Rausser College on COVID-19

During California’s recovery from COVID-19, many people have fallen behind on energy bills. In a blog post, Agricultural & Resource Economics professor Meredith Fowlie identifies pathways to energy bill debt relief for state citizens.

In a study, alumna Maywa Montenegro de Wit identifies ways in which COVID-19 has exposed racial issues in the agrifood industry. Combining lessons from ecology and social science, Montenegro de Wit suggests ways for agroecologists to learn from abolition to dismantle exploitative systems.

In an event organized by BioMonitor and the International Consortium on Applied and Bioeconomy Research (ICABR), agricultural and resource economics professor David Zilberman joins other policy and science experts to discuss the importance of the bioeconomy for economic recovery during the pandemic. The webinar also centers on promoting equal access and participation in the recovery.

In an article in California Magazine, professor Dan Kammen in the Energy and Resources Group joins a group of Berkeley experts, writing about the potential aftermath of the novel coronavirus pandemic. He argues that greed, social inequity, environmental distruction, and the sidelining of science have all made the outbreak much more devastating.

Researchers in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and the Energy Resources Group join the first peer-reviewed analysis of local, regional and national policies in response to the pandemic. The study, conducted by the Goldman School's Global Policy Laboratory and published in the journal Nature, finds that travel restrictions, business and school closures, shelter-in-place orders, and other non-pharmaceutical interventions averted roughly 530 million COVID-19 infections across the six countries. The study was also featured in The Washington Post,  MSNBC, and other publications.

In a Haas Energy Institute blog post, agricultural and resource economics professor Meredith Fowlie writes about green stimulus investments. She argues that certain policies could help simultaneously address the economic downturn, climate change, and social inequities.

Daphne Miller, a past fellow at the Berkeley Food Institute, writes about how the pandemic has led some farmers in the Midwest to shift production. Many growers are moving away from growing staple commodities, such as corn and wheat destined for international markets, to grow fruit and vegetables for local communities.

In an article discussing possible  treatments for COVID-19, Dan Nomura speaks about target proteins on “undruggable” viruses. Nomura has spent the past three years working to understand the unique enzyme found in viruses like the coronavirus.

In a blog post for the Energy Institute at Haas, agricultural and resources economics professor Maximillian Auffhammer writes about the future of public transportation once social distancing mandates are no longer in effect.

In a recent article, the California-China Climate Institute (CCCI) calls for greater cooperation between the United States and China on emissions reduction, through a transition to zero-emission vehicles. CCCI is a UC-wide joint initiative between UC Berkeley's Rausser College, the Berkeley Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, and the Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development at Tsinghua University.

In an opinion piece co-authored with Daniel Aldana Cohen, professor Dan Kammen in the Energy and Resources Group writes that the convergence of climate change and the global pandemic will be catastrophic. The authors argue for a green stimulus plan to address both problems simultaneously. Kammen's proposals are also discussed in Politico.

In a new study, agricultural and resource economics professor Sofía Villas-Boas and graduate student James Sears analyze the effectiveness of sheltering-in-place during COVID-19 while explaining the effects that social distancing has on the spread of the virus. 

In a recent Op-ed, environmental science, policy, and management professor Seth Holmes writes about the challenges faced by healthcare professionals in the United States as they confront the coronavirus pandemic.