IoES in the News

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2020 Pritzker Award Winner Appointed to President Biden’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council

2020 Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award winner Clara L. Pratte was appointed by President Biden to the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC), which gives advice to the White House on…

Clara Pratte

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Daniel Swain in The Los Angeles Times: Under a Heat Dome — California will broil this week in a ‘long-duration event’

“This is going to be a long-duration event,” said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. “And that’s sort of characteristic of heat domes — that’s partly because they can sort of be self-persisting,…

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Awards

Future of Life Institute honors Richard Turco and other ‘nuclear winter’ pioneers

UCLA distinguished professor emeritus and founding director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, Richard Turco, received The Future of Life Award for his role in the discovery…

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Daniel Swain in Salon: A shrinking Lake Powell could herald an even worse water crisis in the Southwest’s future

“The shrinking of Lake Powell is due to a number of factors, including the climate change-induced drying noted above, increasing human demand for water in the Basin, and various specific…

daniel swain-sq

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Alex Wang in Barron’s: The U.S. and China Aren’t Talking Climate. Should We Worry?

Following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, China canceled bilateral climate discussions with the US on August 5. At this time, the world’s two largest polluters are no longer involved…

alex wang

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Daniel Swain in The Washington Post: Record rain is hitting drought-stricken areas. That’s not good news.

“It is unusual, especially on the extreme precipitation [and] flash flood side,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles. “They’re not just beating…

Daniel Swain

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Cara Horowitz in Financial Times: California climate rule to halt sale of new petrol cars by 2035

California has enacted laws that would ban the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035, aiming to reduce its biggest source of carbon emissions. Cara Horowitz, co-executive director of the…

cara horowitz

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What’s the deal with all the turtles in Los Angeles parks?

Brad Shaffer, director of the UCLA La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, was interviewed for a recent article…

LA-turtles

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Noam Rosenthal Research featured in UCLA Newsroom: Dangerous combination of extreme heat and smoke affected 16.5 million Californians

Extreme heat & wildfire smoke are both harmful to our health, but new research led by doctoral student Noam Rosenthal suggests that when we are exposed to both at the…

noam rosenthal

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Daniel Swain in Bloomberg: The World’s Rivers, Canals and Reservoirs Are Turning to Dust

The reasons global waterways have dried to a trickle are complex. There’s the impact of the weather-roiling La Nina, prolonged drought in many regions and also simple bad luck. But the…

daniel swain-sq

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Renters are largely left out of the eco-home movement – Dr. Pincetl in the OC Register

“I think that incentives are a way to reward the rich for doing the right thing and don't do a whole lot for the poor," said Stephanie Pincetl, director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA.

LED-Lights

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V. Kelly Turner research highlighted in UC Office of the President: Heat waves aren’t going anywhere. Here’s how we can prepare.

Turner is focused on the issue of extreme heat, and how we can address the looming crisis. “Protecting people from extreme heat will require a coordinated and well-researched government approach,”…

v. kelly turner

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Daniel Swain Research Highlighted in The New York Times: The Coming California Megastorm

Climate change is hastening the arrival of a different “Big One” in California. The New York Times features Daniel Swain and Xingying Huang’s research on the state’s coming megastorm.

Daniel Swain

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Olivia Sanderfoot Research Highlighted in University of Washington News

“Our findings suggest that some birds may have been able to use more spaces in cities because our human footprint was a little lighter,” said Sanderfoot, who completed the study…

Olivia-Sanderfoot

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Alex Hall in KCRW — More flooding, humidity, mosquitos in SoCal: Blame greenhouse gases

“When water comes at such a high rate from the sky, it’s really hard to capture it. And so it ends up being more destructive than it is beneficial,” said…

alex hall delivers turco lecture to american geophysical union

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Daniel Swain in USA Today: Senate bill passage hailed as ‘milestone’ for climate fight. Here’s what you need to know

“If it (passes)… it will mark a true milestone in the United States,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It will be the first legislation in…

Daniel Swain

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Yoram Cohen in The Los Angeles Times:

Yoram Cohen, a desalination expert and professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UCLA  weighs in on Catalina Island’s desalination plant, its impact, and the drought.  “At the end of…

yoram cohen

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Morgan Tingley in The New York Times

There’s not necessarily an increase in the number of fires in the West, “but the fires are bigger, more severe, and last longer so the total area burned per year…

brad shaffer in science daily: study of threatened desert tortoises offers new conservation strategy

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Daniel Swain in Yahoo! News: Scorching U.K. heat wave would have been ‘extremely unlikely’ without climate change

“Climate change is clearly increasing the severity and frequency of unprecedented extreme heat events globally,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Yahoo News…

Daniel Swain

Blog

Meet the 2022 Pritzker Environmental Genius Award Candidates #16-19

The final group of candidates for the 2022 Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award includes a government official, an environmental startup evaluator, an epidemiologist and a wildlife director.

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Blog

Meet the 2022 Pritzker Environmental Genius Award Candidates #11-15

The next group of candidates includes Latino environmental leaders, the CEO of a solar capsule company, an Antarctic oceanographer and an energy director advocating for the protection of Indigenous lands.

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Olivia Sanderfoot in WIRED: Wildfire Smoke Is Terrible for You. But What Does It Do to Cows?

Bad air can mislead birds, causing them to fly into the flames instead of to safety. “Carbon monoxide poisoning, if it doesn’t result in fatality, can also cause confusion. It…

Olivia-Sanderfoot

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UCLA teams up with LADWP for equitable solutions to reach 100% renewable energy

More detailed data collection and analysis will be important in this effort and others, and it will be led by the California Center for Sustainable Communities — specifically leveraging its Energy Atlas, which can show city officials where resources are being consumed and at what level, down to the individual building or unit. “Anything that has a spatial characteristic, we can examine and provide an analysis for it,” said Stephanie Pincetl, founding director of the center. “Our motivation is to work at consumption through the lens of equity. How much are they using? Where? And to do what, and under what conditions?”

Solar Installation

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Daniel Swain in Reuters — Explainer: What’s causing the recent U.S. heat waves?

“Climate change is making extreme and unprecedented heat events both more intense and more common, pretty much universally throughout the world,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. “Heat…

daniel swain-sq

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Travis Longcore in The Huffington Post: The Best Binoculars For Bird Watching, According To Birders

For Travis Longcore, president of the Los Angeles Audubon Society and professor at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, the very act of paying attention to your natural environment and the wildlife…

Travis Longcore