How Could Artificial Intelligence Change the World of Think Tanks?, with Dan Baer

In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Dan Baer, a senior vice president at the Washington, DC–based think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His role offers a vantage point for unique insights on how artificial intelligence (AI) may affect the think tank world and its research contributions. Baer elaborates on some “emergent intuitions” that he articulates in a recent article published by Carnegie, in which he reckons with an AI world that’s newly emerging but nonetheless demands deep consideration of old philosophical foundations. Baer describes how AI may change the approach that research institutions take—and may need to take—moving forward. References and recommendations: “Mission over Model: What Might AI Mean for an Organization Like Carnegie?” by Dan Baer; https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2026/08/artificial-intelligence-ai-technology-research-think-tanks “The End of History and the Last Man” by Francis Fukuyama; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man “The Wonderful World That Almost Was: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek” by Andrew Durbin; https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374609559/thewonderfulworldthatalmostwas/ “Terra Incognita: The Economics of a Shrinking World” by Jesús Fernández-Villaverde and Patrick Norrick; https://www.nber.org/papers/w35809 Subscribe to stay up to date on podcast episodes, news, and research from Resources for the Future: https://www.rff.org/subscribe/

In this episode, Daniel Raimi talks with Susanna Berkouwer about their research on reducing the economic and environmental costs of energy access through a simple piece of technology: charcoal-burning cookstoves. Access to electricity is limited in low-income countries, which means that access to clean cooking in those countries is limited, too. Some areas of the world have shifted to using liquefied petroleum gas for their cooking, but Sub-Saharan Africa is trending toward higher use of biomass-burning cookstoves, which produce emissions that can harm human health and lead to local or regional deforestation. An assistant professor in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Berkouwer and their colleagues applied a randomized experimental design with 1,000 households in Sub-Saharan Africa, aiming to see whether alternatives to charcoal-intensive cookstoves can reduce both the cost of energy and the negative environmental impacts. The conclusions are strong and striking: Corroborating results show that improvements in cookstove efficiency come with more efficient biomass use and cost savings, and the fiscal cost of subsidizing cookstoves is hundreds of times more efficient than other means of decarbonization. Berkouwer’s randomized study quantifies these gains in cost-efficiency, reductions in environmental pollution, and potential policy redundancies, opening up space for new climate solutions. References and recommendations: “The Cost-Effectiveness of Clean Cookstove Carbon Mitigation After Adjusting for Additionality and Impact” by Susanna B. Berkouwer and Joshua T. Dean; https://doi.org/10.1142/S2010007826500089 Subscribe to stay up to date on podcast episodes, news, and research from Resources for the Future: https://www.rff.org/subscribe/

In this episode, host Margaret Walls speaks to Dave Keiser and Joseph Shapiro about safe drinking water in the United States. Keiser is a professor at the Yale School of the Environment, and Shapiro is an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Together with other coauthors, they put out a research paper on clean drinking water: how US residents have access to it, what types of policies help preserve it, and the degree to which it benefits people’s health. Their paper incorporates more than 250 million readings on 1,250 different water pollutants across 48 states over several decades, links those data to maps of public water systems across the country, and connects all this information to health outcomes via Medicare data. The Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 authorizes the US Environmental Protection Agency to set limits on contaminants in water supplied by public water systems, and the act provides financial loans to local municipalities for constructing and upgrading water-treatment plants; this law led to major improvements in providing clean drinking water to US residents. Some of the questions Keiser and Shapiro address in this episode: What exactly are the benefits of access to clean water—and do those benefits justify the costs? What level of government is most effective for managing drinking water? Find out more by listening to the episode. References and recommendations: “Water Works: Causes and Consequences of Safe Drinking Water in America” by David A. Keiser, Bhashkar Mazumder, David Molitor, and Joseph S. Shapiro; https://www.nber.org/papers/w35288 “National trends in drinking water quality violations” by Maura Allaire, Haowei Wu, and Upmanu Lall; https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1719805115 “The Evolution of Water Pollution Control in the United States” by William L. Andreen; https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/fac_articles/10/ “The Lost City of the Monkey God” by Douglas Preston; https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/douglas-preston/the-lost-city-of-the-monkey-god/9781455540020/ Subscribe to stay up to date on podcast episodes, news, and research from Resources for the Future: https://www.rff.org/subscribe/

In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Jesse Gourevitch, a new Resources for the Future fellow, about how flood-risk information affects US housing markets. Discussing an upcoming report, Gourevitch outlines changes in property sale prices and buyer characteristics following revisions to federal flood maps and updates to state requirements for disclosing flood risk to homebuyers. He and his coauthor have found that property sale prices are lower when properties are mapped into a designated flood zone or become subject to disclosure requirements. For lower-income homeowners, the declines in property value are larger than high-income homeowners relative to annual income. Following these changes to flood maps, homebuyers in flood-prone areas tend to have higher incomes and are less likely to be Black or Hispanic. Gourevitch discusses what these findings could mean for disparities in flood exposure across different socioeconomic groups. References and recommendations: “Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service” edited by Michael Lewis; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/788713/who-is-government-by-edited-by-michael-lewis/ Subscribe to stay up to date on podcast episodes, news, and research from Resources for the Future: https://www.rff.org/subscribe/

In this episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Andrea Furnaro and Patrick Heller from the Natural Resource Governance Institute. Drawing from a recent report, Furnaro and Heller lay out a five-step framework for how national oil companies (NOCs) can navigate an impending energy transition. Together, they contend that a business-as-usual approach is not a neutral option for these companies and their respective countries. Instead, NOCs must define national policy goals, assess transition risks and opportunities, establish a strategic direction beyond oil and gas, strengthen institutional governance, and ensure a just transition and responsible exit for workers and communities. Examples from Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Denmark illustrate how different NOCs can weigh diversification opportunities and adapt strategies to their unique national circumstances and organizational, technical, and economic capacities. References and recommendations: “National Oil Company Transformation: Strategic Choices for an Uncertain Energy Future” by Andrea Furnaro, Giovanni Tagliani, Patrick Heller, Ana Carolina González Espinosa, Tengi George-Ikoli, Fernanda Ballesteros, Nicola Woodroffe; https://resourcegovernance.org/publications/national-oil-company-transformation “Facing the Future” by Andrea Furnaro and David Manley; https://resourcegovernance.org/publications/facing-future-what-national-oil-companies-say-about-energy-transition “Jane” documentary film; https://films.nationalgeographic.com/jane-the-movie “The Secret Agent” film; https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27847051/ Subscribe to stay up to date on podcast episodes, news, and research from Resources for the Future: https://www.rff.org/subscribe/

This week, host Margaret Walls investigates the world of weather forecasting with Jeffrey Shrader, an associate professor at Columbia University whose recent research examines inequalities in forecast accuracy among countries across the globe. While the accuracy of weather forecasts has improved steadily over the past few decades, low-income countries experience notably less reliability in their local and regional weather predictions. Shrader explains how factors such as topography and proximity to the tropics impact the ability to get a read on the weather, while lack of investment in weather-observing infrastructure exacerbates such inequalities. In the course of breaking down his findings, Shrader gives an overview of the public-private partnership behind US weather forecasting (including how the context and outcomes may be poised to shift with recent policy proposals) as well as the changes that national and global leaders can implement to improve the complex weather forecasting system. References and recommendations: “Global Inequalities in Weather Forecasts” by Manuel Linsenmeier and Jeffrey Shrader; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-77630-w “Weather Forecasts Become More Important for Reducing Mortality as the Climate Warms” by Jeffrey G. Shrader, Stephan Thies, Laura Bakkensen, Manuel Linsenmeier, and Derek Lemoine; https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2523372123 “On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets” by Sanford J. Grossman and Joseph E. Stiglitz; https://www.jstor.org/stable/1805228 “Princess Mononoke” film; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Mononoke “All the World” by Liz Garton Scanlon; https://parents.simonandschuster.com/9781481431217 “Balanced Weather” blog from Alan Gerard; https://balancedweather.com/author/wxinms1/ “Balanced Weather” substack from Alan Gerard; https://substack.com/@balancedweather Subscribe to stay up to date on podcast episodes, news, and research from Resources for the Future: https://www.rff.org/subscribe/

In this episode of the podcast, host Kristin Hayes invites Zehra Khan and Lauren Sidner to discuss their work on the Electricity Price Hub, a collaboration that involves Heatmap News, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Clean Economy Project. The Hub visualizes national, state-level, and regional electricity prices—a feat that previously has been elusive due to the fragmentation of data across many sources. By putting prices in comparison for ZIP codes across the country, Khan, Sidner, and their colleagues are able to illuminate broad nationwide trends and the differences among states and regions when it comes to changing electricity prices and key drivers of that change. They discuss the role of data centers in electricity rate increases; what’s behind the notable price spike in Washington, DC; considerations for state regulators and policymakers; and more. References and recommendations: “How to Fix the Fastest-Rising Electricity Prices in the U.S.” by Zehra Khan, Lauren Sidner, and Steven Berit; https://heatmap.news/ideas/pepco-exelon-prices Electricity Price Hub data tool from Heatmap News, MIT, and CleanEcon; https://electricity.heatmap.news/ “The Affordability and Climate Agendas Run Through State Regulators. It’s Time to Rethink Their Roles.” by Arjun Krishnaswami and Megan Husted; https://fas.org/publication/rethinking-state-regulators-climate/ The Kyoichiro Kaga series of mystery novels by Keigo Higashino; https://us.macmillan.com/series/thekyoichirokagaseries “A Bad, Bad Place” by Frances Crawford; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/803124/a-bad-bad-place-by-frances-crawford/ Subscribe to stay up to date on podcast episodes, news, and research from Resources for the Future: https://www.rff.org/subscribe/

This week, host Daniel Raimi brings Gabrielle Wong-Parodi on the podcast to discuss how people connect climate change to their personal experiences with extreme weather events—and whether these experiences impact their willingness to take action. As a social scientist at Stanford University with a psychology background, Wong-Parodi offers a glimpse into the complicated, and often unpredictable, path between experiencing a consequence of climate change and deciding to contribute to solutions. Research has shown that extreme weather events can lead to increased desire to take adaptation measures (like making homes more resilient) and mitigation actions (like purchasing electric vehicles or solar panels). However, translating these cognitive responses to behavior isn’t always straightforward; Wong-Parodi explains how psychological biases and political affiliation can affect the actions that result from observed attitudinal trends. References and recommendations: “Personal experiences matter for climate action” by Gabrielle Wong-Parodi; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-026-02640-x “Households’ Perceived Personal Risk and Responses in a Multihazard Environment” by Michael K. Lindell and Seong Nam Hwang; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01032.x “The effects of weather experiences on climate change attitudes and behaviors” by Matthew Ryan Sisco; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1877343521001160 “Experience of extreme weather affects climate change mitigation and adaptation responses” by Christina Demski, Stuart Capstick, Nick Pidgeon, Robert Gennaro Sposato, and Alexa Spence; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32355377/ “All That Breathes” documentary; https://www.allthatbreathes.com/ Subscribe to stay up to date on podcast episodes, news, and research from Resources for the Future: https://www.rff.org/subscribe/

This week, host Daniel Raimi brings Ishan Sharma on the podcast to discuss the beginnings of the geologic hydrogen industry. Sharma, director and founder of a fund at Renaissance Philanthropy that seeks to grow hydrogen into a competitive energy provider, draws upon the trajectories of sectors such as oil and gas—and newer additions, like geothermal energy—to argue that with enough investment, the abundant hydrogen gas trapped beneath the Earth’s surface could be a major player in the energy game. As hydrogen is a natural output of common chemical reactions, such as the interaction of iron and water, there’s no shortage of the resource; the issue is how to find it. While interest in geologic hydrogen is ramping up, the industry faces feasibility issues related to incomplete public information, lack of understanding about the subsurface world, and regulatory voids—however, Sharma believes this low-carbon source has a bright future. References and recommendations: Chimaera Fund; https://www.renaissancephilanthropy.org/chimaera-fund “Designing a Life That Matters” episode of the “Hidden Brain” podcast; https://www.hiddenbrain.org/podcast/designing-a-life-that-matters/ “Odd Lots” podcast from Bloomberg; https://www.bloomberg.com/oddlots “Ministry for the Future” book; https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kim-stanley-robinson/the-ministry-for-the-future/9780316300162/ Subscribe to stay up to date on podcast episodes, news, and research from Resources for the Future: https://www.rff.org/subscribe/

In this episode, host Kristin Hayes invites Sara Baldwin-Griffin to give her perspective on Utah’s growing renewable energy sector—a product of the state’s abundant resources, increasing energy demand, and collaborative policy landscape. Baldwin-Griffin, as chief executive officer of Utah Clean Energy, is supporting the industry’s boom as solar, wind, geothermal, and battery power have grown from less than 5 percent to approximately 20 percent of Utah’s energy generation within just two decades. Not only do sustainable sources of energy offer solutions for affordability and reliability issues, which have been exacerbated by the state’s emerging data center projects, but renewable energy can inject vitality back into struggling local economies. Baldwin-Griffin elaborates on the factors that have led to Utah’s clean-energy success so far, including bipartisan support and community engagement, and speculates on next steps to increase renewable energy adoption across the Western United States. References and recommendations: Utah Clean Energy; https://utahcleanenergy.org/ Subscribe to stay up to date on podcast episodes, news, and research from Resources for the Future: https://www.rff.org/subscribe/