Category: Speaker

John Montgomery

June 28, 2015

The “B” Economy has continued to spread since John Montgomery’s last presentation to the Humanist Community on June 1, 2014. 27 US jurisdictions (26 states and DC) have adopted benefit corporation legislation with 14 others currently considering it. A benefit corporation is a for profit corporation that must balance the interests of stockholders, society and the environment. A California benefit corporation, for example, must provide a material positive impact on society and the environment.

Since the first benefit corporation law was passed in Maryland in 2010, over 2000 benefit corporations have been formed in the US. In addition, there are now more than 1,300 Certified B Corporations, businesses that have passed B Lab’s Certified B Corporation assessment, in about 40 countries. And there are now two publicly listed Certified B Corporations, Rally Software and Etsy, both of which must convert into Delaware benefit corporations by 2017 in order to maintain their Certified B Corporation certification. It’s just a matter of time before we have our first publicly traded benefit corporation in the US.

Soon, we will have a clear choice between doing business with and in corporations that are legally committed to doing the right thing by stockholders, society and the environment and those that are legally committed to maximizing profit for stockholders and externalizing as many of the negative costs of corporate behavior on society and the environment as possible. Please join us for an update on recent developments in the rapidly emerging B Economy.

Humanist Community Forum (2015-06-28): The Benefit Corporation Revisited (John Montgomery) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

 

Leah Nutting

June 21, 2015

Attorney Leah Nutting will discuss the constitutional and cultural issues currently before the U.S. Supreme Court in the same-sex marriage equality cases, as well as other issues on the legal front affecting the LGBT community, including employment discrimination, “religious freedom” laws, and issues impacting transgender persons. The discussion will touch upon her recent Amicus work on the Board of Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom (BALIF), the nation’s oldest and largest LGBT bar association. Over the past year, BALIF filed amicus briefs challenging same-sex marriage bans around the country, culminating in their amicus brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in March 2015.

In order to view the video of this Forum, please enter the password:

the2015621Forum

immediately below. This has been set up this way (at the speaker’s request) so that this video is only viewable from this webpage.

Humanist Community Forum (2015-06-21): Marriage Equality and Beyond (Leah Nutting) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

 

James Lull, Ph.D.

June 14, 2015

Human beings became natural-born communicators for good reason. Our very survival depends on our ability to communicate well. Messages circulate inside our bodies to help our internal organs achieve biological stability. We interact with others to navigate our physical, social, and cultural environments safely.

It took a long, long time for humans to acquire the extraordinary skills of communication we now possess. In this presentation, James Lull (Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies at San Jose State University), argues that communication ability has always been the driving force of human evolution. After laying out the argument, he discusses the necessity for communicating science effectively to a wide public.

Humanist Community Forum (2015-06-14): The Science of Communication and the Communication of Science (James Lull, Ph.D.) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

 

Kevin Armstrong

June 7, 2015

The City of Palo Alto has partnered with twelve neighboring communities on a regional effort aimed at increasing residential rooftop solar installations. The new Peninsula SunShares program pools the power of individual customers, and reduces the advertising costs of the two solar companies that were selected, so that the two solar companies can offer a 15% discount off the normal market rate. Anyone living in the nine Bay Area counties (including Santa Clara and San Mateo) may enroll in the program, and receive a free no-obligation analysis and estimate from one or both of the companies. Registration in the program is available until July 31, 2015.

Kevin Armstrong (Program Manager, Vote Solar, www.votesolar.org) co-leads Vote Solar’s administration of group solar programs in an effort to help the solar industry reduce soft costs and Vote Solar’s partners achieve the goals of their climate action plans. He previously spent two years with the City of San Jose, and two years with the County of San Mateo, managing municipal renewable energy programs. He has degrees in Civil & Environmental Engineering and City & Regional Planning from UC Berkeley and Stanford University.

Humanist Community Forum (2015-06-07): Peninsula SunShares – Let’s Go Solar Together (Kevin Armstrong) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

 

Prof. Martin Carcieri

May 31, 2015

Martin Carcieri (Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University) will discuss gender discrimination using what philospher John Rawls calls the domain of non-ideal theory, which deals with such basic questions as civil disobedience and militancy. Prof. Carcieri will raise the question whether a public employee, who witnesses his unit’s consistent secret discrimination in hiring against members of one gender, is allowed, by way of protest and compensation, to do the same in reverse within his sphere of influence.

Humanist Community Forum (2015-05-31): John Rawls and Gender Discrimination (Prof. Martin Carcieri) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.