President Obama and his party are heading opposite ways over the proposed trade deal with Asia known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Also, a Pew study released this week shows that millennials have now surpassed Gen Xers as the largest generation in the U.S. labor force. Then, author David McCullough tackles the progression to the airplane in his latest book, “The Wright Brothers.”
Next steps after peculiar role reversal by Democrats on the Trans-Pacific Partnership
President Obama and his party are heading opposite ways over the proposed trade deal with Asia known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Yesterday, all but one Democratic Senator voted against the fast-track authority the White House says is essential to the deal's passage. The vote displayed the growing power of the progressive, anti-free trade, wing of the Democratic party. It also left the President in the odd position of being caught in a dispute between the parties, while standing on the side of Congressional Republicans.
Will a compromise be reached allowing a straight up or down vote on the pact? Is the deal's only chance for passage the fast-track up and down vote the President wants?
Guests:
Mireya Solis, Philip Knight Chair in Japan Studies and a senior fellow on foreign policy in the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution
Shane Larson, legislative director for the Communications Workers of America, a labor union representing 700,000 workers in telecom, media, airlines, and manufacturing
It’s a generational thing: How millennials are changing the workplace
A Pew Research study released this week shows that millennials have now surpassed Gen Xers as the largest generation in the U.S. labor force.
This news raises the question of what do millennials want from the workplace and how can businesses better retain their millennial employees? Jamie Gutfreund is the chief marketing officer for Deep Focus, a global marketing agency and a leading expert on millennials. Gutfreund joins us to discuss how organizations can market to the next generation of talent and what they can do to better understand and keep their millennial workforce engaged.
Are you a millennial in the workforce? What do you want? More flex time? Work from home? Better benefits? We want to hear from you.
Guest:
Jamie Gutfreund, Chief Marketing Officer for Deep Focus, a global marketing agency and expert on Gen. Y, Millennials, and Gen. Z
How to talk to children about weight
A study published this week by NYU examines the way parents perceive the weight of their children, and how those perceptions have changed over the years.
It turns out that since the 1980s, the likelihood that parents correctly perceive their children as underweight, overweight or just right, has declined by 30 percent. It raises important questions about how we approach the issue of weight with children.
Many believe there’s been a backlash against increased awareness about eating disorders that’s resulted in parents avoiding the topic with young children. On the other hand, years of talk about an obesity problem also cloud the issue. It’s a difficult topic for many families to broach.
Have you had to talk to you child about weight? Or did your parents talk to you about gaining or losing weight, or just making health choice as a child? What advice do you have?
Guest:
Janet Tomiyama, assistant professor of health psychology at UCLA
Nestlé Waters CEO isn't stopping bottling in California, says new tech will save millions of gallons
“Absolutely not. In fact, if I could increase it, I would.”
This was the answer Nestlé Waters North America CEO Tim Brown gave when Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, asked him whether he would ever consider moving his company's bottling operations out of California during an interview on Wednesday with Larry Mantle on AirTalk.
"If I stop bottling water tomorrow," said Brown, "people would buy another brand of bottled water. As the second largest bottler in the state, we’re filling a role many others aren’t filling. It’s driven by consumer demand, it’s driven by an on-the-go society that needs to hydrate. Frankly, we’re very happy [consumers] are doing it in a healthier way.”
As the Golden State wheezes its way through a historic drought, criticism for bottled water companies operating factories here has been harsh. Just over a week after a Mother Jones investigation, Starbucks announced that it would be moving bottling operations for its Ethos Water brand from California to Pennsylvania because of severe drought conditions. A day before the Mother Jones story broke, Brown wrote an op-ed in the San Bernardino Sun on why the bottled water industry isn't contributing to the drought.
On Tuesday, Nestlé said that it is investing $7 million on technology and upgrades that would turn its Modesto milk factory into a “zero water” by extracting water from the milk production process and using it in factory operations.
“We have these cooling towers [for milk] that use water,” says Brown. “Previously, that would have been fresh water that we would’ve drawn out of the municipal supply. Now, we can use our own water that had come previously from the milk. That water, normally, would’ve gone into the waste stream. Now it can be reused or recycled.”
Brown says Nestlé outfitted its factory in Jalisco, Mexico with the "zero water" technology last year and doing so at the Modesto factory will save almost 63 million gallons of water annually. He added that they've found another 26 million gallons they could save a year at Nestlé USA plants in Bakersfield and Tulare.
"That's adaptation," says Brown. "Regardless of whether we were in the bottled water business or not, we would need to be doing things like this to operate in a water-scarce environment."
Famiglietti, who teaches Earth system science at UC Irvine in addition to being NASA JPL's top water scientist, says Nestlé has a strong reputation when it comes to environmental stewardship. But he says bottling water still takes 30 to 50 percent more water than turning on the tap, and he's concerned companies like Nestlé or Starbucks might be using and bottling thousands of acre-feet of water in California.
Famiglietti warns that while it may not seem like much, it's more than a drop in the bucket.
“An acre-foot [nearly 326,000 gallons] is enough water to supply an entire family for a year. So, in this time when we’re being asked to flush our toilets less and less, we have to ask the question: Is this really an environmentally, ethically correct thing to be doing right now?”
Still, Nestlé’s Brown says being water-conscious extends far beyond the bottled water industry.
“Everybody in every facet of water in California has to find better design, better use, better ways to be more efficient. We have to look at design and how we touch water in a water scarce environment. There’s been 17 droughts in the last 48 years. We’re in this one, there will be more, and we all have to look at how water is going to move throughout the state.”
The upgrades to Nestlé's Modesto plant are expected to be finished by the end of 2016. Nestlé Waters North America has five bottled water facilities in the state of California, and its brands include Arrowhead, Pure Life, Poland Spring, and Deer Park.
Meanwhile, as the drought here in California trickles on, Famiglietti suggests that the greater problem lies not in the bottled water industry or even in the drought.
“I think that we also have, with the greater water crisis here that we face in California, a human behavior problem. We need to change our behavior with respect to water and our understanding of how much water we actually have available to us, not only in California, but around the country.”
Guests:
Jay Famiglietti, hydrologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a professor of Earth System Science at UC Irvine
Tim Brown, CEO of Nestlé Waters North America
NOVA special examines carbon emission impacts on Earth’s oceans
Earth’s atmosphere is seeing historically high carbon emission levels.
Carbon dioxide emissions are released when we breathe, drive cars, or fly in planes. We’re all experiencing the effects of climate change from emissions on land, but what are the effects off land, in our oceans?
PBS’s program NOVA takes a closer look into how carbon emissions have influenced a coral garden in Papua New Guinea, and if new scientific discoveries will be able to reverse damages done by decades of air pollution.
Mark Green, professor in the Natural Sciences Department at Saint Joseph’s College is featured in the upcoming NOVA special Lethal Seas on PBS. Green joins us to discuss his work studying marine life and whether ocean life will be able to endure the long-term effects of carbon emissions.
NOVA’s Lethal Seas premieres tonight (May 13) on KOCE (PBS) at 9 pm.
Guest:
Mark Green, Professor Natural Sciences Department at Saint Joseph’s College in Maine
Author David McCullough gives flight to the Wright Brothers’ story
Historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian David McCullough has gained notoriety for his writing on the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and Panama Canal. He tackles the progression to the airplane in his latest book, “The Wright Brothers.”
It’s been a little over 100 years since the Wright Brothers flew for the first time. Through their hardwork and determination, McCullough unfolds practical life lessons of true grit and how to handle failure. The brothers did everything themselves without financial backers or a college education.
Often overlooked in this monumental American story, their sister Katharine Wright is put into the limelight for the first time. Who at one point took a leave of absence from a teaching job to take care of Orville after a terrible crash at Fort Meyer, which ultimately saved his life. From missing teeth, cheating death to dealing with global fame McCullough offers an in depth look into the brothers’ journey of flight.
Guest:
David McCullough, author of “The Wright Brothers” (Simon and Schuster, 2015); two-time Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom