IoES in the News
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Daniel Swain Weighs in for Reuters — Heat wave in Pacific Northwest ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change
“There is a clear human fingerprint on this particular extreme heatwave in the Pacific Northwest, and in general on extreme heatwaves everywhere in the modern era we’re living through,” said…
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Alex Hall in EcoWatch: Human Activity Linked to Extreme Rainfall
A new UCLA study links human activity to intensifying rainfall.”These findings further elevate the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to prevent even larger impacts down the road,” said Alex…
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Beate Ritz in Neurology Today: Air Pollution May Increase Risk for Parkinson Disease
New research from Seol suggests elevated exposure to nitrogen dioxide from air pollution was linked with a greater risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. “We know that it is a disorder…
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Paul Barber in UCLA Newsroom: Scientists create genetic library for mega-ecosystem in Pacific Ocean
Now, UCLA ecologist Paul Barber and colleagues from UCLA and three other institutions have created a library of DNA “barcodes” that identify 605 species in the California Current, including 275…
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Alex Hall study featured in The Conversation: Global evidence links rise in extreme precipitation to human-driven climate change
Human activities, such as burning fossil fuels for transportation and electricity, have worsened the intensity of extreme rainfall and snowfall over land in recent decades, not just in a few…
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Brad Shaffer in The Los Angeles Times: This architect is trying to save cougars from becoming roadkill on California freeways
Brad Shaffer, an evolutionary biologist at UCLA, has high hopes the wildlife crossing will reshape not just the landscape for its top predator but the character of Southern California. “From…
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Daniel Swain in Bloomberg: Drought Indicators in Western U.S. Flash Warnings of the ‘Big One’
Summer in the U.S. begins with widespread drought already at historic levels across 11 states. Experts warn of worsening conditions once wildfires start. “As far as drought goes, this is…
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Rajit Gadh in The Hill: Summer heat brings new challenge to electric grid
Rajit Gadh, director of the University of California, Los Angeles’s Smart Grid Energy Resource Center expressed concern that grid issues were cropping up so early this year. “We’re very early…
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Travis Longcore and V. Kelly Turner in National Geographic: Los Angeles confronts its shady divide
Trees cover is abundant primarily in rich, mostly white neighborhoods in Los Angeles. But in predominantly Black&brown neighborhoods such as Huntington Park, which is 97% Hispanic, shade is vanishingly rare.…
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Stephanie Pincetl weighs in for CalMatters — Water shortages: Why some Californians are running out in 2021 and others aren’t
Drought resilience depends on location but also extraordinary engineering — determining which California places are running out of water this year and which remain in good shape. The issue is…
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IoES Director of Communications David Colgan in Los Angeles Magazine: For L.A.’s Jet Setters, Semiprivate Flights Are Taking Off
Some Angelenos are waving goodbye to flying commercial and opting for luxe—and sometimes surprisingly cheap—semiprivate flights. But traveling this way has a greater environmental impact, says David Colgan from the…
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Daniel Swain in Slate: A “Heat Dome” and Drought Are Threatening to Ignite the West
Wildfires erupted this past weekend across 10 states—including California, Colorado, Arizona, and Oregon—as record-high temperatures continue to bake many areas in the West and Southwest United States. “It’s not only…
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Morgan Tingley in The Hill: Heat wave sparks historically unseasonable wildfires in West
The Western U.S. just experienced one of the worst heat waves in its history. Now, a series of wildfires have already broken out unseasonably early, sparking fears that this will…
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Jaden Smith to Be Honored by UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability
The actor and activist co-founded Just Water and has deployed mobile water filtration systems in largely lower-income minority communities. “I’m excited to honor these young leaders in climate justice activism…
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Daniel Swain in WGCU NPR: The Record Temperatures Enveloping The West Are Not Your Average Heat Wave
But this record-setting heat wave’s remarkable power, size and unusually early appearance is giving meteorologists and climate experts yet more cause for concern about the routinization of extreme weather in…
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Daniel Swain in The Guardian: ‘Potentially the worst drought in 1,200 years’: scientists on the scorching US heatwave
Researchers had long forewarned of this crisis and now they’re seeing their studies and models become real life. “The most distressing part? This was predictable’,” says Daniel Swain on The…
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Doctoral Student Danielle Hoague in Grist: Decades after Watts revolted, the Black neighborhood is being ‘revitalized’ — but the cost is steep
Los Angeles’ future is haunted by its past in the South L.A. neighborhood of Watts. A community that has experienced social, economic, and environmental neglect for decades is now the…
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Karen McKinnon Research Featured in UCLA Newsroom: Reduced humidity increases wildfire threat in Southwest United States
Atmospheric moisture decreased by a third in California and Nevada since 1950, a study led by Karen Mckinnon of ULCA’s Insitute of the Environment and Sustainability finds. For an already…
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Yifang Zhu in Newswise: UCLA-led Research Finds Connections Between Air Quality and COVID Vulnerability
A UCLA-led team has found that U.S. counties with higher exposures to poor air quality, historically, saw higher county-level COVID-19 mortality rates in 2020, with a 7.6% increase in COVID-19…
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Daniel Swain in New York Magazine: California’s Last Fire Season Was a Historic Disaster. This One Might Be Worse.
“Most Californians — their experience with wildfire was seeing it on the evening news, watching the live helicopter shots of the Chaparral burning above Los Angeles,” Swain says. “Maybe seeing…
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V. Kelly Turner Op-Ed in Next City: As Urban Areas Feel the Heat, It’s Time for National Cool Communities Standards
“Over the past 30 years, guess what kind of weather disaster has killed more Americans than any other? It’s not hurricanes or tornadoes. It’s not flooding or lightning. It’s heat. And…
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Oscar Neyra-Nazarrett Announced as Recipient of 2020-2021 Spark Grant — Harvard Innovation Labs
ESE student Oscar Neyra-Nazarrett’s mining startup listed as a 2020-2021 Spark Grant Recipient in Harvard Innovation Labs’ article.
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Daniel Swain in Popular Science: What you need to know about the heatwave and drought scorching the western US
For many states, summer is off to a historically hot and dry start. Across the western half of the United States, heat records are being broken by the dozen. On…
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Daniel Swain in Los Angeles Magazine: Maps Illustrate Just How Bad the Drought Really Is
Scientists are tracking drought conditions that are worse than they’ve been in at least 20 years. “There’s a 100 percent chance that it gets worse before it gets better,” UCLA…
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IoES Graduate Student Robert Ulrich writes for Nature: Queer geoscientists need more than visibility
Visibility is important, but to be truly inclusive, we need to create strong, resilient, and intersectional geoscience communities that confront the violence from both within and outside of academia, argues…
