August 2021 – Climate360 News

Multidisciplinary projects and informal science learning create a climate conversation

27Aug

By Climate 360 NewsNo Comments

Multidisciplinary projects and informal science learning create a climate conversation

This artistic work by Brandon Ballengée is titled “Collapse.” The mixed-media installation includes 26,162 preserved specimens and depicts relationships within the Gulf of Mexico food chain. Photo by Varvara Mikushkina By Ava Borskey BATON ROUGE, LA — The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new report with a dire outlook: Climate changes, like warming and sea level rise, are projected to increase in every region in the coming decades. Climate change is on the agenda in political circles and governments worldwide. It’s written in the news headlines. And the subject is making its way into community circles through some rather interesting means, like theatre playbills, art installations and pop-up boat launch presentations. Amy Lesen, a biology professor and minor...

Environmentalists say the EPA’s efforts to clean up toxic waste fall short

23Aug

By Climate 360 NewsNo Comments

Community, Loyola Marymount University, Morgan State University, Policy, Video

Environmentalists say the EPA’s efforts to clean up toxic waste fall short

By Kennedi Hewitt and Alexis Durham https://youtu.be/lkopo6be_eo Produced, filmed and edited by Kennedi Hewitt and Alexis Durham. Glenn Ross is a self-proclaimed urban environmentalist. For 40 years, the 71-year-old has fought to make his Baltimore community a safer place for his children and neighbors by educating others on the reality of Superfunds. A Superfund, as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency, is a contaminated site “due to hazardous waste being dumped, left out in the open, or otherwise improperly managed.” Such sites include landfills and mining sites. Officially titled “Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act” (CERCLA), Superfunds were established by Congress in the 1980s after the Love Canal ...

How to tell if there’s climate misinformation on your feed

22Aug

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Community, Loyola Marymount University

How to tell if there’s climate misinformation on your feed

Climate misinformation has permeated the online discourse in a way that can be difficult to parse through. How can we accurately call it out? Graphic by Cristobal Spielmann. By Cristobal Spielmann Living in the social media age means getting bombarded with misinformation on a daily basis, whether that information comes in the form of videos, memes or poorly researched and written news articles. With climate change, that misinformation can be both pernicious and dangerous. It perpetuates myths about climate change not being real and not being caused by humans. Patrick Moore and PragerU Take the 2015 video “The Truth about [Carbon Dioxide],” presented by Patrick Moore, whose title is “co-founder of Greenpeace,” and produced by Prager University. On the surface, ...

California representatives announce new California Coastal Caucus

21Aug

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Loyola Marymount University, Policy

California representatives announce new California Coastal Caucus

Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA). By Kelsey Warda (Climate 360). By Veronica Backer-Peral SAUSALITO, CA — In an effort to address policy issues of importance to coastal California, congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA) and congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA) announced the launch of the Congressional California Coastal Caucus on August 20, 2021. The announcement took place at The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California, and was followed by a panel discussion with both congressmen, Dr. Jeff Boehm, Chief Executive Officer of The Marine Mammal Center, and Dr. Cara Field, Medical Director of The Marine Mammal Center and moderated by Carol Costello. One important focus of the caucus is climate change. “The reason why I ran for Congress is because of climate change,” Lieu told on-site Clim...

Urban gardens aid in the fight against food deserts and climate change

20Aug

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Community, Loyola Marymount University, Video

Urban gardens aid in the fight against food deserts and climate change

https://youtu.be/DqDT1KgEL9c By Kennedi Hewitt In South Central Los Angeles, across the street from the new metro system on Exposition Boulevard, is an urban garden owned by Ron Finley. Finley, also known as the “Gangster Gardener”, founded The Ron Finley Project to “transform food deserts into food sanctuaries.” Finley, who has been gardening since he was a kid, says he views gardening as a source of freedom because it is an “empowering practice to grow your own food.” “Everyone should at least have the potential to cultivate their own food,” he says, “cook their own food, and that to me is a form of freedom.” South Central LA, a predominantly low income and Black and Brown community, is considered a food desert. As defined b...

Carbon capture presents opportunities in industry-dominated states, experts say. But climate activists remain skeptical

16Aug

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Economy, Energy, Louisiana State University, Policy

Carbon capture presents opportunities in industry-dominated states, experts say. But climate activists remain skeptical

Photo by Chris LeBoutillier on Pexels.com By Sydney McGovern BATON ROUGE, LA – The holy grail of stopping climate change is to reduce carbon emissions across all sources to zero. One solution that holds promise is to capture carbon dioxide – the lead cause of global warming – before it’s emitted from refineries and other industrial sources. The practice, called carbon capture, utilization and storage, or CCUS, can be accomplished in many ways. Some are feasible but expensive. Others will require years of research and investment before being implemented. The technical challenges divide some researchers and advocates. Spend now to do what’s possible today, or wait for better CCUS technologies? Or jettison CCUS approaches altogether as too easy on big carbon emitters? “There’re...

Pesticides Bring Problems Like the “Dirty Dozen”

16Aug

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Community, Kent State University

Pesticides Bring Problems Like the “Dirty Dozen”

By Willow Campbell https://youtu.be/TGe3sRyGLHo Many synthetic pesticides used in farming can harm both the climate and your body. Some foods retain the residue of pesticides more than others, to the point where no existing product can wash them away. In May of this year, a study from Frontiers in Environmental Science showed that pesticides widely used in American agriculture pose a threat to organisms that are necessary for healthy soil, biodiversity and soil carbon sequestration. The idea of regenerative agriculture and using soil as a carbon sponge to help combat climate change is gaining momentum around the world, according to Friends of the Earth, an environmentally focused campaign organization that helped ...

What is reef-safe sunscreen, and why is it important?

11Aug

By Climate 360 NewsNo Comments

Kent State University, Science

What is reef-safe sunscreen, and why is it important?

By Connor Fallon, Grace Springer Graphic by Connor Fallon Sunscreen is a product made to protect humans from the sun’s ultraviolet rays, however, some ingredients found in sunscreen put our marine life in danger. Reef-harming chemicals found in sunscreen are introduced into the environment when people wear sunscreen while swimming. Research says that 4,000 to 6,000 tons of sunscreen enters reef areas annually. These chemicals can also enter the ocean from overspray of aerosol sunscreens or through shower drains while rinsing off. Chemicals commonly found in sunscreens can cause permanent DNA damage to coral and the more than one million other organisms that call reefs home around the world. Coral reefs are also a vital contribution to...

By embracing sustainability, Louisiana farmers make their farms more efficient

11Aug

By Climate 360 NewsNo Comments

Economy, Louisiana State University

By embracing sustainability, Louisiana farmers make their farms more efficient

Agricultural producers learn about conservation practices like cover crop management in the Louisiana Master Farmer certification program. Photo courtesy of Louisiana Master Farmer program By Sydney McGovern BATON ROUGE, LA – Mead Hardwick is a fourth-generation farmer. His family still lives and works off the same 20,000-acre plot of land that his great-grandfather purchased. He doesn’t fit the conventional image of a salt-of-the-earth agricultural farmer surrounded by dust and dressed in overalls. Hardwick moved to Dallas, earned a bachelor’s degree and worked in real estate finance for 11 years before finding his way back to the farm in Northeast Louisiana. “I grew up on the farm. I mean I literally, physically grew up here, and so that's always kind of with you,” Hardwick s...

Land loss is happening right under our noses: Here’s how an artist preserves scents from disappearing coastal communities

9Aug

By Climate 360 NewsNo Comments

Community, Louisiana State University

Land loss is happening right under our noses: Here’s how an artist preserves scents from disappearing coastal communities

French artist Manon Bellet collects water from a swamp while working on her olfactory project, “Golden Waste,” during her residency at A Studio in the Woods. Photo by Sabree Hill By Ava Borskey BATON ROUGE, LA — Most of Manon Bellet’s artistic work deals with time, ephemerality and disappearance. “Our confrontation of human beings seeing something that we can never catch, metaphorically our lives, but obviously the world around us and the world we live in,” Bellet said. “My work always picked up the fragility of the human being and the place we’re in.” But it wasn’t until the French visual artist moved to New Orleans in 2016 that her work began addressing environmental issues, like climate change. “Living in Louisiana…basically faced me directly on the vis...