Resources Radio

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...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Bathsheba Demuth, an associate professor at Brown University, about the history of the Bering Strait, which separates Alaska and northeastern Russia. Demuth discusses the ecosystems, peoples, and economic systems in the region and how interactions between Indigenous peoples and colonial settlers affected the local environment and social and poli...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Gregory Nemet, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, about technologies and natural processes that can remove carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere. Nemet discusses efforts in the public and private sectors to deploy new technologies, benefits and costs of different methods of carbon dioxide removal, and the risks and challenges o...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Yanjun (Penny) Liao, a fellow at Resources for the Future, about the effect of weather-related disasters on local government finances. Liao discusses how municipalities, states, and the federal government provide disaster aid; how these disasters can affect tax revenues and the ability of local governments to provide community services; and how...

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Ana Baptista, an associate professor at the New School in New York City and codirector of its Tishman Environment and Design Center. Baptista discusses the cumulative impacts of pollution on environmental justice communities; the sources of pollution in these communities; and the groundbreaking legislation and data tools that are being employe...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Aaron Bergman and Alan Krupnick—both scholars at Resources for the Future—about the technology and policy landscape of hydrogen fuel. Bergman and Krupnick discuss methods of hydrogen fuel production, the raft of new federal policies that incentivize the production of low-emissions hydrogen and build up the regional marketplaces known as “hydroge...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Maureen Leddy, who serves as director of the Office of Climate Change at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Leddy discusses the state’s recently approved Scoping Plan, which proposes strategies for meeting the state’s emissions-reduction goals that are required by the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with researchers Neha Khanna and Nick Kuminoff about the diversity of scholars in the field of environmental and resource economics. Khanna is a professor of economics at Binghamton University, and Kuminoff is an associate professor of economics at Arizona State University. Khanna and Kuminoff discuss the gender equity of authorship in environmental...

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls talks with John D. Leshy, an emeritus professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, about the history of public lands in the United States. Leshy discusses the legislation that enabled the creation and conservation of public lands, common myths about public lands, and how the government may open up public lands for mining o...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Danae Hernández-Cortés, an assistant professor at Arizona State University, about a recent study that investigates how California’s cap-and-trade program affects levels of harmful pollutants in environmental justice communities. Hernández-Cortés discusses how carbon markets can shift concentrations of local air pollutants, environmental justice...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi recaps 2022 with Catherine Wolfram, a visiting professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and member of the board of directors at Resources for the Future, and John Larsen, a partner at Rhodium Group. Wolfram and Larsen offer insights on the year’s biggest stories in energy and environmental policy at the state, national, and international levels, including U...