The Post-COVID Economy

Business/Economics

The global economy has been ravaged by a significant decline in consumption, leading to a challenging business environment. Some companies are struggling to survive while others are taking advantage of new opportunities. What are senior industry leaders seeing from their perspective?

To understand this environment, this exclusive series of webinars from the UC Davis Graduate School of Management features panels of prominent executives and alumni who share career insights and experiences as well as their outlook in key business fields, such as finance, technology, business development and supply chain logistics.

Browse more programs in UC Davis Graduate School of Management’s Dean’s Distinguished Speaker Series.

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Oceans Out of Breath

Climate Change, Oceanography

Scripps climate scientist Yassir Eddebbar takes you on an exploration of the ocean’s interior to reveal a fascinating phenomenon – oxygen minimum zones (OMZs).

Oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) are regions of the global ocean that present low dissolved oxygen concentrations. Although they represent only a small fraction of the global ocean volume, they are considered to be an important sink for fixed nitrogen, contributing 30-50% of the oceanic nitrogen removal. They are important sources of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O), the latter also involved in the destruction of stratospheric ozone.

Focusing on his work in the tropical Pacific, Eddebbar explains what causes OMZs, how they are likely to change in response to climate change, and their potential to impact marine ecosystems and fisheries as climate warms.

Watch Oceans Out of Breath: Oxygen Minimum Zones in a Warming Climate.

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Where do we go from here?

Humanities

The United States has seen nationwide protests for weeks over the deaths of Black people at the hands of the police, and the frustration that racism and racial inequality still persist throughout modern American life.

Leading scholars and #1 Best Sellers, Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility) and Ibram X. Kendi (How to Be An Anti-Racist) participated in a conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery to discuss persistent racism in our society.

This wide-ranging conversation tackles important questions: How do we talk about race in a way that unites and strengthens us as a community? How do we get beyond our superficial differences and see ourselves as one and the same, with our multiple enriching individualities, with more in common than not, yet with our same basic needs and emotions and hopes and dreams?

This event is presented by the National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC). Their mission is to help resolve conflicts at all levels of society.

Watch A Path Forward: Empowering People, Transforming Cultures.

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Genre-bending is Not for the Faint of Heart

Arts and Music, Film Studies, Media Arts and New Media

Blending movie genres can be a tricky business, one often as not doomed to failure. Combining horror and comedy is especially fraught, since the two genres would seem to be mutually exclusive if not diametrically opposed in tone & subject matter. A few brave filmmakers have forged ahead regardless, including Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the screenwriters behind the sleeper hit Zombieland (2009).

Successful genre-bending is not something that can be tackled haphazardly. In conversation with UC Santa Barbara Pollock Theater Director Matt Ryan the duo discuss the many considerations that go into fashioning such a script, including finding the right horror/comedy balance while honoring the audience’s unavoidable genre expectations. As with any screenplay it’s a matter of making good decisions along the way; for example, Reese and Wernick determined at the outset that their zombies would be the fast-moving kind, a la 28 Days Later, and not the shambling variety popularized by Night of the Living Dead. They also elected to begin their tale with the zombie apocalypse well under way and almost taken for granted by our intrepid heroes. Subsequently there’s very little exposition about cause and scope to slow the pacing. As the writers note, it’s really not relevant to their story.

Reese and Wernick stress that having the right cast is absolutely vital to any film’s success, since if the actors are right for their roles they can boost the script to another level (and if not, it’s a train wreck). Fortunately the Zombieland cast includes such stalwarts as Emma Stone, Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, and the near-legendary Bill Murray, all experienced and adept at playing comedy and drama with equal aplomb. (And in case you were wondering, yes, Bill Murray is very much the same personality off-screen as on.) The scripters were able to do some re-writing as needed to suit the actors’ personas, which in their view made the director’s job a little easier and enhanced the final result.

Track down Zombieland, and then tune into this installment of Script to Screen. You’ll be entertained and hopefully better prepared for World War Z, if and when…

Watch Script to Screen: Zombieland.

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Wildfires and Smoke

Climate Change, Public Health

The 2020 California wildfires are among the worst in history and the wildfire season is just starting. Wildfires have been a feature of the mountain west for eons but the fires of the last few years have been catastrophic in loss of property, life and health. With increased fires at the wildfire urban interface the effects of the fires and the smoke they cause are impacting front-line firefighters and Californians all over the state, even when the fire activity is hundreds of miles away.

The duration of the wildfire season is longer, now stretching from summer into early winter, and catastrophic wildfires are increasing in size and frequency due to climate change. The fires are also having an impact on air quality with clear evidence of an association between wildfire smoke and respiratory health. Smoke also likely causes other negative health outcomes such as adverse birth outcomes.

Dr. John Balmes, UCSF Professor of Medicine, Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, and Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, ZSFG/UCSF, explains the impacts of smoke on health and discusses studies underway to improve our knowledge as we continue to deal with devastating wildfires that are projected to get worse.

Watch Where There’s Wildfire, There’s Smoke.

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