California Wildfire Townhall Event with Madeleine Brand

Live at KCRW HQ!

Join Press Play’s Madeleine Brand for a town hall event bringing together climate thinkers, state officials and community members with stories to share – reflecting on living with the new ‘abnormal’.  It has been one year since the Thomas Fire and just days since the Woolsey Fire. Will we keep rebuilding where it burns?  Are we learning the right lessons before something as catastrophic as the Camp Wildfire happens here?

Doors open at 7:30p for complimentary coffee and cookies
Program will begin at 8:00p

This program will be recorded for later broadcast.

Our Host
MADELEINE BRAND
Madeleine joined KCRW in 2013 to host the award-winning daily news and culture show, Press Play. She is also host of the nationally syndicated foreign affairs show, America Abroad. Prior to KCRW, Brand was an anchor on the KCET television news show, SoCal Connected and worked in New York and Washington for NPR. Her master’s degree comes from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she later taught documentary radio. She has a BA from the University of California Berkeley, where she graduated with honors in English.
Madeleine lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

Our Panelists
JONATHAN BASTIAN is KCRW’s Santa Barbara morning anchor (KDRW) and an award-winning public radio host. Prior to KCRW he worked for Louisville’s NPR station (WFPL), and also created and hosted a weekly TV program that aired on PBS stations across six states. He has interviewed numerous influential writers, thinkers and policy makers, including Salman Rushdie, Congressman John Lewis, Jared Diamond, Michael Chabon, Oliver Sacks, Barbara Kingsolver, and many others. His work has aired nationally on NPR’s All Things Considered and been published on NPR.org.

DAVE JONES is currently serving his second term as California’s Insurance Commissioner. Early in his career, he served in the Clinton Administration as Special Assistant and Counsel to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. Among many other honors, the American Medical Association awarded Jones the prestigious Dr. Nathan Davis Award for Outstanding Government Service and The Daily Journal, the state’s largest legal newspaper named him one of California’s Top 100 Lawyers. Since taking office, Jones has secured crucial victories for consumers, including saving California consumers and businesses over $3.115 billion in premiums by regulating rates for auto, homeowners and other property and casualty insurance.

LEAH STOKES is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and an affiliated faculty at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and the Environmental Studies Department, at UCSB. Her research examines public policy, on energy and environmental issues including climate change and has been published in the leading academic journals in political science, energy and environment policy. She has also written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, CNN, and Vox. She received her PhD and MA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an MPA from Columbia University and a BSc from the University of Toronto.

WADE GRAHAM is a landscape designer, historian and writer. He teaches urban and environmental policy at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University. He is the author of a cultural history of gardens in America, American Eden: From Monticello to Central Park to our Back Yards among other titles. And he has written on the environment, landscape, urbanism, and the arts for The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Los Angeles Times, Outside and other publications.

MIKKE PIERSON was born and raised in Malibu, and this November he was elected to the Malibu City Council. Previously, he served as a Planning Commissioner and a Public Works Commissioner for the city. He lives in Malibu West where he is an amateur firefighter and a certified business coach helping small businesses succeed. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1983.