Resources Radio

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Eric Kort, an associate professor at the University of Michigan, about methane emissions from the US oil and gas industry. Kort discusses the emissions that occur during the extraction of oil and gas at onshore and offshore facilities, aerial methods of measuring these emissions and identifying methane leaks, and the increasing concentration of...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Tatyana Deryugina, an associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, about her recent work to better understand the long-term health effects of exposure to air pollution. Deryugina discusses methods for measuring the impact of pollution on life expectancy, the chronic effects of air pollution, the availability of air-pollut...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Priya Donti, cofounder and executive director of Climate Change AI, a nonprofit that works at the intersection of climate change and machine learning. Donti discusses various types of artificial intelligence, the applications of artificial intelligence in the energy transition and climate policymaking, and the importance of interdisciplinary co...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Resources for the Future (RFF) Research Associate Maya Domeshek and Senior Research Analyst Nicholas Roy about the Inflation Reduction Act and the emissions reductions that the law could achieve, according to projections from various energy models in an analysis they published recently in “Science” magazine. Domeshek and Roy discuss the projecti...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Nafisa Lohawala, a fellow at Resources for the Future who researches the effects of government policies on the transportation sector. Lohawala discusses the findings of a recent report that explores efforts to electrify medium- and heavy-duty vehicle fleets, the opportunities and challenges of electrification as a pathway toward lower transport...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Shuchi Talati, founder and executive director of the Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering, about the potential for solar geoengineering as a tool to combat climate change. Talati discusses the science behind solar geoengineering, democratic and inclusive processes for engaging all nations in deliberation over the use of solar g...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Stefano De Clara, head of secretariat at the International Carbon Action Partnership, about the development of carbon markets around the world. Carbon markets, which also are known as “emissions trading systems,” are market-based policies that set a cap on total emissions and issue a limited number of emissions permits that emitters then can tra...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Michael Pahle, head of the Climate and Energy Policy Working Group at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, about the clean energy transition in Germany. Pahle discusses the history of Germany’s energy transition, the nation’s current decarbonization goals, the relationship between national climate policy and European climate polic...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Jamie Van Nostrand, former director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at West Virginia University and current chair of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities. Van Nostrand discusses how the state government in West Virginia historically has supported and promoted the coal industry, how the state’s support of coal has...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Nikos Zirogiannis, an assistant professor at Indiana University, about excess emissions of air pollutants—emissions that exceed the legal limits. Zirogiannis discusses some potential causes of excess emissions, the health effects of excess emissions, and the gaps in policy and data that could be addressed to help prevent these dangerous events....

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Silvia Pianta, a junior scientist at the sister institution to Resources for the Future (RFF), the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment. Pianta discusses the influence of social and political factors on climate and energy policymaking, how incorporating these factors into models can help inform the process of climate poli...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with David Brown, an associate professor at the University of Alberta, about research on the value of electricity reliability that he coauthored with Resources for the Future University Fellow Lucija Muehlenbachs. Brown discusses dollar-value estimates of how much consumers are willing to pay to avoid power outages, the technologies that households...

This week’s episode is the fifth and final installment of a multipart series called Climate Hits Home, in which guests discuss the effects of climate change on cities and towns across the United States and how local communities are addressing those effects. In this episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Nico Zegre, an associate professor at West Virginia University, about flooding in Appalachia....

This week’s episode is the fourth in a multipart series called Climate Hits Home, in which guests discuss the effects of climate change on cities and towns in the United States and how local communities are addressing those effects. In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Lisa LaRocque, sustainability officer for the city of Las Cruces in New Mexico, about how urban infrastructure can inten...

This week’s episode is the third in a multipart series called Climate Hits Home, in which guests discuss the effects of climate change in the United States and how local communities are addressing those effects. In this episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Kimi Barrett, a research and policy analyst at Headwaters Economics, about wildfires in the American West. Barrett discusses the growing wil...

This week’s episode is the second in a multipart series called Climate Hits Home, in which guests discuss the effects of climate change in US cities and towns and how local communities are addressing those effects. In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Kathryn Sorensen about how the city of Phoenix, Arizona, has been preparing for uncertainty around water availability. Sorensen is a profe...

This week’s episode is the first in a multipart series called Climate Hits Home, in which guests discuss the effects of climate change in US cities and towns and how local communities are addressing those effects. In this episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Skip Stiles, executive director of the nonprofit Wetlands Watch, about how the coastal city of Norfolk, Virginia, is adapting to sea level...

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Peter Harnik, cofounder of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, about grassroots and legislative efforts to repurpose abandoned railroad lines as recreational trails. Harnik discusses why the United States has so many abandoned railroad lines, the process of converting a railroad line into a trail, and the legislation that provides funding for tra...

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Carol O’Donnell, executive director of the Smithsonian Science Education Center in Washington, DC, about educating students in kindergarten through grade 12 about sustainability and environmental issues. O’Donnell discusses how the Sustainable Development Goals, formulated by the United Nations, provide a global framework for youth education;...

In this week’s special Earth Day episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Amer Jandali, founder and CEO of Future Meets Present and a consultant to the New York City Office of Nightlife, about climate solutions for the nightlife industry in New York City. Jandali discusses how major metropolises can promote sustainable practices in the service industry and advocate for climate policy, how the New Yo...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Lara Aleluia Reis, a scientist at the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment, about the extent of progress that’s been made internationally on climate goals that aim to limit global warming to below 2°C. Reis discusses the significance of the Conference of the Parties meetings in Paris and Glasgow (which were held in 2015...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Katie McGinty and Jim Connaughton about how to accelerate the permitting process for clean energy projects. McGinty is vice president and chief sustainability and external relations officer at Johnson Controls, and Connaughton is chair of Nautilus Data Technologies and a member of the board of directors at Resources for the Future. McGinty and...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Adewale OgunBadejo, vice president for workforce development at GRID Alternatives, the largest nonprofit installer of solar panels in the United States. OgunBadejo and Hayes discuss how an organization can recruit and train people effectively in the solar industry, how partnerships with organizations in clean energy industries can bolster workf...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Andrew Leach, a professor at the University of Alberta, about the oil and gas industry in Alberta, Canada. Leach discusses how oil and gas are extracted in Alberta’s oil sands region, the environmental liabilities that result from this type of extraction, tensions between provincial and national leaders over environmental policies and emissions-...

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Grace Wu, an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, about the intersection of land use change and the adoption and implementation of clean energy technologies. Wu discusses the impacts of land use change on species and ecosystems, the land use requirements of different clean energy technologies, and strategies that...