Resources Radio

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Emily Browne, who has worked on wildfire prevention and suppression in Alaska with the US National Park Service. On September 27, the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission released a report with recommendations for addressing the challenges that are associated with wildfire in the United States. Browne discusses some of these recommendations, the day-to-day life of working on wildfire mitigation in the wilderness, various wildfire-mitigation strategies, the experience of working with an all-female fire crew, and the gender disparity in the US firefighting workforce. References and recommendations: “On Fire: The Report of the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission” from the US Department of Agriculture Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission; https://www.usda.gov/topics/disaster-resource-center/wildland-fire/commission USAJOBS website; https://www.usajobs.gov/ “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer; https://milkweed.org/book/braiding-sweetgrass “The Big Burn” by Timothy Egan; https://www.timothyeganbooks.com/the-big-burn

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Alexander Gazmararian, a doctoral candidate at Princeton University, and Dustin Tingley, a professor at Harvard University. They discuss how a national transition to a clean energy system may affect communities with economies that historically have depended on fossil fuel production; the moral, economic, and political reasons for the US government to oversee a energy transition in these communities; and how a bottom-up approach to policy could help facilitate the transition. References and recommendations: “Uncertain Futures: How to Unlock the Climate Impasse” by Alexander F. Gazmararian and Dustin Tingley; https://www.uncertainfuturesbook.com/ “Can Federal Efforts Help Build Economic Resilience in New Mexico’s Oil and Gas Communities?” by Daniel Raimi and Zachary Whitlock; https://www.rff.org/publications/reports/economic-resilience-new-mexico-oil-and-gas-communities-energy-transition/ “The Fight to Save the Town” by Michelle Wilde Anderson; https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Fight-to-Save-the-Town/Michelle-Wilde-Anderson/9781501195990 “How We Survive” podcast; https://www.marketplace.org/collection/using-tech-to-adapt-to-climate-change/ “White Gold” episode of the “How We Survive” podcast; https://www.marketplace.org/shows/how-we-survive/white-gold/ Heatmap News; https://heatmap.news/

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Will Gorman, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, about the interconnection queue. The interconnection queue is the waiting list for developers that hope to connect power plants to the electric grid; regulators must first study the potential effects of connecting a plant to the grid before moving forward with a project. Gorman discusses the reasons for recent growth in queue wait times, the costs that are associated with connecting a new power plant to the grid, a new federal regulation that aims to improve the interconnection queue, and additional reforms that could speed up the process of connecting new power plants to the grid. References and recommendations: “Improvements to Generator Interconnection Procedures and Agreements” from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/fact-sheet-improvements-generator-interconnection-procedures-and-agreements “Queued Up: Characteristics of Power Plants Seeking Transmission Interconnection” by Joe Rand, Will Gorman, Seongeun Jeong, Fredrich Kahrl, Julie Mulvaney Kemp, Ben Paulos, Dana Robson, Jo Seel, and Ryan Wiser; https://emp.lbl.gov/queues “Generator Interconnection Costs to the Transmission System” by Jo Seel, Will Gorman, Fredrich Kahrl, Julie Mulvaney Kemp, Dev Millstein, Joe Rand, and Ryan Wiser; https://emp.lbl.gov/interconnection_costs “Beyond FERC Order 2023: Considerations on Deep Interconnection Reform” by Tyler H. Norris; https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/publications/beyond-ferc-order-2023-considerations-deep-interconnection-reform “Energy at the Movies” television program; http://energyatthemovies.com/about/ “The Art of Energy Efficiency” by Arthur H. Rosenfeld; https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.energy.24.1.33 The “Parable” book series by Octavia E. Butler; https://www.octaviabutler.com/parableseries

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with V. Kelly Turner, an associate professor at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles, about the impacts of heat on students in US schools. Heat not only affects the body but also has implications for children’s behavior and learning outcomes. Turner also discusses architectural and landscape design choices and technology that can mitigate hot temperatures on school grounds, funding sources for improving school infrastructure, and issues of equity in allocating such resources to schools. References and recommendations: The Los Angeles Living Schoolyards Coalition; https://www.lalivingschoolyards.org/ “Green schoolyards for Los Angeles: The smart policy solution for equity, health, and climate resilience” from the Trust for Public Land; https://www.tpl.org/green-schoolyards-los-angeles “The Heat Will Kill You First” by Jeff Goodell; https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jeff-goodell/the-heat-will-kill-you-first/9780316497572/

In this week’s episode, host Margaret Walls talks with Victoria Sanders and Molly Robertson. Sanders is a research analyst at the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, and Robertson works at Resources for the Future as a research associate. They discuss a recent report that Sanders and Robertson have published alongside coauthors about the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, a 2019 law in New York State that aims to achieve net-zero emissions and specifies that at least 35 percent of the benefits should go toward disadvantaged communities. Sanders and Robertson describe the role of environmental justice communities and advocacy groups in the development and implementation of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, options for implementing the law, and how these implementation options are projected to affect greenhouse gas emissions and air quality in specific communities. References and recommendations: “Prioritizing Justice in New York State Climate Policy: Cleaner Air for Disadvantaged Communities?” by Alan Krupnick, Molly Robertson, Wesley Look, Eddie Bautista, Victoria Sanders, Eunice Ko, Dan Shawhan, Joshua Linn, Miguel Jaller, Narasimha Rao, Miguel Poblete Cazenave, Yang Zhang, Kai Chen, and Pin Wang; https://www.rff.org/publications/reports/environmental-justice-communities-new-york-state-climate-policy-clcpa/ “Broken Ground” podcast; https://brokengroundpodcast.org/ “Never Out of Season: How Having the Food We Want When We Want It Threatens Our Food Supply and Our Future” by Rob Dunn; https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/rob-dunn/never-out-of-season/9780316260695

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Milan Elkerbout about how the European Union has responded to the Inflation Reduction Act. Elkerbout will join Resources for the Future as a fellow in October, transitioning from his role as head of the climate policy programme at the Centre for European Policy Studies. Elkerbout discusses the ongoing conversation about the Inflation Reduction Act among EU policymakers, climate policies that the European Union has proposed since the passage of the US law, and global trends in industrial and trade policy. This conversation with Hayes and Elkerbout comes on the heels of the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act, which became law in August 2022. References and recommendations: “The New Economics of Industrial Policy” by Réka Juhász, Nathan Lane, and Dani Rodrik; https://drodrik.scholar.harvard.edu/publications/new-economics-industrial-policy

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Tyler Felgenhauer, a research director and senior research scientist at Duke University, about social science issues that are associated with solar geoengineering. Felgenhauer discusses different technologies that can facilitate solar geoengineering, the risks and benefits of these technologies, how international cooperation could affect the deployment of solar geoengineering, and recent social science research on solar geoengineering. References and recommendations: “Solar Geoengineering Futures: Interdisciplinary Research to Inform Decisionmaking” event on September 28 and 29, hosted by Resources for the Future; https://www.rff.org/events/conferences/solar-geoengineering-futures-current-research-and-uncertainties/ Solar geoengineering research at Resources for the Future; https://www.rff.org/topics/comprehensive-climate-strategies/solar-geoengineering/ “Social science research to inform solar geoengineering” by Joseph E. Aldy, Tyler Felgenhauer, William A. Pizer, Massimo Tavoni, Mariia Belaia, Mark E. Borsuk, Arunabha Ghosh, Garth Heutel, Daniel Heyen, Joshua Horton, David Keith, Christine Merk, Juan Moreno-Cruz, Jesse L. Reynolds, Katharine Ricke, Wilfried Rickels, Soheil Shayegh, Wake Smith, Simone Tilmes, Gernot Wagner, and Jonathan B. Wiener; https://www.rff.org/publications/journal-articles/social-science-research-to-inform-solar-geoengineering/ “The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/586541/the-uninhabitable-earth-by-david-wallace-wells/ “Climate Change and the Nation State” by Anatol Lieven; https://global.oup.com/academic/product/climate-change-and-the-nation-state-9780197584248

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 methane in the atmosphere. References and recommendations: “Excess methane emissions from shallow water platforms elevate the carbon intensity of US Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production” by Alan M. Gorchov Negron, Eric A. Kort, Yuanlei Chen, Adam R. Brandt, Mackenzie L. Smith, Genevieve Plant, Alana K. Ayasse, Stefan Schwietzke, Daniel Zavala-Araiza, Catherine Hausman, and Ángel F. Adames-Corraliza; https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2215275120 “Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth” by Oliver Jeffers; https://www.oliverjeffers.com/here-we-are

Tatyana Deryugina, an associate professor, discusses her research on the long-term health effects of air pollution, including methods for measuring impact on life expectancy and chronic effects. They also talk about the availability of air-pollution data and trends in the US.

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 collaboration in the ethical development and implementation of artificial intelligence. References and recommendations: “Putting the ‘smarts’ into the smart grid: a grand challenge for artificial intelligence” by Sarvapali D. Ramchurn, Perukrishnen Vytelingum, Alex Rogers, and Nicholas R. Jennings; https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2133806.2133825 “Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning” by David Rolnick, Priya L. Donti, Lynn H. Kaack, Kelly Kochanski, Alexandre Lacoste, Kris Sankaran, Andrew Slavin Ross, Nikola Milojevic-Dupont, Natasha Jaques, Anna Waldman-Brown, Alexandra Sasha Luccioni, Tegan Maharaj, Evan D. Sherwin, S. Karthik Mukkavilli, Konrad P. Kording, Carla P. Gomes, Andrew Y. Ng, Demis Hassabis, John C. Platt, Felix Creutzig, Jennifer Chayes, Yoshua Bengio; https://dl.acm.org/doi/full/10.1145/3485128 “Climate Change and AI: Recommendations for Government Action” by Peter Clutton-Brock, David Rolnick, Priya L. Donti, Lynn H. Kaack, Tegan Maharaj, Alexandra (Sasha) Luccioni, Hari Prasanna Das; https://www.gpai.ai/projects/climate-change-and-ai.pdf “Environmental justice in the age of big data: challenging toxic blind spots of voice, speed, and expertise” by Alice Mah; https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2016.1220849