Environment + Climate

UCLA engineering professor Yoram Cohen's Gray2Blue system cleans up a home's gray water for reuse in irrigating the garden. It could save Californians billions of gallons of clean water every day.

With about 70,000 people and the water needs of a small city, UCLA can take small steps toward conservation during California’s drought that will add up to big savings.

In the debate about which plant and animal species endangered by climate change should be rescued and which are expendable, a small band of UCLA botanists is fervently championing a desert plant most of us have never seen or heard of.

A scientist, together with a graduate student, used cutting-edge research tools at UCLA to help Turkish archaeologists decipher a large, neolithic mural that many believe is the world's earliest depiction of a volcanic eruption.

Ultrafine particulate concentrations were found to be highest near Santa Monica Airport, followed by freeway-laced Boyle Heights and downtown Los Angeles.

UCLA's Laurence C. Smith and other leading climate scholars call for the development of an early warning system to help society better anticipate the potentially calamitous impacts of climate change.

"Wow, that’s one big fish!" That was the reaction of everyone at UCLA’s Translational Research Imaging Center when a monster fish story became reality in the form of a rare 14-foot, 250-pound oarfish.

A major new environmental research project is the first of UCLA's six Grand Challenges, which aim to address pressing societal issues through multidisciplinary innovations and breakthroughs.

Now housed in the UCLA Department of English, the University of California Press magazine is produced by Jon Christensen with support from UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

Ever wish Los Angeles traffic moved better? It might if more commuters followed the lead of UCLA, where only about half of campus commuters drive alone to work.

Snowfall will drop by 30 to 40 percent in Los Angeles-area mountains by midcentury due to climate change, and things could get worse by 2100 if we don't rein in greenhouse gases, according to a UCLA study.

The effect of rising temperatures on the interaction of species "is going to have very important consequences for the stability and functioning of ecosystems," UCLA biologists say.

In addition to changing HDL from "good" to "bad," the inhalation of emissions activates other components of oxidation, the early cell and tissue damage that causes inflammation, leading to hardening of the arteries.

Using a novel method for measuring land-based temperatures, UCLA researchers found the region is now 10 to 14 degrees hotter than 20,000 years ago, during the last ice age.

UCLA study, commissioned by L.A. Business Council, finds that the funding model would maximize monies for eco-friendly building retrofits — and job creation.

UCLA researchers found that people who live up 1.5 kilometers away from freeways — a greater distance than previously thought — are exposed to pollutants each day.

Understanding how turtles protect their hearts and brains from long-term oxygen deprivation may one day improve treatments for heart attacks and strokes in humans.

Heightened exposure to air pollution was associated with increases in lymphoblastic leukemia, germ-cell tumors and retinoblastoma, the study shows.

The new map lets residents find how much energy the average customer in their neighborhood uses, see how that use relates to income level and track energy use over time.

The star-studded March 5 event attended by Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening and other celebrities garnered more than $1 million for the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

By mid-century, even ordinary vessels will be able to navigate previously blocked parts of the Arctic Ocean, a potential boon for economic development but a threat to the environment.

The question raises the hackles of environmentalists and global-warming deniers alike — yet it’s one we should be asking sooner rather than later. That was the consensus of a UCLA climate scientist and environmental historian, and a New York Times environmental writer participating in a panel discussion put on by Zocalo in partnership with the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and the environmental humanities at UCLA.

Thanks to the generosity of philanthropist Morton La Kretz, the new field station in the Santa Monica Mountains will help UCLA researchers and colleagues conduct conservation practice in the field.

Thomas B. Smith will head an NSF-funded research project investigating the effects of climate change on biodiversity in the rainforests of Cameroon and Gabon.