Louisiana State University – Climate360 News

Multidisciplinary projects and informal science learning create a climate conversation

27Aug

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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...

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...

By embracing sustainability, Louisiana farmers make their farms more efficient

11Aug

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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

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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...

Cryptocurrency mining has a huge carbon footprint. Here’s what experts think we should do about it.

5Aug

By Climate 360 NewsNo Comments

Louisiana State University, Technology

Cryptocurrency mining has a huge carbon footprint. Here’s what experts think we should do about it.

By Domenic Purdy As currencies like bitcoin and dogecoin make digital currency as valid a form of payment as the U.S. dollar and euro, experts seek new environmentally-friendly solutions to the massive amounts of energy cryptocurrency consumes. Cryptocurrencies are digital currency that are not subject to a central authority that regulates the currency’s value like Federal Reserve for the U.S. dollar or the European Central Bank for the euro. Despite fluctuating market values that are more volatile than most nationally backed currencies, cryptocurrency has taken a foothold in the financial world. The most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin, has a combined market value of $653 billion U.S. dollars—equivalent to 1.8% of the combined value of the world's money supply, according ...

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

30Jul

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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...

Politically charged science issues like climate change and COVID-19 motivate STEM students to get involved in the political process

28Jul

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Louisiana State University, Policy, Science

Politically charged science issues like climate change and COVID-19 motivate STEM students to get involved in the political process

STEM students voted at the lowest records in the 2012 and 2016 national elections compared to other majors, according to the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com By Nicole Nguyen With COVID-19 surging again in the U.S. and the impacts of climate change intensifying, the relevancy of science in politics and public policy is perhaps as important as it’s ever been. The urgency around these issues has led to scientists and other professional interest groups to get involved in the political process. For example, Scientific American, an American science magazine, broke 175 years of tradition in 2020 by endorsing a presidential candidate. Citing then-President Donald Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandem...

Experts say preparing the next generation to combat climate change involves rethinking how American public schools teach science

27Jul

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Louisiana State University, Science

Experts say preparing the next generation to combat climate change involves rethinking how American public schools teach science

Photo by ThisIsEngineering on Pexels.com By Josh Archote Climate change is what science educator Laura Tucker would call a “wicked problem.” Its impacts aren’t immediately obvious to many and require proactive, coordinated responses from governments across the world. It’s the kind of global issue that connects science to every other subject: politics, economics, sustainability, social justice and many more.  This offers science teachers an opportunity to rethink how they teach the subject, and science more generally, to prepare the next generation to deal with global warming, Tucker said.  “The great thing about climate change is that it’s not a simple thing. Because of all these interconnected systems, it doesn’t have an easy answer,” she said. “It crosses...

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...