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Method To The Madness

Written by: KALX 90.7FM - UC Berkeley
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  • Summary

  • Celebrating the innovative spirit of the Bay Area - we explore the people behind the ideas, the problems they are trying to solve, and what makes them tick. Hosted by producers Ali Nazar and Lisa Kiefer. If you would like to contact the show, please feel free to email: ali at methodtothemadness dot org or lisamttm at gmail dot com.

    Transcriptions of these programs are available on this site dating back to 2018. The rest are coming soon. If you are interested in a transcription of an earlier episode, please contact us at mail at kalx dot berkeley dot edu.


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    KALX 90.7FM - UC Berkeley
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Episodes
  • Leila Salazar-Lopez

    Leila Salazar-Lopez
    Jan 17 2020
    Lisa Kiefer: [00:00:01] This is Method to the Madness, a bi-weekly public affairs show on K-A-L-X Berkeley celebrating Bay Area Innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer. And today, our first show of 2020 will feature Layla Salazar-Lopez, the executive director of Amazon Watch. Most people know what Amazon Watch is, but for some people who may not know, can you review the mission?Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:00:31] Sure. Thanks for having me. Amazon Watch is a Bay Area based nonprofit organization. We were founded in 1996. Our mission is to protect the Amazon rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon basin. The Amazon rainforest is the biggest tropical rainforest on the planet. Most people know and think of the Amazon as the lungs of the earth. All those trees, all of that life, absorbing carbon and producing rain for not just the Amazon, but for the world. This massive rainforest, an ecosystem, actually helps to create the weather systems throughout South America and also around the world. So it is a vital organ of the earth's ecosystem. And so we're working to protect the rainforest to avert climate chaos. And our theory of change is that the best way to do that is by working with, standing with, supporting the rights and the voices in the territories of indigenous peoples.Lisa Kiefer: [00:01:44] And is that because they live there, they are on the front lines of i?Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:01:48] Of course! indigenous peoples have been living in the Amazon rainforest for thousands of years, over 400 distinct nationalities, groups and even uncontacted peoples. Indigenous peoples in the Amazon and throughout the world are the best protectors of the natural places that we still have left on this planet. Eighty percent of the biodiversity around the world is on indigenous people's lands. So if we are concerned about climate change or chaos, I would say, or if we concern about the extinction crisis that we're facing, one of the best ways that we can do all we can to protect what we have left, is to support indigenous people's territories being protected. Those are the places that have the biodiversity and have the trees that create the much needed rain.Lisa Kiefer: [00:02:43] Well, you just got back from the Madrid climate summit, the 25th summit, and it was supposed to be in Brazil. And Bolonaro nixed that. And there have been many challenges, but it did come off. I wondered if you could give us sort of a a summary of what what you talked about.Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:03:00] You know, as you mentioned, COP 25, which is a conference of parties on climate change, world leaders, government leaders, elected leaders, negotiators that represent governments. Nearly 200 governments around the world attend the cops, plus civil society, NGOs, affected communities and also corporations. Unfortunately, the COP for decades has been primarily dominated by governments and corporations. That's why we've had 25 years of inactivity, really, of doing the minimum. And yes, we could praise the Paris Climate Agreement. Amazon Watch was there with indigenous peoples from around the world, from the Amazon to Alaska, to ensure that the voices of of the community that are most affected are heard. Our focus at COP 25 was to amplify the voices of indigenous peoples. There are very few spaces for indigenous peoples, people who are protecting biodiversity on our planet, for them to speak, for them to share their concerns and share their solutions. And so our mission is to ensure that they have a space not only to have space, but they are promoting their solutions and their solutions are heard. And one of those solutions is the Sacred Headwaters Initiative. So we released a report, at COP, a threat assessment on the sacred headwaters. And we spoke to global media and got a lot of attention on this region. It's in Ecuador and Peru, which is the most biodiverse part of the Amazon. It's Yasuni National Park. The scientists, the conservationists who are on the ground in the Yasuni, the indigenous peoples who live there, say that this is the most biodiverse part of the Amazon. It's under threat by massive oil development. This region, the tropical Andes region of the Amazon, is mega-biodiverse. We need our governments and true leaders to really take the action that's needed, right now, which is to make commitments to really take us off fossil fuels.Lisa Kiefer: [00:05:05] So what does the COP 25 conference hold people to?Leila Salazar-Lopez: [00:05:08] All of the governments, 196 countries have made commitments to reduce emissions. I mean, that's really the language spoken at COP, to reduce emissions, to deal with mitigation, adaptation. Governments have made commitments to reduce emissions. The big elephant in the room is what about stopping extraction? What about a phase out, a full phase out of fossil fuel extraction and a complete commitment to a transition to renewable energies, to renewable energy ...
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    31 mins
  • UC Berkeley Professor Gabriel Zucman

    UC Berkeley Professor Gabriel Zucman
    Nov 22 2019
    TranscriptLisa Kiefer: [00:00:03] This is method to the madness, a biweekly public affairs show on K-A-L-X Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host Lisa Kiefer. And today I'm speaking with Gabriel Zucman Professor of Economics and Public Policy here at UC Berkeley. He has just co-authored a book with Emmanuel Saez  called The Triumph of Injustice --How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay. Welcome to the program, Gabriel.Gabriel Zucman: [00:00:36] Thanks for having me.Lisa Kiefer: [00:00:37] Why did you write this book. What was the problem or problems you were trying to solve?Gabriel Zucman: [00:00:42] So the main problem is the rise of inequality in the US. So if you look for instance at what has happened to income concentration, in 1980, the top 1 percent highest earners in the U.S. earned about 10 percent of total U.S. national income today they earn 20 percent of U.S. national income. Now contrast that with what has happened for the working class for the bottom 50 percent of earners. They used to earn 20 percent of income and now about 12 percent. So essentially the top 1 percent and the bottom 50 percent have have switched their income share. And the reality of the U.S. today is that the 1 percent earns twice as much income in total than the bottom 50 percent a group that by definition is 50 times larger. So you have this huge level of inequality and this big increase in inequality and the tax system is a key institution to regulate inequality. And so we wanted to know OK does it do a good job? Does the tax system limit inequality or does it exacerbate the rise of inequality?Lisa Kiefer: [00:01:58] And as you say in your book all the way back to James Madison the whole point of taxes yes is to raise revenue but the other significant point was to reduce inequality.Gabriel Zucman: [00:02:07] Exactly.Lisa Kiefer: [00:02:08] And that's something that's been kind of forgotten since 1980.Gabriel Zucman: [00:02:11] That's been forgotten despite the fact that it's deeply rooted in American society. The U.S. was created in large part in reaction against the highly unequal aristocratic societies of of Europe in the 18th century and ever since, many people in the US have been concerned about becoming as unequal as Europe. Europe for a long time was perceived as as an anti model, too unequal, at least until the middle of the 20th century. Now it's the opposite, it's funny to see how these beliefs and perceptions have changed over time. Now many people in the US feel that Europe is too equal, but in fact for most of US history it was it was the opposite. The US invented some of the key progressive fiscal institutions designed to limit inequality to regulate inequality. Let me just give one example. In 1943 Franklin Roosevelt goes to Congress. He makes a famous speech. He says I think that no American should have an income after paying taxes of more than twenty five thousand dollars which is the equivalent of a few million dollars today. Therefore I propose to create a top marginal income tax rate of 100 percent above twenty five thousand dollars. And that's the idea of a legal maximum income. That's an American, a Roosevelt invention. And people in Congress they hesitate a little bit you know 100 percent, maybe it's too much, but they agree on 93 percent which when you think about it is that very far from 100 percent. And then the U.S. kept these very high modern 90 percent top marginal income tax rates for a long time. So there is this deeply rooted tradition in the U.S. of using the tax system to limit the concentration of income. The idea being that wealth is a good thing for the working class, for the middle class. It provides safety, provides security. But for the very rich,wealth is not safety or security. Wealth is power. And an extreme concentration of wealth means an extreme concentration of power, of political power, of economic power, which is detrimental to the rest of society and so one key function of the tax system is to prevent such a concentration of wealth and such a concentration of power from happening.Lisa Kiefer: [00:04:52] You've been consulting with Elizabeth Warren and others adopting pieces of some of the ideas that you had. How does Elizabeth Warren's plan, when you plug it into your model in the book, your 1980 model,what was the outcome of plugging in her wealth tax.Gabriel Zucman: [00:05:09] So Elizabeth Warren proposes to create a wealth tax at a rate of 2 percent above 50 million dollars and 6 percent above 1 billion dollars. So just let me explain what this would do. It means that if you have 50 million dollars in wealth or less, you pay zero. One of the things we do in the book we tried to imagine how the U.S. economy would have looked like if such a tax had been in place since 1982. So let me first start with what has happened to wealth concentration since 1982. If you look at the 400 richest Americans, you know Forbes magazine ...
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    36 mins
  • Ashley Grosh

    Ashley Grosh
    Oct 11 2019
    TranscriptLisa Kiefer: [00:00:06] This is Method to the Madness, a bi-weekly public affairs show on K A L X Berkeley celebrating innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer. And today, I'm speaking with Ashley Grosh, the CEO of PIP's Rewards. Thank you for coming on the show, Ashley. What is PIPs?Ashley Grosh: [00:00:36] So PIPs Rewards is an app and it's a technology platform that is owned and operated by our company 3P Partners. We call ourselves an impact tech company. What we really do is we turn a verifiable engagement in beneficial behaviors, things happening daily, riding your bike, bus riding, taking a workout class. All these beneficial behaviors that you might be doing throughout the day, we verify that and we award you our digital currency when you do those things. So Pip's is our digital currency, which stands for Positive Impact Points.Lisa Kiefer: [00:01:09] That's interesting. It sounds complex how you would measure this. So walk me through the application as a user. An example.Ashley Grosh: [00:01:18] Yeah. So from a user perspective, it's actually very lightweight and easy. You just would download the app in the app store for iPhone or Android. You download Pip's rewards. Today we're targeted in higher education, so you would use your university email through a single sign on. We would capture who you are. You'd set up an account and then you'd really begin to start using the platform. It takes you through a quick tutorial of what you need to do. You'd want to have your Bluetooth enabled and it shows you ways in which you can now start going out into the community and around campus and earning the currency. So a day in the life of a Pip's user, you may wake up in the morning, you fill up your water bottle, which has our little QR code sticker on it, which you may have gone to pick up an environmental center on campus. So you carry that water bottle with you. But when you fill it up, you take your phone out, you take a picture of your QR code and then you've earned 10 points. You can only refill your water bottle three times per day. So if you try to do that again, you'll get an error message. And that's really more just the behavior, we want you just to be in the habit of carrying that water bottle.Lisa Kiefer: [00:02:19] You don't want people scamming this system.Ashley Grosh: [00:02:20] That's right. So we set barriers in place to make sure that doesn't happen. So then let's say you're going to a study group in the morning, so you hop on one of the bike shares programs that's here on campus and we are automatically already integrated with that bike sharing platform. So when you check out that bike, we know who you are. We know you're on that bike. And all the sudden immediately our currency goes into your digital wallet with inside the app. And now you've earned for refilling your water bottle. Now you've taken a bike to a meeting and now you've earned again. Let's say you're coming back up to campus for a class in the afternoon and you hop on the bus. Well, now we have either a beacon or an API integration installed with the transit company, and you don't even have to have your phone out for this. In some cases, we might use near-field communication. So we're using a lot of technologies, right, to integrate innovative technologies. If we think about the connected city, smart cities. Right. All these things to track and measure. So you come back up the bus to class and then again in your digital wallet, you see your currency being added for that behavior. :et's say in the afternoon then, there's a speaker coming onto campus that's talking about climate finance on an environmental or health related topic. So let's say you go to that event and that's one of the activities that we award for. We also capture that you've gone to that event and you've earned our currency than you maybe go refill your water bottle again. Then you go into housing and dining. You go have some lunch and let's say you brought your own silverware. So let's say you brought your own bamboo silverware and then let's say you're composting and you're doing all these things. We have different mechanisms to capture that as well within the dining hall. And if if the campus is interested in financial literacy, then students can take EDquity financial literacy modules and earn our currency. I'm giving you kind of a flavor, right, of you go about your day and you're earning all this currency.Lisa Kiefer: [00:04:08] And it's very transparent to the user, it sounds like.Ashley Grosh: [00:04:11] Yeah, it happens in real time. So you can see your digital dashboard in your wallet.Lisa Kiefer: [00:04:15] What is a a data point worth?Ashley Grosh: [00:04:17] So that's a great point. So one pip is worth one cent. And so then we we do this, you know, kind of carbon pricing on your actions. So when you're refilling a water bottle, you may only get 10 pips for that. But if you're riding the bus. Right, that's got a bigger implication in ...
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    31 mins
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