Resources for the Future Podcast

RFF resident scholar and managing editor of Common Resources Nathan Richardson talked with RFF Center for Climate and Electricity Policy​ Fellow Anthony Paul about the mechanics, costs, benefits, and viability of a federal clean energy standard (CES).

Resources for the Future’s Center for Climate and Electricity Policy and the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund convened a panel of leading economic experts in fiscal and environmental policy to discuss the role a carbon tax might play in coming debates about how to reform the US tax code.

The revolution in agricultural biotechnology has led to many changes, including the widespread use of corn, cotton, and soybeans that are genetically modified to resist herbicides; regulatory approval of rice fortified with vitamin A and virus-resistant papayas; and the development of drought-resistant wheat. Panelists at this seminar will analyze how concerns over labeling of food from GM animals may affect the marketing, development, and economic viability of such innovative products.

How do we shape our perceptions and understanding of environmental issues? Panelists offer perspectives from several vantage points: environmental reporting, local community engagement, and crowdsourcing in iSeeChange, a recent major public media project; the conceptual underpinnings of cognition and media framing as understood from the lens of political science; and broader challenges in linking public policy, natural and social science, cognition, and belief to advance collective action and governance.

RFF concluded its 60th anniversary distinguished lecture series with this event featuring Thomas C. Schelling, 2005 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences.

Over the past 60 years, environmental economists have pioneered the idea of market-based approaches to solving environmental problems. Regulators have implemented market-based programs for air pollution, water pollution, land management, and other environmental policy problems at local, state, federal, and—in the case of greenhouse gas regulation—international levels. Panelists at this seminar discussed what we can learn from successful and unsuccessful applications of market-based policy and its desirability, feasibility, and design in the future.

Former deputy secretary of the US Department of the Interior Lynn Scarlett, who currently serves as an RFF visiting scholar and co-director of RFF’s Center for the Management of Ecological Wealth, sat down with Resources to discuss emerging watershed governance models for multi-jurisdictional water systems.

At November's First Wednesday Seminar, RFF convened an expert panel to discuss the future of of five key fuels — oil, coal, natural gas, renewables, and nuclear — over the next decade.

RFF hosted a special with Kenneth J. Arrow, 1972 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences. The lecture marks the second in a series of three lectures by Nobel Laureates in Economic Sciences celebrating RFF’s 60th anniversary.

RFF hosted a special event with Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, as part of RFF’s 60th anniversary celebration: Resources 2020, a yearlong exploration of how economic inquiry can address future environmental and natural resource challenges.