Resources Radio

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Akhil Rao, a professor of economics at Middlebury College, about the use and management of Earth’s orbit. Rao outlines the significant increase in the number of objects orbiting the Earth in recent decades, challenges caused by this accumulation, and governance of the various layers of Earth’s orbit by countries and international organizations....

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Resources for the Future (RFF) scholars Yanjun (Penny) Liao, David Wear, and Matthew Wibbenmeyer about the recent wildfires in Los Angeles, California. They discuss the factors that exacerbated the wildfires, measures that homeowners and communities can take to mitigate wildfire risk and damage, the negative health effects of wildfire smoke, a...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Sanya Carley, a professor and faculty director at the University of Pennsylvania and a university fellow at Resources for the Future, about energy poverty in the United States. Carley discusses the problem of utility disconnections, which occurs when a utility turns off a household’s water, electricity, or heat; the potentially risky strategies...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Brent Sohngen, a professor at the Ohio State University and a university fellow at Resources for the Future, about the intersecting forces that are helping curb and reverse deforestation in Latin America. Sohngen discusses the origins of his research on forests in Latin America; the relationship between economic conditions, technological innova...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Karen Palmer, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF) and director of RFF’s Electric Power Program; Kevin Rennert, a fellow at RFF and director of RFF’s Federal Climate Policy Initiative; and Margaret Walls, a senior fellow at RFF and director of RFF’s Climate Risks and Resilience Program. Palmer, Rennert, and Walls offer insights on n...

This week’s episode is the final rerun from the Resources Radio archive that we’ll air during our December break. We’ll return with a new episode next week; in the meantime, enjoy this one and poke around the archive at Resources.org for more topics you might be interested in. In this week’s episode rerun, host Daniel Raimi talks with David Hawkins, director of climate policy in the Climate & Clea...

We’re rebroadcasting another episode from the Resources Radio archive while the team is on a break through the rest of December. This week’s episode is a throwback to the final installment of a three-part series that celebrated the 70th anniversary of Resources for the Future (RFF), back in 2022. We’ll return with new episodes in the new year; in the meantime, enjoy this one and poke around the ar...

This week, we’re rebroadcasting an episode from the Resources Radio archive while the team is on a break through the rest of December. We’ll be back with new episodes in the new year; in the meantime, enjoy this throwback and poke around the archive at Resources.org for more topics you might be interested in. In this week’s episode rerun, host Margaret Walls talks with economists Maximilian Auffha...

In this week’s episode rerun, host Daniel Raimi talks with Kim Stanley Robinson, acclaimed author of many books, most recently “The Ministry for the Future.” Robinson’s books vividly illustrate some of the most devastating potential consequences of climate change, but that’s not all they do—the books also offer innovation and optimism, imagining the ways in which we can prevent some of the worst i...

This week, we’re rebroadcasting an episode from the Resources Radio archive while the team is on a break through the rest of December. We’ll be back with new episodes in the new year; in the meantime, enjoy this throwback and poke around the archive at Resources.org for more topics you might be interested in. In this week’s episode rerun, host Kristin Hayes talks with Rebecca Epanchin-Niell, a sen...

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Matt Chambers, a researcher at the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems at the University of Georgia, about managing floods with nature-based solutions. Chambers discusses the history of levee systems in the United States, the challenges that the widespread use of levees have presented, and approaches to floodplain management that he...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Nafisa Lohawala, a fellow at Resources for the Future, about sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs). Lohawala discusses the climate impact of the aviation industry, different types of SAFs, and the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that SAFs can help achieve. Lohawala also discusses policies that support the adoption of SAFs, including internati...

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Seanicaa Edwards Herron, founder and executive director of the Freedmen Heirs Foundation, about challenges facing Black farmers in the United States. Herron discusses historical and systemic barriers that Black farmers have encountered, and continue to encounter, in the US agricultural industry. Their conversation covers access to land, capita...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Pat Layton, director of the Wood Utilization + Design Institute at Clemson University, about the resurgence in constructing buildings with wood and, in particular, with mass timber. Layton discusses the development and adoption of mass timber in the United States, along with the environmental and architectural benefits of integrating mass timbe...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Stephen Jarvis, an assistant professor at the London School of Economics, about local opposition—often called “NIMBYism,” or Not In My Backyard—to renewable energy projects in the United Kingdom and the cost this opposition adds to the clean energy transition. Jarvis discusses the permitting process for renewable energy projects in the United Ki...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Maura Allaire, an assistant professor at Arizona State University, about access to wastewater infrastructure in the United States. Allaire discusses the widespread lack of access to centralized wastewater services; the high failure rates of septic systems, which often serve as substitutes for centralized wastewater systems; and the public health...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Jesse Buchsbaum, a new research fellow at Resources for the Future, about how consumers respond to changes in electricity prices. Buchsbaum discusses the responsiveness of electricity consumers to prices in the short and long term, the role of pricing in driving long-term changes in consumption habits and investments in electric appliances, the...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Jon Krosnick, a professor at Stanford University and a university fellow at Resources for the Future, about the views held by Americans on climate change and climate policies. Krosnick discusses the latest results from the Climate Insights project, which has gauged American public opinion on climate change since 1997; the preferences of America...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Holly Caggiano, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, and Sara Constantino, an assistant professor at Stanford University, about the preferences of local residents and elected officials for large-scale energy projects in Pennsylvania. Caggiano and Constantino discuss factors that influence public support for renewable ene...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Andrew Waxman, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, about carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), a technology that involves the capture and storage or reuse of carbon dioxide. Waxman discusses the application of CCUS technology for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and industrial facilities; th...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Amanda Giang, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, about considering equity in computational models of systems that are at the interface of people and the environment. Giang discusses the steps involved in adapting the models; weighing the benefits of granular, individualized data against considerations of personal priva...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Catherine Hausman, an associate professor at the University of Michigan, about the costs of not building new electricity transmission lines, particularly in the Midwestern United States. Hausman discusses the benefits of additional electricity transmission for consumer electricity prices, emissions reductions, and electrification of the economy;...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Daniel Farber, a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, about Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, a Supreme Court case decided earlier this summer that overturned decades of precedent set under a 1984 case that itself led to a legal principle, or doctrine, that people call the Chevron deference. The Chevron deference is a...

This week, we’re rebroadcasting an episode from the Resources Radio archive while the team is on a break through the rest of August. We’ll be back in September with new episodes; in the meantime, enjoy this throwback and poke around the archive at Resources.org for more topics you might be interested in. In this week’s episode rerun, host Margaret Walls talks with John D. Leshy, an emeritus profes...

This week, we’re rebroadcasting an episode from the Resources Radio archive while the team is on a break through the rest of August. We’ll be back in September with new episodes; in the meantime, enjoy this throwback and poke around the archive at Resources.org for more topics you might be interested in. In this week’s episode rerun, host Kristin Hayes talks with Jason Samenow, weather editor for...