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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

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...

Environmental reporters in the South battle climate change misinformation—and their own newsrooms

30Jul

By Climate 360 NewsNo Comments

Community, Louisiana State University

Environmental reporters in the South battle climate change misinformation—and their own newsrooms

A tower outside a local TV news station in Lake Charles, Louisiana, sits damaged from Hurricane Laura's winds in 2020. Photo by Rob Perillo. By Sydney McGovern, Ava Borskey BATON ROUGE, LA – As the threat of climate change grows each year, the American South is at a crossroads.  Record-high temperatures, severe storms and rising sea levels threaten the livelihood of those living on the Gulf Coast and could impose the equivalent of a 20% income tax on county-level income over the next few decades, a 2017 paper in Science Magazine found. But in many regions most impacted by hurricanes and rising waters, fewer than 40% of residents believe that global warming will personally affect them. And in many Southern counties, half of the resident...

Policy versus science over Miami building collapse

30Jul

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Community, Kent State University, Policy

Policy versus science over Miami building collapse

By Spencer Hayes A building collapse that took the lives of almost 100 people has devastated the Miami Surfside community. It has also reignited the climate change discussion across the country. It will take some time for the building analysis to be completed, however, many theories are already circulating, attempting to answer questions behind the collapse of the Champlain Towers on June 24. One theory that has spurred attention is whether or not climate change played a role in the building collapse. Aftermath of the Champlain Tower collapse in Miami Florida. (Photo by Giorgio Viera / AFP) (Photo by GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images) U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm jumped right in stating that rising sea levels may have contributed to the disaster. In a CNN interview,...

How to build in a flood-prone city: a lesson from the Netherlands

26Jul

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Community, Louisiana State University, Policy, Technology

How to build in a flood-prone city: a lesson from the Netherlands

Map of the Army Corps of Engineers' proposed storm surge barrier in Charleston, South Carolina. Courtesy of Waggonner & Ball Architecture/Environment. By Sami Beekman, Nicole Nguyen BATON ROUGE, LA – What do New Orleans, Louisiana, and Charleston, South Carolina, have in common? The foundation of both southern cities’ modern infrastructure was built on marsh land in the 19th and 20th centuries. Through a combination of turn-of-the-century drainage systems, the shoring-up of levees, the filling of creeks and marshes, and other changes to the topography of the land through urban development, each city was designed to exist on stretches of land that were engineered into existence. Around 1900, municipal drainage systems allowed New Orleans to spread onto former mar...

Louisiana photographer takes unconventional approach to capturing climate change on the Gulf Coast

24Jul

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Community, Louisiana State University

Louisiana photographer takes unconventional approach to capturing climate change on the Gulf Coast

Pictured left: Louisiana Highway 1 Bridge over Bayou Lafourche sinks each year as a result of coastal erosion and ground subsidence. High water frequently closes the highway to travel. Pictured right: The southernmost area of Louisiana, Plaquemines Parish, is located at the end of the Mississippi River. It's often the first line of defense for severe hurricanes that hit the state. Photos by Virginia Hanusik By Sydney McGovern BATON ROUGE, LA – If you keep up with climate change, you’ve probably seen images of disaster – homes ravaged by forest fires or cities slain by hurricanes. Aerial shots of flooded streets, destroyed buildings and dying ecosystems have long dominated the visual story of climate change. But that’s not what you’ll find in Virginia Hanusik’s photography. Instead...

LSU activists developing hydroponic farming system to battle food insecurity in Baton Rouge

21Jul

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Community, Louisiana State University, Science, Technology

LSU activists developing hydroponic farming system to battle food insecurity in Baton Rouge

By Domenic Purdy BATON ROUGE, LA — Louisiana State University activists are developing a hydroponic farming system to combat food insecurity in Baton Rouge. The project is in its early stages and is titled the Amical Cabral Project—named after an African agricultural engineer from Guinea-Bissau. In coordination with LSU’s Ag Center, biological engineering senior Soheil Saneei, founder of the Baton Rouge political organization Cooperation Rouge, is exploring sustainable solutions for feeding the community. Climate change will make feeding the world’s growing population more difficult by drying out once arable land and increasing extreme weather that damages crops. Hydroponics has been considered an adaptation to this problem since it doesn’t require soil. Hydroponic ...

Anxiety around climate change adding to mental health issues among America’s youth

19Jul

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Community, Louisiana State University

Anxiety around climate change adding to mental health issues among America’s youth

Gen Zers and millennials are more anxious about climate change than their Baby Boomer counterparts. Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com By Domenic Purdy The American public is becoming increasingly anxious about climate change, especially younger generations. Sixty eight percent of Americans feel climate change is affecting their mental health, according to a 2020 American Psychiatric Association poll. That number rose by 21 percentage points compared to 2019. America’s youth are especially concerned: Sixty-seven percent of Generation Z (18-23 years) and 63% of millennials (24-39 years) are somewhat or very concerned about the impact of climate change on their mental health. Just 42% of Baby Boomers (56-74 years) and 58% of Gen Xers (40-55 years) feel the same, the poll...

Generational gaps: Young people more worried about climate change than their parents

16Jul

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Community, Louisiana State University

Generational gaps: Young people more worried about climate change than their parents

Recent polls find that younger people are more likely to be concerned about climate change and participate in environmental activism than older generations. Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com By Domenic Purdy Younger generations are more engaged in climate activism and more worried about global warming than their parents. A Pew Research poll from May found that 67% of Generation Z and 71% of millennials agree that tackling climate change should be a top priority of government, businesses and individuals. This is compared to 63% of Generation X and 57% of Baby Boomers. “A consistent finding is that young people have been more concerned than older people about taking care of the environment,” former Syracuse University sociology professor Richard Braungart said. Taking perso...

‘It taps another sense’: Artists’ role in the fight against climate change

12Jul

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Community, Louisiana State University

‘It taps another sense’: Artists’ role in the fight against climate change

This piece, titled Poux de sable à la Grande Île (Sand Lice on Grand Isle), was painted by Jonathan Mayers during his time in residency for A Studio in the Woods. By Ava Borskey BATON ROUGE, LA — Tucked away on the western bank of the Mississippi River in southeastern Louisiana, you’ll find an artistic and academic residency retreat known as A Studio in the Woods. Ama Rogan, the current managing director of A Studio in the Woods, has been with the program since its founding in 2001. “Our mission is really to support artists and scholars—and the general public that has access—to foster creative responses to the challenges of our time. Of course, a huge one is the climate crisis that we find ourselves in,” Rogan said. A program of Tulane University’s Bywater Institute, A Stud...

12Jul

By Climate 360 NewsNo Comments

Community, Kent State University

3 Easy Steps to a “Clean” Closet

By Connor Fallon Photo by Edward Howell on Unsplash Every day millions of people visit shopping centers and e-commerce websites to purchase the newest fashion trends. The fashion industry sells and produces between 80 to 150 billion garments each year, globally. With that statistic, that means roughly two trillion, one hundred billion garments have been produced since 2000. While the industry continues to pump out clothes, consumers rid of their garments in droves. In 2018, landfills received 11.3 million tons in textile waste. The main source: clothing. Our fashion footprint is incredibly large, and each person approximately contributes about 1,620 pounds of CO2, annually. To calculate your approximate fashion footprint, you ca...