Natural justice
Just ask Osceola Ward, a UCLA graduate student who teaches disadvantaged kids to advocate for their communities and their futures. Ward wanted to be a lawyer, but his plans changed…
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Bug banquet – Metta World Peace & UCLA students eat crickets
Combined, these factors are expected to stress the world’s agricultural capacity. But one solution may be right underfoot, so to speak. Insects are easy to digest and grow. They may…
The Verge: Where do mountain lions hunt in Los Angeles?
A new study by La Kretz Center and National Park Service scientists finds surprising results
Los Angeles is a metropolitan den for mountain lions
Mountain lions are rarely seen, but they occasionally prowl near human habitats, according to a study by UCLA and the National Park Service published today in PLOS One. The research,…
Grid Vulnerability Due to High Heat
Alex Ricklefs of the CCSC has compiled a presentation on the impact of high heat events on the energy grid. Climate change has increased the number of extreme weather events in turn increasing energy demand.
CCSC on the web: Cities, data, and greenhouse gas emissions
Dr. Stephanie Pincetl and Dr. Erik Porse authored this week’s post on the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) project blog, Viewpoints. An excerpt: In the United States, the 20th…
A degree of determination
Both literally and figuratively, that’s how it was for Valerie Carranza, one of 76 UCLA students who graduated with bachelor’s degrees in environmental science on Sunday. Carranza grew up in…
L.A. students get an environmental filmmaking debut
It might be time for an update. In 2016, two-thirds of Americans wield video-equipped smartphones capable of telling vivid stories, from street protests to Snapchat. And 15 minutes may be…
CCSC’s Alex Ricklefs featured in LA Times Op-ed!
“Here in the Southland, we can help solve this part of the energy puzzle by using UCLA’s California Center for Sustainability Energy Atlas. The atlas displays aggregated electricity and natural…
4 Degrees of (Climate) Change
By Alex Ricklefs The song 4 Degrees, off the artist ANOHNI’s new album ‘HOPELESSNESS’, addresses the concerns of increasing climate change in a manner that most likely has never been…
Electric vehicle rubber meets the road: a Q&A with J.R. DeShazo
From 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., automobile and sustainability experts will join forces for an event that explores the past, present and future of cars and transportation. With audience participation,…
Bringing cities together for a greener future
Luckily, they also have Yoram Cohen in common. Cohen is a UCLA professor of chemical engineering who takes a global approach to sustainability. Last year, while participating in a conference…
California’s urban residents have been left behind by 2006 parks measure
Ten years later, most of that money has been spent. But although the measure prioritized funding for urban, disadvantaged and park-poor communities, residents in those places have seen less than…
Buildings loom large in street-level air quality
L.A. has made progress over the years. The notorious smog that led filmmaker John Waters to remark, “Only in L.A. will you glimpse a green sun or a brown moon,”…
From Star Wars to sugarcane—the journey of Keith Kawaoka
Today, Kawaoka is the deputy director of environmental health for Hawaii. His responsibilities include sanitation, air and water protection, food and drug safety, toxic cleanup and vector-borne diseases. There’s a…
Earth Day: then and now
The first Earth Day was covered for ten hours by The Today Show in 1970—a time when there was no cable television and network coverage meant a lot more than…
Drought makes life hard for Los Angeles newts
In the southern part of the state, the California newt—Taricha torosa—has been showing up at breeding grounds nearly 20 percent underweight, on average. The drastic change has evolutionary biologist Gary…
Honoring champions of the environment
But taking environmental issues to a global audience requires time, money and personal energy. At its annual gala last Thursday, UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability honored individuals who’ve…
Are we leaving nature behind?
The crisis is taught in classrooms with phrases such as “species are being lost at one hundred times the background rate.” But concepts like background rate—the rate at which species…
Recycled water is good for your health
For decades, recycling has been a focal point for environmentalists. And yet California—a state known for its progressive, earth-friendly ethos—has been slow to recycle an important and scarce resource: water.…
School’s out for science
Time was of the essence, but they weren’t rushing to a music festival or spring break in Mexico—they just didn’t want to miss low tide. It’s a routine that Denita…
Powering energy policy with big data
The Los Angeles County Energy Atlas is an interactive map that combines utility data, census information and details about buildings—their age, size and whether they’re used for residential or commercial…
See something weird in nature? Call your local scientist
UCLA Newsroom recently asked La Kretz Center Director Brad Shaffer about why climate change makes it even more urgent to strengthen citizen science programs and connect them to established scientific networks.