This is Democracy – Episode 17: The Environment and Democracy

How are communities and democracies affected by the changing global environment? Dr. Suri talks with professor Sheila Olmstead on the lasting effects climate change will have on government policies, and human lives around the world. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “So Fluorescently Away.” Sheila Olmstead is a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin (UT), a visiting fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF) in Washington, DC and a senior fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. From 2016–2017, she served as the Senior Economist for Energy and the Environment at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Before joining UT in 2013, Olmstead was a senior fellow (2013) and fellow (2010–13) at RFF, as well as associate professor (2007–10) and assistant professor (2002–07) of environmental economics at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Olmstead is currently an editor of the “Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.” She has also served as vice president and a member of the board of directors of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, as associate editor of “Water Resources Research,” co-editor of “Environmental and Resource Economics,” book review editor of “Water Economics and Policy,” and editorial council member for the “Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.” She holds a Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University (2002), a master’s in public affairs from The University of Texas at Austin (1996) and a B.A. from the University of Virginia (1992).