Sustainability Science

The UCLA Luskin Center and Environmental Defense Fund have just released a new report looking at Los Angeles's opportunities for using more solar power (which are still 98% untapped, they say) and it includes these fascinating maps of which areas of LA County are most vulnerable to global warming.

According to the report, it's the "first study to provide specific climate-change projections for the greater Los Angeles area [in the years 2041 to 2060], with unique projections down to the neighborhood level." By mid-century, SoCal can look forward to "slightly warmer winters and springs but much warmer summers and falls, with more frequent heat waves," but the burden won't be spread around evenly: "The study predicts a likely tripling in the number of extremely hot days in the downtown area and quadrupling the number in the valleys and at high elevations." But of course higher temps aren't the only threat.

When it comes to carbon emissions, don’t blame big cities -- blame the suburbs, says a new study from the University of California, Berkeley. The study, released Monday, found that population-dense cities contribute less greenhouse-gas emissions per person than other areas of the United States. However, these cities’ suburbs are so damaging to the environment that they effectively wipe out any climate benefits. The study will be published in science journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Using dozens of variables, researchers found that greenhouse-gas emissions -- largely from cars, trucks and other vehicles -- in the suburbs account for about 50 percent of all household emissions in the nation, even though less than 50 percent of the population lives in these areas.