بقلم Resources for the Future

This week’s episode features a discussion of the recent US federal investment in a privately held mine—the Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine in California—with host Daniel Raimi and podcast guest Tom Moerenhout, a professor at Columbia University and leader of a critical minerals initiative at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University’s…

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi discusses subsidies for carbon capture and storage (CCS) with Sheila Olmstead, a professor at the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and a senior faculty fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. Olmstead evaluates the complicated nature of the 45Q policy, a federal subsidy availa…

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi discusses fossil fuel subsidies with Paasha Mahdavi, an associate professor and cofounder of the 2035 Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara. They talk about how subsidies on goods such as gasoline and diesel lead to lower prices for consumers. However, because these subsidies encourage t…

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Dominic Parker, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, about the first US government–run environmental management agencies and how they’ve influenced the survival of wildlife in the United States. Parker’s new coauthored journal article discusses the economic, political, and social…

In n this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Kristen McCormack, Resources for the Future’s newest research fellow, about McCormack’s scholarly work on the impact of extreme temperatures on student absences, disciplinary infractions, and later-life outcomes. McCormack explains how she combined student data from a large urban school distri…

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Rami talks with Heather Zichal, global head of sustainability at JPMorganChase, about the role of financial institutions in the energy transition. Zichal explains how she has advanced climate policy goals from positions in the United States Congress, the executive branch, nonprofits, and the financial sector. Fro…

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Diana Hernández, an associate professor and codirector of the Energy Opportunity Lab at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, about the struggles that ordinary Americans face in accessing affordable and reliable energy. In her recently released book, Powerless: The People’s S…

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Danny Richter, director of the Pricing Carbon Initiative, about the existing suite of carbon pricing policies, a set of climate policy tools designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by requiring companies and other entities to pay for each ton of carbon dioxide they release into the atmospher…

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Ben Hertz-Shargel, global head of a research team at Wood Mackenzie that investigates the connections between energy consumers and the electric grid, about how the increasing energy demand from artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping electricity markets in the United States. In a recent report…

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Megan Lawson, an economist and researcher at Headwaters Economics, about how outdoor recreation economies support communities throughout the United States despite creating unique challenges for their residents. Many US communities that border public lands and scenic natural areas have recreatio…

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Varun Sivaram, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and founder and CEO of Emerald AI, about how “climate realism” could shape the future of US climate policy. In a recent article for the Council on Foreign Relations, Sivaram lays out the case for climate realism—an approach to US cl…

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Madeline Yozwiak, a PhD candidate at Indiana University Bloomington, about the potential of residential rooftop solar technology to address the growing problem of household energy insecurity in the United States. Energy insecurity—the inability to access or afford sufficient energy to meet basic …

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with McKenna Peplinski, a senior research associate at Resources for the Future, about delays in building up the infrastructure that delivers electricity to the United States. Many electric power projects, such as bids for new generators and transmission lines, are waiting in long queues to connect to…

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Sandeep Pai, director of climate and energy policy at Swaniti Global. Pai grew up in India’s coal belt; he has spent his career examining the coal and energy sectors in India, first as a journalist and now as a researcher and advisor focused on justice in the clean energy transition. He joins the…

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Robert D. Metcalfe, a professor at Columbia University. Metcalfe recently coauthored a study of the levels of invisible particulate matter released in the air during everyday household activities like cooking and cleaning, exposure to which has been linked to health problems. He shares key findin…

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Jenny Schuetz of Arnold Ventures, a philanthropic foundation where Schuetz serves as vice president of housing infrastructure, and where she focuses her work on expanding and diversifying the supply of housing while addressing issues like affordability and vulnerability to climate risks. Walls …

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Fiona Burlig, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, about improving access to clean drinking water in India. In partnership with a private company that cleans drinking water and delivers water directly to households, Burlig recently conducted a field experiment to find out how diff…

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Angela Parker, an assistant professor at the University of Denver and member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Cree Tribes. Parker recently published a book on the history of the Three Affiliated Tribes—the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara—who live on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. This lan…

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Jonathan Jennings, a meteorologist at the Utah Division of Water Resources and president of the Weather Modification Association. Jennings’s work focuses on cloud seeding, a technology that can reduce hail and increase rainfall or snowfall by introducing chemicals into clouds, yielding more water…

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Brian Kennedy, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center. Kennedy focuses on science and society research, studying public attitudes, knowledge, and beliefs about science—including energy and environmental issues. Kennedy and a coauthor released survey results about US public opinion on cli…

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Laura Grant, an associate professor at Claremont McKenna College. Many environmental nonprofit groups have been working to influence policy, but relatively little research has demonstrated how the efforts of these groups shape policy outcomes, and how some groups may support, catalyze, or even su…

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Emily Theokritoff, a research associate at Imperial College London. Theokritoff specializes in climate damage attribution—the emerging science of connecting human activity and climate change to extreme weather events. Theokritoff breaks down this evolving field of study, how research that attrib…

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Daniel Poneman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Energy, about the role of nuclear energy in meeting increasing demands for electricity. As the use of artificial intelligence grows, so does demand for electricity, raising que…

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Ann Eisenberg, a professor and research director at the West Virginia University College of Law, about economic challenges facing rural communities in the United States. Eisenberg explains how rural economies that develop around single industries, such as coal or steel, become vulnerable to decli…

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Aaron Cosbey, a senior associate at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, about the future of climate policy in Canada. The newly elected leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, Mark Carney, has replaced Justin Trudeau as prime minister and likely will face Pierre Poilievre, the lea…

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Resources for the Future Fellow Brian C. Prest about the effects of US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. As the world’s leading exporter of LNG, the United States has been ramping up capacity to produce and transport LNG to meet global demand. Prest describes how this increasing trend affects …

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls speaks with Carolyn Kousky, associate vice president for economics and policy at Environmental Defense Fund, about the instability of markets for homeowners insurance, especially in states that are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events. Kousky and Walls explore the key drivers of this instabil…

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Resources for the Future (RFF) Fellow Yanjun (Penny) Liao about the Coastal Barrier Resources Act, a bipartisan federal law that was first passed in the 1980s. The law is designed to curb development in coastal areas that are vulnerable to extreme weather events and to protect coastal environme…

Producer’s Note: The following episode of the podcast was recorded prior to the 2024 presidential election.In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Holly Buck, an associate professor at the University of Buffalo and climate justice fellow at the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University. Buck shares insights …

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Jenya Kahn-Lang, a fellow at Resources for the Future, about electricity prices in markets where private companies determine the costs for customers. Kahn-Lang explains why households in the same utility service area may pay different prices for the same amount of electricity, why customers may b…

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 or…

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…

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, elect…

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…

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 Progr…

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,…

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 t…

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 Marga…

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 th…

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 Krist…

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 presente…

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…

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…

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 an…

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 proc…

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 cen…

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 …

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 cli…

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 facto…