IoES in the News
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Daniel Swain in The Guardian: ‘Urban fire storm’: suburban sprawl raising risk of destructive wildfires
“The wildland urban interface extends over a far broader area than many folks realize – and it is also dynamic,” UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said. “Most of the time…
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Daniel Swain in The New York Times: Health Risks of Smoke and Ozone Rise in the West as Wildfires Worsen
Dangerous levels of two air pollutants, ozone and smoke, are occurring in tandem with increasing frequency over widespread parts of the Western United States where millions of people live, researchers…
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Daniel Swain in New York Magazine: The Return of the Urban Firestorm What happened in Colorado was something much scarier than a wildfire.
“Fire finds a way.” Daniel Swain spoke with New York Magazine about the “urban firestorm” that tore through suburban Denver Thursday, jumping house to house and spreading by football fields…
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Daniel Swain in NBC News: How climate change primed Colorado for a rare December wildfire
While fires are likely to become more common year-round, Swain said, winter still would not be a time of high fire activity. “I still don’t think winter is ever going…
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Daniel Swain in NPR: Winter storms in California’s mountains drop record-breaking amounts of snow
This fall, California has been in a statewide drought emergency, but the month of December has delivered a surprise – a parade of winter storms blanketing California’s mountains with record-breaking…
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Daniel Swain in The Guardian: ‘Extraordinary is no longer extraordinary’: US scientists on a year of climate disasters
UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain wrote for The Guardian: The last few years featured some really prominent global climate and weather extremes. And this year, in particular, kind of puts…
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Daniel Swain discusses 2021 climate disasters with The Weather Channel
“It’s not the presence of fire on the landscape really that’s the problem,” said Swain. “That’s a natural process. The problem is the magnitude and the intensity of the fires…
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Daniel Swain in The Washington Post — Cold, heat, fires, hurricanes and tornadoes: The year in weather disasters
The weather was wilder than usual this year, and the reasons vary, climate experts say. “The only two truisms when it comes to extremes in climate change are that almost…
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Lara Cushing in KCRW: Rising sea levels may flood California’s coastal toxic sites
More than 400 sites along California’s coastline are in danger of flooding this century — as identified on a map called “Toxic Tides” by UCLA and UC Berkeley researchers. “We…
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UCLA Engineers Build Water Treatment System for Disadvantaged Communities
A UCLA team led by Yoram Cohen at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and Madelyn Glickfield of UCLA’s Institute of Environment built and operated an on-site system that delivers…
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Karen McKinnon featured in Inc. — How Scientists Are Using AI to Understand Climate Change
The climate is changing faster than ever before. Machine learning could be a key understanding how–and to what extent. That’s according to Karen A. McKinnon, assistant professor at UCLA’s Institute of the…
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Lara Cushing in The Los Angeles Times: More than 400 toxic sites in California are at risk of flooding from sea level rise
“We know from past flood events that the wealthy communities are not the ones that suffer the greatest impacts,” Cushing said, pointing to recent disasters in New Orleans and Houston.…
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Dr. Pincetl, UCLA community members examine potential impacts of federal infrastructure law
Stephanie Pincetl, a professor of environment and sustainability, said the new infrastructure law is not enough to completely address the problems facing American infrastructure today. She said she believes the law is not truly unprecedented, but rather that people are not used to seeing infrastructure investments. Pincetl added the government should provide more generous funding, considering the larger sums spent on other sectors of the economy and the military. “What we actually need is a Congress that is willing to spend taxpayer money on taxpayers and an investment for the nation’s future,” Pincetl said.
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Stephanie Pincetl & Alex Hall weigh in — Why can’t we just move water to solve a drought?
More than 98% of the Western United States is experiencing drought, and some have proposed moving water across the country to resolve the problem. Stephanie Pincetl and Alex Hall share…
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Daniel Swain in The Guardian: Southern California could face most dangerous fire weather yet over holiday
“NorCal is, largely, out of the woods this year when it comes to large/fast-moving wildfire potential thanks to widespread heavy October rainfall,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University…
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Liz Koslov in The New York Times: As Federal Disaster Aid Languishes, Private Lenders Are Filling the Gap
In the absence of fixes to the disaster recovery program, climate experts said the new lending arrangement from Enterprise and Morgan Stanley was useful. That program “responds to a real…
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Marilyn Raphael on Climate and Justice
The geographer and director of UCLA”s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability is exploring how work in her field can help vulnerable people all over the globe.
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Daniel Swain in Foreign Policy
This is a “defining decade,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “If we don’t have large success this decade in bending the carbon…
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Edward Parson in The Hill: Manchin set to make or break Biden’s climate pledge
President Biden’s pledge at COP26 climate summit to cut methane emissions by 30% over the next 9years could be derailed by Sen. Joe Manchin who won’t support anything that would…
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Jon Christensen in The Los Angeles Times: Parks and green spaces are vital for neighborhoods, so why aren’t there more?
“There’s a very substantial relationship between having a park within walking distance of your home and good health outcomes,” said Jon Christensen, an adjunct assistant professor at the UCLA Institute…
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V. Kelly Turner in The Wall Street Journal: Western Forest Towns Promise Cheap Housing—And A Big Wildfire Threat
The California wildlife-urban landscape, where communities lie on the edge of flammable forests, houses over 11M people. “Buildings are being allowed to build. But are we asking is it appropriate…
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New project launched to prevent deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
New project launched to prevent deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Ituri, Democratic Republic of Congo-DRC (November 10, 2021) –The Ituri Forest in Eastern DRC, anchored by the…
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Daniel Swain in BuzzFeed News:
“It’s been really remarkable how infrequently we talk about the costs of not solving the problem, which are almost incalculably large,” Daniel Swain, UCLA climate scientist.
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Alex Wang in Legal Planet: Is China Doing Enough on Climate Change? COP26 Version
Many hope for ambitious commitments from all the countries during COP26, especially from the leading emitters like China. UCLA Emmett Institute faculty co-director Alex Wang comments on the country’s climate…
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Disparities in California’s Tap Water Quality Persist, New Data Shows — Greg Pierce weighs in
“Unless a system’s failing to meet the basic regulatory standards, I don’t think there’s a good case to say that bottled water’s better.” ~ Greg Pierce, co-director, UCLA Luskin Center…
