IoES in the News

The Atlantic

Ann Carlson in The Atlantic

“Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at UCLA, worries about a case that the Court will likely hear in the next few years: whether the Trump administration can revoke…

Featured Faculty: Ann Carlson

Sierra Club

Dallas Goldtooth, Pritzker nominee, in Sierra Magazine

This is a process. We have all been affected by capitalism, colonization and white supremacy. As such, it's going to take all of us—native and non-native alike—to dismantle these systems of oppression. However, White allies in particular must be held accountable for their role in the dismantling of white supremacy and extractive economies. We need our allies to join us in pushing back against the narratives of colonization and to incorporate the frameworks of intersectionality, indigenous feminism, and indigenous story-based strategies in their allyship.

Featured 2018 Pritzker Award Nominee: Dallas Goldtooth

The Washington Post

Like it or not, immigrant children are our future

If the 20th century was the century of mass migrations, the 21st century will be the century of the children of immigrants. The reality is that the children of immigrants are the only sector of the population in nearly all high-income countries that is growing, and we must seek to integrate them.

Bloomberg

Fresno Heat and Foul Air Set Stage for Trump Tailpipe Debate

“The Central Valley supported Trump over Hillary Clinton and its auto dealers have been plaintiffs in cases challenging California’s emissions standards,” said Ann Carlson, a University of California at Los Angeles law professor. “This is ironic because the auto standards Trump wants to repeal would go along way toward cleaning up the valley’s air pollution.”

Featured Faculty: Ann Carlson

Los Angeles Times

Michael Jerret- LA Times

“There’s no question that people with preexisting lung diseases, particularly asthmatics, have had a harder time this year than they would have in previous years where there weren’t so many exceedances,” said Michael Jerrett, who chairs the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health.

Featured: Michael Jerrett

UCLA Newsroom

David Neelin- UCLA Newsroom

"David Neelin, UCLA professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, is leading a new multi-institutional research project that has been awarded a $1.63 million grant by NOAA Research’s MAPP Program to create a one-stop shop of diagnostic tools for scientists to help streamline the process for improving their weather and climate models. “Diagnostics” refers to finding the best way to analyze observations and make sure every step of the physical process is well understood and represented in the scientific models".

Featured Faculty: David Neelin

LAist

LA Surfers Are Covered In Germs And Scientists Are Stoked To Study Them

UCLA scientists are studying two strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria at 17 beaches along the California coast. However, "you can't do an experiment where you purposely put [regular] people into an environment with antibiotic-resistant bacteria," said Dr. Jennifer Jay, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the project's lead researcher. This makes surfers the perfect subjects to test for the bacteria strains. The experiment will be testing 40 surfers and 40 non-surfers to examine the movement and impact on germs.

Featured Faculty: Jennifer Jay

Los Angeles Times

How far can California push the nation — and the world? Jerry Brown’s climate summit may provide the answer

The world gathered in San Francisco, CA to make its own path and take action against climate change. People doubt what a single state can do, however, “California is big enough and splashy enough, and Jerry Brown is famous enough, that people are paying attention to what California is doing about it,” said Ann Carlson, UCLA environmental law professor.  

Featured Faculty: Ann Carlson

Lewiston Tribune

PREVIOUS Weekend Roundup The forecast calls for temperatures reaching the low 70s in the Lewiston-Clarkst… NEXT UP On This Date Stories published in the Lewiston Tribune on … Republicans tout benefits of Snake dams at hearing

A complex species and river management issue has “been reduced to a simple symbolic battle — a battle involving a choice between evil dams and the certain loss of an iconic species,” wrote Peter Kareiva, Director of UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

Featured Faculty: Peter Kareiva

Lawmakers: Don’t blame Snake dams for grieving mother orca

There has been commotion over the four lower Snake River dams, especially with the image of an endangered killer whale pushing her dead calf along the Washington coast. Opposition comes together to fight the dams. “There is no doubt that dams have caused salmon declines, but the operators of the dams have spent billions of dollars to improve the safety of their dams for salmon, and it is not certain the dams now cause higher mortality than would arise in a free-flowing river,” said Peter Kareiva, director of UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

Featured Faculty: Peter Kareiva

Nature

Enormous wildfires spark scramble to improve fire models

With countries across the globe in flames, scientists realize their knowledge on fires is becoming outdated and new studies are necessary. One study conducted by University of California campuses focuses on the future of fires, ecosystems, and climate in California. This should allow scientists to analyse how more extreme and variable weather will affect wildfires and how ecosystems will respond to them, says Alex Hall, a climate scientist at UCLA and the project’s principle investigator.

Featured Faculty: Alex Hall

Snake River dams critical to irrigated ag industry

Though the Snake River dams are the most efficient and productive agricultural operations, there are disputes with the dams hurting the salmon. Peter Kareiva, a well-respected conservation ecologist and worked with NOAA fisheries views salmon recovery and dam removal as entirely different things. The opposition's objective is dam removal, not fish recovery.

Featured Faculty: Peter Kareiva

Courthouse News Service

Study: Efficient Irrigation Methods Increase Water Usage

It is thought that the efficient irrigation is actually using more water. Stephanie Pincetl said that it cannot all be blamed on efficient irrigation. California’s flood control policies contributed to decreased groundwater levels because they “essentially eliminate” winter flooding that used to recharge ground water. “There are confounding factors, and efficient farming is one piece of the problem.”

Featured Faculty: Stephanie Pincetl

PBS SoCal

The Global Potato: Food Futures of the Past

Published as part of an environmental storytelling partnership with UCLA's Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies (LENS), with extensive contributions from faculty and MFA students in UCLA’s documentary film program in the School of Theater, Film and Television. The third storyline explores current innovations and visions for ecological, equitable food systems, specifically on the global potato timeline.

While the planet burns, our politicians fiddle

“We are living in a world that is not just warmer than it used to be,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, told The New York Times. “We haven’t reached a new normal. This isn’t a plateau.” Climate change is contributing to burning areas all around the world and hurting the local people. Though globally, this year has been the worst heat wave and fire season, we are seeing backward action from politicians, only increasing their support for high carbon emitting industries.

Featured: Daniel Swain

Gizmodo

The Trump Administration Just Dropped Its Pro-Coal Alternative to Obama’s Clean Power Plan

The Trump administration released new proposal – Affordable Clean Energy rule. It is a lifeline for coal and does not include pollution goals. The EPA stated that the rule would increase pollution and put public health at risk, especially low income communities. UCLA law professor Cara Horowitz notes any arguments the administration makes in court defending the rule “will be made against the backdrop of EPA’s own determination that carbon dioxide pollution is a danger to public health.”

Featured Faculty: Cara Horowitz

National Geographic

Surprising Link Discovered Between Bottom Feeders and Blood Suckers

UCLA research scientist and lead author on the new study, Gary Bucciarelli, found that the invasive crayfish in the Santa Monica Mountains streams is linked to growing mosquito population. They disrupt the ecosystem, scare off mosquito larvae predator, dragonflies, and put people at higher risk of disease.

Featured: Gary Bucciarelli

NOAA: Rest of West’s fire season likely to remain hotter than normal

The West US has been experiencing unusually large wildfires, reaching the largest in California history with the Mendocino fire, outside of the fire season. The hot temperatures and wildfires are expected to continue through the fire season of September and October. Three leading climate and fire scientists, including UCLA's Daniel Swain, state climate change as a threat multiplier, extending the fire season and contributing to the large record breaking fires.

Featured: Daniel Swain