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RIP fossil fuels?
Energy, Featured, Loyola Marymount University, Policy

RIP fossil fuels?

By Sebastian Ramirez Playa Del Rey Natural Gas Storage Facility down the hill from houses.Photo by Sebastian Ramirez Cars. Buses. Trucks. Trains. Planes.  What do they have in common? The majority are fueled exclusively by fossil fuels, and contribute half of all greenhouse gas emissions in California.  The state consumes 1.8 million barrels of oil and gas per day. About a third of those are produced in California, and the rest are imported. In L.A. County alone, there are 5,919 oil and gas wells, not including offshore wells.  Dr. Jason Jarvis moved to Los Angeles in 2015 from Atlanta. Previously unaware of any issues regarding the oil industry, he became invested after seeing a map showing all the active, idle and abandoned wells in L.A. County.  Ja...
Western wildfires: A growing threat across the country
Featured, Kent State University, Loyola Marymount University, Science

Western wildfires: A growing threat across the country

By Alex Kim, Grace Springer Smoke rising in this California forest as the blaze continues. Photo via Flickr As I’m writing this article in February, there is a wildfire burning in Laguna Beach, California, that forced evacuations — an occurrence that used to be rare at this time of year, but not anymore. Parts of Southern California are experiencing a heatwave that’s fueling winter wildfires that can potentially send smoke thousands of miles outside of California.  Jana Houser, Ph.D., is a professor of meteorology at Ohio University. She told Climate360, “We [Ohioans] can periodically notice the effects of wildfires out west when the fires become so numerous and large that their smoke enters the jet stream of the upper atmosphere.”  In July 2021, Public Health Dayton ...
Promise & Peril: Fighting Climate Change One Animal at a Time
Community, Featured, Kent State University, Loyola Marymount University, Morgan State University, Video

Promise & Peril: Fighting Climate Change One Animal at a Time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOfjRiouoXQ In a world where no one can seem to agree on any meaningful solutions to climate change, we need to find all the common ground we can. "Promise & Peril," a Los Angeles Loyolan Project Citizen Climate 360 film, seeks to find that ground through telling the stories of two animal populations affected by climate change.
Lithium: Not as clean as we thought
Economy, Energy, Loyola Marymount University, Technology

Lithium: Not as clean as we thought

 By Alex Kim All Electric Ford F-150 Truck at LA Car Show, 2021. Photographed by James Turner.  While electric cars reduce fossil fuel emissions once they are on the road, the production of the lithium-ion batteries that power them causes more displacement and CO2 emissions than the production of regular gas-powered cars. Disposal of the batteries at the end of their life cycle is also a growing concern. “There are carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions that come with the process of extraction,” said Zeke Hausfather, a scientist at climate research nonprofit Berkeley Earth told Climate360. “[It's] not like CO2 comes out of the lithium, but it does take energy to mine things — today many of those systems involve emitting CO2.”&nbs...
Thanksgiving’s 400 million pound footprint on climate change
Economy, Loyola Marymount University, Science, Video

Thanksgiving’s 400 million pound footprint on climate change

By Genesis Jefferson, Brandon Lang https://youtu.be/6TApGoc2KEQ After generous amounts of turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pie where do all those leftovers end up? And where do all those ingredients come from in the first place? Dr. Ermias Kebreab, associate Dean and professor of Animal Science at the University of California Davis, explains how food production affects climate change and what you can do this Thanksgiving to help limit your climate footprint. This Thanksgiving, Climate360News encourages you to reflect on the history of colonialism in the United States. Visit native-land.ca to learn more and join the conversation today.
COP26 Week 2: Summit “heats up” as representatives struggle to finalize plan
Economy, Loyola Marymount University, Policy

COP26 Week 2: Summit “heats up” as representatives struggle to finalize plan

By Alex Kim The second week of COP26 focused on drafting a global climate accord by the end of the summit, as criticisms continued to swirl around pledges that were made. Day Eight: Sunday, Nov. 7 A counter climate summit began on Sunday, Nov. 7, because of the “greenwashing” and inaction from investors and world leaders of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26). The purpose of The People’s Summit for Climate Justice is to bring attention to ideas and solutions which, it believes, have not been effectively addressed at COP26. Some of the key points that the counter-summit advocated for were the Global Green New Deal – a UN proposition from 2009 that has never been passed – and corporate liability for th...