UC Berkeley enters The Bob Zadek Show’s excerpts only incidentally — as the institutional affiliation of two researchers whose work is cited in a discussion of California high-speed rail, and as the undergraduate campus of a guest host describing his own economics education. The excerpts contain no segment devoted to the university, and no speaker describes its administration, finances, admissions, curriculum or governance. What follows is limited to those two references and the arguments in which they are embedded.
The high-speed rail emissions study
In the February 14, 2019 episode “Not Enough Bricks,” the host — identified in the excerpt as Charlie Dice — described a study by two UC Berkeley researchers on the environmental cost of construction. According to Dice, the researchers found that building California high-speed rail would generate 9.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide during construction, and that at an assumption of medium occupancy it would take the rail system 71 years to offset its own construction-related greenhouse gas emissions. Dice framed the finding as a reason for pause for anyone looking to government as a central planner capable of restructuring the economy to produce environmental benefits Not Enough Bricks (2019).
The Berkeley study functioned in the episode as a concrete number deployed against the Green New Deal’s ambitions. Dice introduced the figure before bringing on his guest, Mark Joffe, with whom he discussed the Green New Deal “with a particular eye toward the financial sustainability and also just how well it actually achieves the environmental aims” Not Enough Bricks (2019). The Berkeley researchers are not named in the excerpt, and no speaker characterizes the university itself — its funding, its research practices or its position on the rail project. The citation is to the study’s result, not to the institution.
High-speed rail and Gavin Newsom
The same episode turned from the emissions estimate to the politics of the rail project. Joffe described California’s high-speed rail plan as “a really unsustainable, irrational plan” inherited by Gavin Newsom from two predecessors, originally approved under Governor Schwarzenegger and heavily pushed by Governor Brown Not Enough Bricks (2019). Joffe said Newsom indefinitely postponed two of the most costly aspects of the train: a connection from Bakersfield underneath a mountain range to the Los Angeles Basin, and a connection from San Jose to the Central Valley, again tunneling under a mountain range. A rump segment of 165 miles connecting Bakersfield to Merced in the Central Valley would still be built — “Not a very rational system,” in Joffe’s words. Joffe put the savings from the postponements in the range of $50 to $100 billion Not Enough Bricks (2019).
Joffe also noted that the postponement was widely characterized as a cancellation, including by President Trump, but that it was not one. The Berkeley researchers’ emissions figure and Joffe’s account of the project’s finances are separate strands of the same segment: the first supplies the environmental cost of construction, the second the fiscal and political history of the plan. Neither speaker draws an institutional conclusion about UC Berkeley from the study.
A host’s undergraduate years
The second reference comes from the March 31, 2019 episode featuring economist David Henderson, with Charlie Deist again filling in for Bob Zadek. Introducing Henderson, Deist said Henderson had been a good mentor to him during his economics undergraduate education at UC Berkeley, at a time when Deist felt he needed to turn to more free-market thought. Deist recalled meeting Henderson, he believed in his sophomore or junior year, when he was feeling depressed about the political landscape, and said Henderson had many times buoyed his spirits and kept him focused on the positive David Henderson on Trumponomics, Deficits, and Immigration (2019).
The excerpt identifies Henderson as Professor Emeritus at the Naval Postgraduate School and a Hoover Institution Research Fellow, with writings focused mainly on public policy, and as editor of the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics David Henderson on Trumponomics, Deficits, and Immigration (2019). Deist’s Berkeley remark is autobiographical framing for the interview, not a statement about the university. It does, however, place Berkeley in the episode’s implicit contrast: a campus where, in Deist’s telling, a student interested in free-market economics sought out an outside mentor. The excerpt does not say what Deist studied beyond economics, when he graduated, or how he found Henderson.
Across episodes
Two episodes touch on UC Berkeley, and the excerpts show no development between them. The 2019-02-14 episode cites two Berkeley researchers’ estimate of high-speed rail construction emissions; the 2019-03-31 episode has a host recalling his undergraduate economics education there and his mentorship by David Henderson. The two references are unrelated — one concerns a research finding, the other a personal history — and no speaker in either episode returns to the university as a subject.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts say nothing about UC Berkeley’s governance, administration, budget, admissions, curriculum, faculty, or its role in California politics or higher education policy. The two Berkeley researchers behind the emissions study are not named, and the study itself is not titled or dated in the excerpt. No speaker offers an assessment of the university as an institution, favorable or otherwise. The article therefore records only the two passing references and the claims attached to them, and nothing more.