Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies

The fire-scorched state’s history has long been marked by calamities. But its latest disaster did not come to teach Californians a lesson. “Every crisis is not an apocalypse, and every fire isn’t either,” said Jon Christensen, an environmental historian, writer, and professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. “These are serious challenges,...

Jon Christensen writes for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists about climate change and California’s wildfires.  “We are living in a world of media hot takes. They come at us fast and furious, like embers blown from a firestorm by a fierce Santa Ana or Diablo wind. In an instant we’re surrounded on all sides. Quick judgments are...

It’s time to shift the conversation around parks in California. New data is illuminating the need to look at state parks in communities a bit differently. Rather than measuring their value by their undeniable beauty, new research illustrates a clear opportunity to measure parks by their impact on our public health and communities. It is...

All cities hunger for new property tax revenue. But all of these park projects at some point aspired to provide green space in neighborhoods that historically had little access to it. This pattern of new parks creating housing pressure might lead observers to wonder whether such investments are a good idea, if they threaten to...

“They always begin to move out at first light and back to their roosts about 45 minutes before sunset. It is a sublime experience to hear and see them,’’ said Heise, who is co-founder of the Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies / Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA.

In 2012, California became the first state in the country to declare that “Every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable and accessible water” when the state legislature inserted that statement into its state water code. Now, a new UCLA study finds, the state may be making progress on turning that goal into...

UCLA researcher Jon Christensen with University of Utah professor Alessandro Rigolon found policies that might help reduce “green gentrification,” that is, the displacement of residents and small businesses when parks are built or revitalized in low-income communities. In a new report, they identified 26 beneficial parks-related anti-displacement strategies. They recommend that park agencies and park...

UCLA researcher Jon Christensen with University of Utah professor Alessandro Rigolon found policies that might help reduce “green gentrification,” that is, the displacement of residents and small businesses when parks are built or revitalized in low-income communities. In a new report, they identified 26 beneficial parks-related anti-displacement strategies. They recommend that park agencies and park...

The Los Angeles River only intermittently resembles an actual river, even though that’s what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers entombed in concrete in the 1930s. Since then, its 51-mile course has been a trickling flood channel, the scene of countless movie car chases, and a punchline about how artificial L.A. can seem. The results...

Jon Christensen writes for Capital Weekly about a 2020 ballot for safe drinking water, drought preparation, wildfire prevention, and climate resilience.

UCLA’s Jon Christensen discusses his new study of California’s Proposition 1

Jon Christensen, an adjunct assistant professor at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, said the Coastal Act has two goals. One is to protect the coastal environment, the other is to preserve public access to the coast. “In the last few years, however, there’s been a real focus on what the barriers...