.

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Prospects for a Two State Solution in the Middle East

Thu, May 6, 2010

Husam Zomlot, a widely acclaimed expert on peace solutions in culturally divided conflicts explores current prospects for a two state solution in the Middle East. Are there ways to develop greater mutual understanding in the region? What are the prospects that can be pursued successfully?

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The Onion: Comedy’s Creative Power to Persuade

Wed, May 12, 2010

*The Onion* sends Sports Editor John Krewson and Features Editor Joe Garden talk about "Comedy's Creative Power to Persuade." The award-winning and trenchantly funny publication is the focus of the final program in Cambridge Forum's series of "Conversations on Creativity" led by Dr. Sasha Helper. Krewson and Garden examine the place of comedy in our public discourse in an era when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are the news sources of choice for a generation of citizens. *The Onion* began in 1988 as a college-based satirical publication and grew to become a national multimedia news platform that received a Peabody award in April 2009. How do its writers and editors balance news and comedy to craft stories that are persuasive enough to be taken seriously by governments around the world while leaving its readers laughing out loud? *The Onion* was founded by Tim Keck and Christopher Johnson in 1988 when the two were juniors at the University of Wisconsin--Madison. Its initial success was limited to a small number of cities and towns with major universities--Madison, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Boulder. The creation of its website in 1996 brought it national attention. As it broke through to the mass market in 2000, Comedy Central approached it for a buyout that would take the satirical tabloid to New York City and broaden its reach into other forms of media--books, blogs, tweets, and now an iPhone app. In April 2007, The Onion launched "The Onion News Network," a web video sendup of 24-hour TV news which won a Peabody award in 2009. More than 3 million people read *The Onion* each week in print and online.

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Excerpt from The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the 21st Century

Wed, Feb 11, 2009

Jacqueline Olds and Richard Schwartz discuss the previously un-reported American epidemic of living in social isolation in their new book, The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the 21st Century. Why do 25% of Americans report that they have talked to no one about anything important in the last six months? How do contemporary American lifestyle and work place demands lead to social isolation? What are the negative affects - on children, physical health, the environment - of so many people living lonely lives? Are there remedies? **Jacqueline Olds** and **Richard Schwartz** are both Associate Clinical Professors of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Olds teaches child psychiatry and Dr. Schwartz teaches adult psychiatry at McLean and Massachusetts General Hospital. They both are psychoanalysts and have written two other books, Overcoming Loneliness in Everyday Life and Marriage in Motion. Married to each other and with two grown children, they each maintain a private practice in Cambridge, MA.

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World on the Edge: Preventing Environemtnal and Economic Collapse

Wed, Feb 9, 2011

Environmentalist Lester Brown has been assessing the health of the earth's ecosystems for more than two decades. Over that time he has seen increasing signs of break-down until we are now facing issues of near overwhelming complexity and unprecedented urgency. Can we change direction before we go over the edge? In his book *World on the Edge*, Brown attempts to answer that question by systemically laying out both the challenges and the potential policy solutions.

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Yellow: Decoding Emily Dickinson

Thu, Feb 24, 2011

The Amherst poet Emily Dickinson remains an enigmatic and therefore fascinating figure in American literature and popular culture. While the poetic genius of the “woman in white” is widely recognized, the person behind the poems remains a mystery. Biographers, most recently Lyndall Gordon in *Lives Like Loaded Guns*, have looked to the data of history–-letters, memoirs, etc.–-to explain Dickinson. Others have looked to her poetry as a code to her personality and hidden inner life. In 1962 Swiss-born Hans Werner Luescher wrote to T.J. Wilson, then Director of Harvard University Press, “In the course of my painstaking analysis of the symbols, similes, and parables contained in Emily Dickinson’s poems, I have come to discover the central fact of the life of the poet.” **Lynn Margulis**, famously applying her unique scientific perspective to her favorite poet, responds to Luescher’s lifework “decoding Dickinson.” How is Luescher’s work related to Amherst scholar, Ruth Owen Jones’, far more reliable identification of Emily’s Master figure? How did Margulis, the evolutionist, become interested in Dickinson anyway?

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Howard Zinn and the Freedom to Write

Sun, Oct 3, 2010

PEN-New England pays tribute to Howard Zinn's legacy of support for small presses and young writers with a panel discussion featuring writers and editors reflecting on his influence on their careers and their publishing houses. In the 60's Zinn's defiant writing built and extended the anti-war movement from shore to shore. His legacy of anti-establishment books, from the landmark *The People's History of the United States* to his final work, *Three Plays: the Political Theater of Howard Zinn*, he gave voice, credit, and visibility to those most often denied their voice in history, in their communities, in their own lives.

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