Resources Radio

Host Kristin Hayes talks with Senator Tina Smith, the junior senator from the great state of Minnesota. Senator Smith served as the 48th lieutenant governor of Minnesota from 2015 to 2018, after a career in both the private and public sectors in the state, where she has lived since 1984. Senator Smith is a member of several committees in the Senate relevant to natural resource, energy, and climate...

This week, host Daniel Raimi talks with Judson Boomhower, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California San Diego and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Boomhower and Raimi discuss the recent public safety power shutoffs that affected over one million people in northern California, what led to the shutoffs, the effects of the shutoffs, and...

This week, Kristin Hayes and Joseph Aldy discuss the presidential candidates’ stances on climate change. Aldy is professor of the practice of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a university fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF). Aldy worked as an RFF fellow in 2005–2008, leaving in 2009 to serve as the special assistant to the president for energy and environment, reporting through...

This week, host Kristin Hayes talks with Kyung-Ah Park, who leads environmental markets and innovation in the newly formed sustainable finance group at Goldman Sachs; she also serves on the board of RFF. Previously, Park headed the Environmental Markets Group at Goldman Sachs. As the episode title suggests, their conversation focuses on the potential to catalyze markets toward further investments...

This week, host Daniel Raimi talks with Resources for the Future (RFF) Senior Fellow Karen Palmer and RFF Fellow Daniel Shawhan. Along with RFF Senior Research Assistant Paul Picciano, Palmer and Shawhan recently released a report called “Benefits and Costs of Power Plant Carbon Emissions Pricing in New York.” Raimi, Palmer, and Shawhan talk about this new work, which examines how a carbon price a...

This week, host Daniel Raimi talks with Ellen Hughes-Cromwick of the University of Michigan Energy Institute. Hughes-Cromwick previously served as chief economist in the US Department of Commerce. Before that, she was the chief economist at Ford Motor Company for over 18 years. Raimi asks Hughes-Cromwick about the state of play in the automotive industry, how electric and autonomous vehicles are c...

This week, host Daniel Raimi talks with Catherine Kling, who, among her many titles, is a Tisch University professor at Cornell University and a member of RFF's Board of Directors. They talk about a recent op-ed that Kling published in the New York Times, called “Polluting Farmers Should Pay,” which focuses on nutrient runoff from agricultural land and how the runoff contributes to harmful algae b...

This week's episode pays tribute to the life and work of Harvard Economics Professor Marty Weitzman, who died two weeks ago. Host Daniel Raimi talks with Gernot Wagner, a close collaborator and friend of Weitzman’s and a professor at New York University. Raimi and Wagner talk about two of Weitzman’s seminal contributions to the field of environmental economics, how this work has shaped public poli...

Host Daniel Raimi talks with Sharon Shewmake, a professor of environmental economics at Western Washington University. Shewmake also represents Washington's 42nd legislative district in the state's House of Representatives. Shewmake discusses Washington's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the power sector to zero by 2045, other state policies that affect energy and the environment, and ho...

Host Daniel Raimi talks with Robert Bonnie, Rubinstein fellow at Duke University. Bonnie is an expert on many things, but in this episode, he talks about the role that forests play in energy, climate change, and more. Raimi asks Bonnie about the past, present, and future of wood energy in the United States and globally, and what role forests might play in helping to achieve deep decarbonization go...

This week, we talk with Ya-Wei Li, Director of Biodiversity at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC). Ya-Wei is an expert on the Endangered Species Act, a law that's been in the news recently because the Trump administration has proposed a number of changes to the way the Act is administered and enforced. We'll get Ya-Wei's take on which changes are most important, what effect they'll...

This week, we are rebroadcasting host Daniel Raimi's 2018 interview with Gilbert Metcalf, the John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service; Professor of Economics; and Graduate Program Director at Tufts University’s Department of Economics. Daniel talks to Gib about his new book, "Paying for Pollution: Why a Carbon Tax is Good for America." We are re-airing this interview because sev...

Host Daniel Raimi talks with Professor Sanya Carley of Indiana University's O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Daniel and Sanya discuss her work on the "just" transition, which addresses questions like, how do climate policies affect energy affordability for low-income households, how do they affect the well-being of energy producing communities, and what approaches might help red...

Host Daniel Raimi talks with Professor Shahzeen Attari of the Indiana University's O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Daniel and Shahzeen discuss her work on how the personal behavior of climate change communicators can affect the reception of their message. If a climate scientist uses a lot of energy at home or is a frequent flyer, do they lose credibility? It's a really challeng...

Host Daniel Raimi talks with Professor Dorceta Taylor of the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability. Daniel asks Professor Taylor about her research on the history of the environmental movement, focusing on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion within environmental groups, both historically and today. There’s been quite a bit of progress over the years, but there a...

Host Daniel Raimi talks with Professor Todd Allen, chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at the University of Michigan. Todd and Daniel discuss Chernobyl—what caused the explosion, what is known about its health effects, and what lessons policymakers and nuclear engineers learned from the disaster. Todd and Daniel also comment on the recent HBO miniseries called...

Host Daniel Raimi talks with Robert Stavins, the A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Daniel and Rob discuss the role that economics has played in shaping environmental policy, both in the past and today. As major proposals like the Green New Deal seem to be turning away from market-based approaches, long-advocated by most econo...

Host Kristin Hayes talks with Susan Clayton, the Whitmore-Williams Professor of Psychology and Chair of Environmental Studies at the College of Wooster. They discuss questions such as: why do some people care about environmental conservation more than others? How can policymakers and other decisionmakers encourage pro-environmental behavior? And how do we wrestle with our own human limitations in...

Host Daniel Raimi talks with Susie Crate, a professor of anthropology at George Mason University. Susie discusses how she studies environmental issues through an anthropological lens and describes the community in northern Siberia that she's been studying since 1991. Daniel and Susie talk about how that community is being affected by climate change and how they are planning for the future. Referen...

Host Daniel Raimi talks with Professor Subhrendu Pattanayak of Duke University. Over the last several years, Subhrendu has literally trekked the Himalayas to do research on how to provide access to electricity for communities in hard-to-reach places. Daniel and Subhrendu talk about what policy and market factors might make it easier to expand energy access, and Subhrendu explains how dynamics with...

Host Daniel Raimi talks with RFF postdoctoral fellow Brian Prest about a little-known topic: refined coal. Brian and coauthor Alan Krupnick have published a new RFF working paper that takes a close look at a $1-billion-a-year federal subsidy for refined coal. So, what is refined coal? What's the purpose of the subsidy? And does the subsidy deliver? References and recommendations: "How Clean is Ref...

Host Daniel Raimi talks with Jay Bartlett—a research associate at RFF—about his recent work on wind energy development. Jay explains how wind projects actually get built, i.e., how developers raise money for their projects and who they sell their electricity to. Daniel and Jay also discuss how state and federal policies shape these markets, and how the coming changes in the policy landscape are li...

Host Daniel Raimi talks with Dr. Sue Lieberman, vice president for International Policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society. They discuss a major new report that synthesizes the literature on the global state of biodiversity. The report warns about a variety of risks, including species extinction, habitat degradation, food insecurity, and much more. Sue describes the scale of some of these risks,...

Host Daniel Raimi talks with RFF Research Associate Amelia Keyes about her recent research on the Trump administration's Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule. Amelia and several colleagues have estimated the effect of the rule on emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrous oxide, finding that ACE could actually increase these emissions rather than reduce them. References and recommendat...

Host Daniel Raimi talks with Sarah Propst, the Cabinet Secretary of the Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department for the state of New Mexico. New Mexico recently enacted legislation to transition to 100 percent zero carbon electricity by the year 2050, and to provide transition assistance to workers and communities affected by the changing energy landscape. Daniel and Sarah discuss how t...