High Country News
Making the California coast public for all
Invisible barriers have kept people of color at bay.
Featured Faculty: Jon Christensen
IoES in the News
CNBC
Former ‘climate bad boy’ China may benefit as US leaves Paris deal
"If U.S. policy shifts in favor of fossil fuels as opposed to renewable ones, in the long run China will gain the upper hand in the inevitable global move toward cleaner sources of energy," said Ann Carlson, professor of environmental law at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Featured Faculty: Ann Carlson
Mongabay
New carbon map will help protect the DRC’s rainforests
Researchers were able to map the aboveground biomass in the DRC down to the one-hectare level using high-resolution airborne Light Detection and Ranging, or LiDAR, in combination with satellite imagery and machine learning geospatial algorithms, a method developed by Dr. Sassan Saatchi, an expert on tropical forests and the global carbon cycle at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Featured Faculty: Sassan Saatchi
Drug-resistant superbug genes found in San Diego parks
UCLA researchers find antibiotic-resistant genes in air, soil and water samples taken from city parks in San Diego, Los Angeles, Fresno, and Bakersfield. The highest level for a gene that’s…
Featured Faculty: Jennifer Jay
Reuters
Olympics: IOC’s 2024 evaluation commission gets full LA experience
There were stops at UCLA, where student residences would be renovated and transformed into an Athletes Village, and the Memorial Coliseum which anchored both the 1932 and 1984 Summer Games and would be a centerpiece again should LA beat out Paris, the only other city in the running, for the 2024 Olympics.
Los Angeles Times
L.A.’s game plan for 2024 Olympics wins praise from foreign media
LA 2024 has proposed spending $5.3 billion, a relatively modest amount by modern Olympic standards. Athletes would be housed at UCLA, saving $1 billion or more on a new village.
Orange County Register
LA 2024 Olympics group shows off its biggest advantage — existing venues
[T]he star Thursday seemed to be the UCLA campus, which would be home to the Olympic Village and is a potential difference-maker against Paris. LA 2024 will spend $33.6 million in 2024 dollars on Village costs. A yet to be built Paris Olympic Village would cost at least $1 billion.
USA Today
L.A.’s 2024 Olympic bid bolstered by campuses of UCLA, USC
Los Angeles has pitched UCLA as being uniquely capable of accommodating the demands of hosting Olympians, touting existing housing, common areas to socialize and extensive training venues the athletes would have in the village. Even the food, which IOC commission members tried in their visit, adds to the athlete experience.
Phys.org
High-tech rainforest map brings climate and conservation efforts into sharp relief
The map was created using methodology developed by Adjunct Professor Sassan Saatchi, an expert on tropical forests and the global carbon cycle with UCLA and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It combines data from satellites and an airplane-based laser detection system known as LiDAR, or light detection and ranging, to map the height and crown of trees at a fine-scale resolution.
Featured Faculty: Sassan Saatchi
Yale Climate Connections
Record snow, record snowmelt?
“The amount of accumulated snow in the Eastern Sierra is large enough that it will almost certainly lead to a flood when it melts and drains into the Owens Valley,” UCLA climate researcher Alex Hall wrote in an e-mail interview.
Featured Faculty: Alex Hall
Malibu Surfside News
Experts discuss 100 years of change, look toward future of National Parks
Malibuites were treated to an engaging presentation April 23 during Pepperdine: Our National Parks at 100: Confronting Change and Committing to Science, presented by UCLA La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science in collaboration with Pepperdine University.
Featured Faculty: H. Bradley Shaffer
The Atlantic
Climate Change Is Causing More Sweltering Summer Days
“In most places, when you get a heat wave now, there is probably a human finger print,” says Daniel Swain, an author of the paper and a climate scientist at…
Featured: Daniel Swain
Curbed LA
LA earns ‘disappointing’ C grade for its sustainability efforts
The results were “a surprise and a disappointment,” Mark Gold, of UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, told KPCC. “We thought the grades would have been better than they were ... There has been so much great policy, so many great programs.”
Featured Faculty: Mark Gold
Featured: Felicia Federico
Daily Bruin
UCLA students study acidification of kelp in Santa Monica Bay
The Daily Bruin takes a look at a student practicum team researching how kelp forests might provide a buffer against harmful impacts of ocean acidification.
Featured Faculty: Robert Eagle
Variety
Paul Allen, Peter Kareiva call on Hollywood to make more films about climate change
“…The best environmental stories frame tough challenges in ways that not only spark people’s sense of morality, but also empower them with the belief that they can make a difference.”
Featured Faculty: Peter Kareiva
KPCC-FM: An L.A. County environmental report card is a ‘surprise and a disappointment,’ highlighting gaps for improvement
“Despite tremendous leadership in California and in the region on a wide variety of air quality and greenhouse gas emission reduction issues, we’re seeing in L.A. County that we’re still…
The Washington Post
Record-breaking climate events all over the world are being shaped by global warming, scientists find
A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzed the influence of global warming on extreme climate events, such as record-breaking temperatures or rainfall,…
AccuWeather: Thousands brave the elements to partake in March for Science in Washington, DC
“Scientists are servants, and we can never forget that, he said. “We serve the people, we serve this planet, and most of all, we serve the truth,” said UCLA’s Glen…
EasyReaderNews: Savior or Albatross? Proposed desalination plant could decrease South Bay’s dependence on imported water, but has raised environmental concerns
“Having desal means Southern California gains water independence from Northern California. You can’t waive that off as insignificant. That can be quite important,” said Yoram Cohen, a professor of chemical…
New York Magazine
Here’s an Interesting New Video Series on Psychology and Climate Change
Climate Lab, a new YouTube series by Vox and the University of California that explores the behavioral science of climate change and attempts to mitigate it, is a smart idea…
Featured Faculty: Jon Christensen and Magali (Maggie) Delmas
Featured: M. Sanjayan
Vox
Why humans are so bad at thinking about climate change
“In terms of behavioral change, we need two things,” said Magali Delmas, a professor at the Institute of Environment and Sustainability at UCLA and the Anderson School of Management. “We…
Featured Faculty: Magali (Maggie) Delmas and Jon Christensen
Featured: M. Sanjayan
Why Are We So Bad at Talking About Climate Change?
What I learned through Climate Lab, a new video series I’m hosting in partnership with the University of California and Vox, is that most climate change messaging is filled with…
Featured Faculty: Jon Christensen
Vox
How psychology can trick us into keeping Earth habitable
Magali Delmas, a professor at the Institute of Environment and Sustainability at UCLA and the Anderson School of Management is on the hunt for these motivations, looking for simple ways…
Scienmag: The dangers of being a saber-toothed cat in Los Angeles 12,000 years ago
While previous studies of these animals have demonstrated that injuries likely occurred during fierce battles, the UCLA biologists are the first scientists to study enough bones to determine how frequently…