Resources Radio

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Timiebi Aganaba, an assistant professor at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation and Society. Aganaba has worked on a fascinating array of space issues on multiple continents, and she speaks about that work and its implications in this extremely wide-ranging conversation. Aganaba discusses the broad notions of space and...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Rebecca Epanchin-Niell, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF). Epanchin-Niell’s research focuses on ecosystem management—in particular, understanding how human behavior affects ecological resources and identifying strategies to improve ecosystem management. Much of her work has focused on invasive species, including strategies to co...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Noah Scovronick, an assistant professor at Emory University who coauthored a recent journal article that estimates the effects of climate change on heat-related human mortality over the past three decades. The research covers dozens of countries and assesses how increased moderate and extreme heat has affected human health on every populated con...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Wei Peng, an assistant professor at Penn State University. Peng recently coauthored a paper in the journal “Nature” that offers recommendations for how to make integrated assessment models more useful in the design of climate policy. Peng discusses how these climate policy models can better represent the real world—especially political dynamics—...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Gilbert Metcalf, who is a professor at Tufts University and a university fellow at Resources for the Future. Metcalf recently published a working paper with coauthor Alan Finkelstein Shapiro about the potential effects of a carbon tax on the US economy—specifically, a carbon tax that’s designed to meet the US climate target under the Paris Agree...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Resources for the Future (RFF) Fellow Daniel Shawhan about a new working paper that he and several RFF coauthors recently published, about the value of advanced energy funding. The study assesses how government funding for research, development, and demonstration of emerging clean energy technologies can reduce the costs of deploying those techn...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Kelsey Jack, associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara; director of the Poverty Alleviation Group at UC Santa Barbara’s Environmental Market Solutions Lab; and codirector of the King Climate Action Initiative at the Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jack works at the intersection of environ...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Meredith Fowlie, an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a faculty director of the Energy Institute at Haas. Fowlie and coauthors recently published a working paper on the causes and implications of high electricity prices in the state of California. These hig...

In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Jeremy Firestone, a wind energy specialist, professor, and director of the Center for Research in Wind at the University of Delaware. For many years, Firestone has explored people’s attitudes and economic preferences related to wind power development. He and coauthors recently published new research about the intersection of offshore wind development...

In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Sheila Hollis, acting executive director of the United States Energy Association (USEA). USEA is an industry association that represents 150 members across the US energy sector, from the largest Fortune 500 companies to small energy consulting firms. The organization supports policy and technical discussions with the US Department of Energy to expand...

In February this year, we noticed at Resources for the Future that our explainer about carbon capture and storage—which provides an overview of the technology, along with its uses, benefits, and drawbacks—had suddenly skyrocketed in terms of page use on the website. When we investigated what had prompted this sudden expanded interest, we found Elon Musk’s announcement from the day prior: Musk had...

In this episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Pilar Thomas, a partner at Quarles & Brady and a professor of the practice at the University of Arizona and Arizona State University. Thomas is an expert on energy development and environmental management on tribal lands and has served in the US Departments of Justice, Interior, and Energy. Raimi and Thomas discuss how different tribes are approaching...

In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, an associate professor of applied economics and policy at Cornell University and a faculty fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. Much of Ortiz-Bobea’s research focuses on the links between climate change and agricultural productivity—which is the topic of this conversation. In particular, Ortiz-Bobea discusses a...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Neil Maher, professor of history at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University-Newark. Maher’s research focuses on the intersection of environmental and political history, and his scholarship includes a 2008 book called “Nature’s New Deal.” Maher and Hayes discuss the Civilian Conservation Corps’s successes, challenges, and l...

This week, host Daniel Raimi talks with New Yorker staff writer and Pulitzer Prize–Winning author Elizabeth Kolbert about her new book, “Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future.” The book is a fascinating and darkly funny exploration of how humanity is trying to manage the negative effects we’ve inflicted on the natural world. Using examples such as the Asian carp, endangered desert pupfish, t...

In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Wesley Look and Daniel Raimi, Resources for the Future (RFF) colleagues who have led RFF's research on enabling fairness for energy workers and communities in transition. Look is a senior research associate and Raimi is a fellow at RFF, and the work they describe in this episode has been carried out over the past year in partnership with Environmental...

In this episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with William Acworth, Head of Secretariat at the International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP). ICAP recently released its 2021 status report on global emissions trading, and we're highlighting the group's status report for the second year in a row. This time, Acworth gets us up to speed on China's recently launched national emissions trading scheme, along...

In this week's episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Danielle Wood, assistant professor and director of the Space Enabled research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. Wood uses her expertise in aerospace engineering, aeronautics and astronautics, and technology policy to enhance societal development, bringing together tools not just from space and engineering, but also fr...

In this week’s episode, Daniel Raimi talks with Erin Mayfield, a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University. Mayfield is part of a team of researchers that recently released a report titled “Net-Zero America,” which lays out a variety of pathways for the United States to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In the conversation, Mayfield discusses key findings from the report, includin...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Karen Palmer, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF) and director of RFF’s Future of Power Initiative. Palmer has deep expertise in the US power sector and has authored numerous publications on electricity policy drivers and options in power market design and electrification of various sectors of the economy. This episode features tw...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Kevin Rennert, a fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF) and director of RFF’s Social Cost of Carbon Initiative. Rennert has prior experience as deputy associate administrator for the Office of Policy at the US Environmental Protection Agency, senior advisor on energy for the US Senate Committee on Finance, and senior professional staff for th...

In this episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Severin Borenstein, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, faculty director of the Energy Institute at Haas, and member of the Board of Governors of the California Independent System Operator. As the state of Texas struggles to keep the lights on due to extreme cold, Raimi asks Borenstein about lessons learne...

In this episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Francisco X. Aguilar, a professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and leader of the Team of Specialists on Wood Energy of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Aguilar and coauthors recently published a study on the environmental effects of the rapid growth of the wood pellet industry. Because wood pellets are viewed as...

In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with David Miller, former mayor of the city of Toronto and author of the book, “Solved: How the World’s Great Cities are Fixing the Climate Crisis.” The book came out in late 2020 and argues that cities are, in many ways, uniquely central to climate change action—and are, in fact, some of the best-equipped jurisdictions to take on the climate challenge. Mi...

In this episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Tisha Schuller, principal of Adamantine Energy and author of a new book, “The Gamechanger’s Playbook.” The book is a provocative and insightful look at how oil and gas companies can play a leading role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Schuller lays out the case for why these companies need to change, how companies can approach the climate challeng...