Environment + Climate

Biologists with the UCLA La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science recently went on a rescue mission to save endangered turtles that have become dehydrated, emaciated and stressed-out by the extended drought.

Climate model simulations of the 21st century show little change in total precipitation, but more rain instead of snow, posing flooding risk and shortening chance to capture water.

A UCLA environmental law clinic coaches students to become legal advisers and official delegates to the annual United Nations climate conference

Using UCLA environmental research, the Los Angeles City Council passed a motion to develop a program to improve energy and water conservation efforts in city buildings that consume the most resources.

Two UCLA School of Law professors say the recently announced agreement between China and the United States to cut pollution could be a game changer.

At a climate change conference on campus today, UCLA researchers and other speakers are discussing the challenges facing cities around the world.

Plants worldwide are more sensitive to drought than many scientists realized. The research may improve predictions of which plant species will survive climate change.

A UCLA scientist was part of a team of that resolved an 80-year-old mystery about whether frogs in and around New York City were, in fact, their own unique species.

UCLA joins the Billion Dollar Green Challenge with a $15 million fund dedicated to sustainability projects. The savings created by each project will help support the next.

The Burkle Global Impact Initiative, which was created at UCLA to educate the public about international and humanitarian affairs by working within the creative community, helped produce a video for the United Nations Climate Summit that took place Tuesday in New York.

Thomas Smith of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability says the next great extinction could be upon us, but humans can help threatened species survive.

Old batteries will likely have 70 to 80 percent capacity remaining after we replace them, potentially providing a future energy source.

Bruins and off-campus visitors tooled around north campus on Tuesday in Teslas and other electric vehicles during UCLA's Drive an Electric Vehicle event, part of National Drive Electric Week. Guests test-drove the Nissan LEAF, Chevy Volt and other vehicles.

UCLA atmospheric scientists were instrumental in the creation of the Santa Ana Wildfire Threat Index, which will help classify the fire threat potential of the Santa Ana winds.

Report by the Climate Change and Business Research Initiative at the UCLA and UC Berkeley law schools suggests that used electric vehicle batteries may be a promising solution to California's search for cheap energy storage.

UCLA professor Tom Smith says human-driven evolution is creating drug-resistant diseases, pesticide-proof bugs and mass extinctions due to climate change. "We can either choose to manage evolutionary processes or not, but evolutionary change will proceed regardless."

Drug-resistant diseases, pesticide-resistant bugs and animals threatened by climate change are signs of human-driven evolution getting out of control. A multi-university team calls for solutions.

Next month, Professor Stephen Hubbell will become the first American in 40 years to receive a Scientific Achievement Award from the International Union of Forest Research Organizations.

California has reaped huge benefits from the law that directs oil and gas drilling royalties to water and land protection, and Congress must commit to reauthorizing it.

Six proposals led primarily by UCLA units are vying with 261 others for grant funding by the Goldhirsh Foundation, which is hoping to jump-start projects that will make L.A. the best place to play, to connect, to live, create and learn by 2050.

Environmental, atmospheric and oceanic researchers at UCLA will create a first-of-its-kind model of how coastal waters will react to climate change this century.

Efforts to hit Gov. Brown’s water reduction target could have unintended, and potentially harmful, consequences for the health of Californians and their communities.

UCLA Transportation has added 41 electric vehicles to its fleet of eco-friendly vehicles, thanks to a generous gift from the Ray Fladeboe Trust. The donation brings the number of fully equipped EVs in use around the campus to 250-plus.

UCLA geographer Judith Carney is part of an international team of interdisciplinary researchers who have sequenced the complete genome of African rice (Oryza glaberrima). The findings were reported online Sunday in the scholarly journal Nature Genetics.

Nearly 4 in 10 Los Angeles County residents live in environmentally vulnerable communities burdened by air pollution and other risk factors, according to a study by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation and The Environmental Defense Fund.