Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago Director Michael Greenstone, who co-directs the Impact Lab, tells Mike about his main professional mission: to apply the tools of economics to reduce human suffering. But that wasn’t always the case. No indeed. For many years, including all of college, Michael’s main goal in life was to have a career in the NBA. Happily for economics, Division III basketball at Swarthmore didn’t immediately translate to the desired outcome, and Michael found his way to natural resource-energy-climate economics via a short stint in labor economics. Now he and his colleagues are pushing forward on an extremely challenging agenda designed to bring economics into the realm of rigorous nature science. To meet the goal, as Michael puts it, a study should have a global analysis, with plausibly causal mechanisms, and consideration of the true range of adaptations that society would bring to bear in the face of climate change. We’re not there yet, but the pathway is clearer than ever before.