UCLA Sustainability

Grand Theft Eco Screening #2
2025-02-05 18:30 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Darren Star Screening Room, 1422 Melnitz Hall, 235 Charles E. Young Dr. East, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Grand Theft Eco: Environmental Futures of Los Angeles repurposes the game engine and design of Grand Theft Auto 5 to creatively imagine environmental change and its consequences for Los Angeles in the year 2050. The first of three “machinima” (video game cinema) episodes, titled “The iBear in the River,” will make its debut on February 5. To commemorate this release, LENS will hold two screenings, at 5:00pm and 6:30pm (Doors at 4:30pm and 6:15pm, respectively), each with a production Q&A afterwards.
The Darren Star Screening Room has a 50-seat capacity. Because of the limited capacity, we ask that you RSVP in advance, if possible, for the screening you plan to attend. Standby attendees without an RSVP may be accommodated, space permitting.
REGISTER HERE

Grand Theft Eco Screening #1
2025-02-05 17:00 - 18:00 | Darren Star Screening Room, 1422 Melnitz Hall, 235 Charles E. Young Dr. East, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States

Marschak Colloquium series: Generationally Parochial Geoengineering?
2025-02-04 13:00 - 14:30 | HYBRID: Charles E. Young Research Library, Main Conference Room 11360 and online, 280 Charles E Young Dr N, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Presented by the UCLA Library and the Jacob Marschak Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Mathematics in the Behavioral Sciences
Speaker: Stephen M. Gardiner, professor of philosophy and Ben Rabinowitz Professor of the Human Dimensions of the Environment at the University of Washington, Seattle
Gardiner maintains that the threat of intergenerational tyranny ought to be a core concern in environmental governance and policy. In this talk, he shares how the idea was motivated through an exploration of a key contemporary example, the threat of generationally-parochial geoengineering (‘GPG’). To do so, Gardiner and colleagues developed the concept of GPG, suggested some salient scenarios and identified early warning signs in the current scientific and policy literature.
Gardiner concludes with the offering that GPG ought to be a central issue in both the ethics of geoengineering and any serious scientific, political or policy discussion of such technologies.
This talk is offered both in person and online. Light refreshments will be served. Registration is required.
REGISTER HERE

Les is More: An Hour with the Mayor
2025-02-03 18:00 - 19:00 | Beverly Hills City Hall, Municipal Gallery, 455 N Rexford Dr, Beverly Hills, CA, 90210, United States
Come be part of an insightful panel discussion with the City of Beverly Hills’ sustainability experts and Mayor Friedman regarding how the City is preparing for a sustainable and resilient future.
This special event will discuss important sustainability initiatives and how to make Beverly Hills even more eco-friendly. Whether you have questions, suggestions, or just want to learn more, this is your chance to engage with City leadership and shape our sustainable future.
Les is More: An Hour with the Mayor is a special talk series held at City Hall featuring guest speakers and topics.
TOPICS
Energy Resiliency, Water Efficiency, and Sustainable Food System
PANELISTS
Shana Epstein, Director of Public Works
Josette Descalzo, Environmental Compliance & Sustainability Programs Manager
Amanda Grossman, Sustainability Program Administrator
To participate virtually and for more information on the Mayor’s special talk series featuring guest speakers and topics, visit beverlyhills.org/LesisMore.

Wildfire disaster, recovery, and resilience: what have we learned?
2025-02-03 14:00 - 16:00 | California NanoSystems Institute, 570 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Join the first event in the 2024-2025 Focus on Environment and Sustainability Series, a three-part special seminar exploring critical environmental challenges. The first seminar in this series, to be given by Prof. Crystal Kolden from UC Merced, has been rescheduled to Monday, February 3 from 2-4 pm in the California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI) auditorium.
Light refreshments will be available starting at 1:30 and there will be a Q&A session following her talk.
Crystal A. Kolden
Associate Professor in the Management of Complex Systems department,
School of Engineering, at the University of California, Merced
In 1991, the Tunnel-Oakland Hills Fire in the San Francisco Bay Area of California destroyed over 3,000 homes in just a few short hours, ushering in the modern era of Wildland-Urban Interface wildfires. Since then, over 50,000 structures have been destroyed in the US by wildfire, displacing tens of thousands of people for weeks to years. As most of these disasters have occurred in the last decade, little is known about the post-fire recovery process and what processes drive or hinder it. We evaluated recent wildfire disasters in California in order to improve understanding of how communities are affected by and recovering from wildfire disasters. We found that communities recover extremely slowly from wildfire stemming from challenges that are unique to the post-wildfire landscape. These include long-term exclusion from the burned area relative to other disasters due to the requirements around hazardous tree and toxic waste removal, critical infrastructure loss, exacerbation of existing affordable housing shortages, regulatory challenges, and substantial problems with duplication of benefits, uninsurance, and underinsurance. Socially vulnerable populations are further marginalized by wildfire disasters, and there is evidence for gentrification in post-fire areas yielding climate migrations. Despite these many challenges, need has produced innovative solutions that can improve the post-fire recovery process and mitigate future wildfire disasters.
REGISTER HERE

Can Democracies Deal with the Climate Crisis?
2025-02-03 12:15 - 13:30 | UCLA Law School, Room 1447
The environmental consequences of the 2024 presidential election are coming into sharper focus as the U.S. confronts one of the largest climate-fueled disasters in its history. But the U.S. is not the only country where climate politics are complicating climate policy. Some political scientists are asking whether democracies are adequately equipped to deal with the growing climate crisis.
Join the Emmett Institute for a provocative discussion about the challenges that the climate crisis poses to constitutional democracies. Can the global-scale and long-term efforts needed to address climate change gain and sustain democratic support? Can democratic national governments support equitable global sharing of burdens? Can they act effectively in response to incomplete or uncertain scientific information? Can they make decisions whether to include geoengineering interventions in climate response and if so how to govern them? How does rising populism influence the answers to these questions? And how can national and global institutions be redesigned to effectively address the climate challenge?
Cristóbal Bellolio is Associate Professor at the School of Government, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile, where he studies political theory and its relation to science, religion, populism, constitutional debates, and Latin American politics. In 2024-2025, he holds the Tinker Visiting Professorship at the University of Chicago.
Bellolio will be joined in conversation with Professor Ted Parson, Faculty Director of the UCLA Emmett Institute, and an expert in international environmental law and policy and the role of science and technology in policy-making.
REGISTER HERE

Botany Brown Bag: Changing Behavior in Changing Cities by Joey Di Liberto and Suu Zhou
2025-02-03 12:00 - 13:00 | La Kretz Garden Pavilion, 707 Tiverton Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Join a new lecture in the Botany Brown Bag Series, continued by Joey Di Liberto and Suu Zhou, who will give a talk entitled “Changing Behavior in Changing Cities: Shifting Trends in Urban Bird Behavior Across Seasons and Cityscapes” on Monday, February 3 at 12pm. As cities expand, more and more animals have been forced to adapt to the environmental challenges within cities. Learn how birds like juncos may be coping by changing important ecological attributes of their life history, such as their behavior. Make sure to bring your walking shoes and your lunch!
REGISTER HERE

Guided Garden Tour – February 1
2025-02-01 10:00 - 11:00 | La Kretz Garden Pavilion, 707 Tiverton Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Join a Garden Guide for a free tour on February 1, 2025 at 10 am. Explore a living museum featuring collections of plants from around the globe!
You’ll hear the stories of selected plants in the Garden and their relevance to human society. All ages are welcome. Tours meet at the La Kretz Garden Pavilion at the northern end of the Garden and are given a grace period of 5 minutes.
Tours are free.
REGISTER HERE

Los Angeles County Town Hall: Protecting Your Health after Wildfires
2025-01-31 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
L.A. County Department of Public Health is hosting a virtual town hall on air quality, soil and water safety, and safe cleaning after a wildfire. Livestreams will also be held here: https://www.facebook.com/lapublichealth, https://x.com/lapublichealth and youtube.com/lapublichealth.
Submit your questions in advance: TinyURL.com/AskPublicHealth

Free Food from UCLA Dining Halls!
2025-01-30 22:00, 2025-01-29 22:00, 2025-01-28 22:00, 2025-01-23 22:00, 2025-01-22 22:00, 2025-01-09 22:00, 2025-01-08 22:00, 2025-01-07 22:00 | Conference Room 1 in the Student Activities Center Basement, 220 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Join Bruin Dine for our food recovery events every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 10PM in the SAC Basement! Bring your utensils, containers, and appetite!
Hit the follow button (https://www.instagram.com/uclabruindine/) to see what we’re serving up each week!

Crisis Response for Kids: Keeping Children Safe During and After Wildfires
2025-01-30 12:00 - 13:00 | Online
The University of California is sponsoring a six-part webinar series for the UC community and the public titled “Urban Wildfire Response and Recovery Webinar Series,” focusing on the physical health, mental health and social impacts of wildfires, providing a blend of scientific information and practical skills, and highlighting environmental justice issues. The goal is to provide information and respond to the many requests for information from UC students, staff and faculty and from the broader CA community, in response to the wildfire devastation in LA. The series is sponsored by the UC Center for Climate, Health and Equity (CCHE) and its Climate Mental Health Council, the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, the UCLA Center for Healthy Climate Solutions, the Sustainable LA Grand Challenges and UCSF Alumni Association.
This webinar highlights the special attention needed to protect youth. Children eat, drink, and breathe three times as much of their environment as do adults, and their normal behaviors present additional exposure risks.
REGISTER HERE

RFF Live Event: Big Decisions 2025
2025-01-29 11:00 - 12:30 | HYBRID: Online and Resources and Conservation Center, 1400 16th Street Northwest, Washington, DC, 20036, United States
With every new administration and Congress comes a different set of energy and environmental priorities. Despite shifts in political offices and rhetoric, there are opportunities for policy action toward a healthy environment and thriving economy. Join Resources for the Future (RFF) and leaders from across government, business, philanthropy, and media to discuss the big decisions anticipated in 2025. RFF and speakers and attendees will explore the priorities of the incoming Trump administration and the 119th Congress, as well as offer expert insights to inform research and policy agendas for the coming year.
Attend In-Person (reception to follow program) REGISTER HERE
Attend Virtually REGISTER HERE

L.A. Fires & Public Health: Where We Go From Here
2025-01-28 12:00 - 13:15 | Online
Join the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health for a webinar addressing the “L.A. Fires & Public Health: Where We Go From Here” on Tuesday, January 28, from 12:00pm – 1:15pm PT, via Zoom.
REGISTER HERE
HOST
Dr. Ron Brookmeyer, dean and distinguished professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
PARTICIPANTS
Dr. David Eisenman, professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences and director of the Center for Public Health and Disasters at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Dr. Dana Rose Garfin, associate professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Dr. Michael Jerrett, professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, the Jonathan Fielding Chair in Climate Change and Public Health, and co-director of the Center for Climate Change and Health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Dr. Rachael Jones, professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Dr. Miriam Marlier, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Dr. Yifang Zhu, professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Torched Talks with Edith de Guzman and Greg Pierce
2025-01-28 12:00 - 13:00 | Online
Gather your questions about fire and water and join on Tuesday, January 28 at noon on Zoom. Alissa Walker will be speaking with Edith de Guzman, water equity and adaptation policy cooperative extension specialist for the University of California’s Agriculture and Natural Resources and co-founder of the Los Angeles Urban Cooling Collaborative, and Greg Pierce, co-director of UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation and director of the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab.
MORE INFO HERE

The Fires 2: Hazardous Waste, Air Quality & Water Safety
2025-01-24 15:00 - 16:30 | Online
As community members return to their homes, schools, and businesses, there will be new and additional safety concerns. Please join Coalition for Clean Air for a second Clean Air Conversations webinar on the Southern California fires to hear from experts who will let you know how best to protect yourself and your family. Speakers include:
Katherine Butler, Director, California Department of Toxic Substances Control
Dr. Mark Gold, Director of Water Scarcity Solutions, Natural Resources Defense Council
Dr. Joe Lyou, President & CEO of the Coalition for Clean Air
The webinar is free and open to all, so please feel free to pass this along to anyone that would benefit from this information and may be interested in attending.
REGISTER HERE

Expert Insights on the Causes, Impacts and Aftermath of the L.A. Wildfires
2025-01-23 17:00 - 18:30 | Online
Featuring an informative panel of wildfire and climate science faculty experts.
Please click here to submit your questions in advance of the webinar
by Thursday, January 23 at 10:00 a.m.
Instructions to join the webinar will be provided once your registration has been confirmed.
REGISTER HERE

UCLA Planetarium Public Show - January 22, 2025
2025-01-22 19:00 - 20:00 | UCLA Planetarium, Mathematical Sciences Room 8224, 520 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Join a planetarium show on Solar Energy given by Nate Magari!
Tickets for public shows are free! A subset of the seats will be available to reserve 1 week before the show for those guests that would like to ensure a guaranteed seat. The remainder of the tickets will be released on a first-come, first-serve basis one hour prior to the start of the show at the planetarium. Ticket holders that are not present 15 minutes before the show begins will automatically forfeit their seat, which will be given to those in the queue. There are no late arrivals.
Availability
Early reservation tickets will be available on Thursday, Jan 16 at 8 AM.
Day-of tickets will be available at the planetarium on Wednesday, Jan 22 at 6 PM.
REGISTER HERE
Fully Booked?
Day-of tickets will be released on a first-come, first-serve basis at the planetarium one hour prior to the start of the show, so don’t worry, there will still be available seats–just check back an hour before the show!

Beyond the Net Zero Pledges: Do they Still Matter?
2025-01-22 12:15 - 13:30 | UCLA Law School, Room 1447
Many businesses, institutions, cities, and regions have pledged to reach net-zero emissions within a few decades. But accountability has always been a challenge and it’s one made more difficult by recent political backsliding around the globe. What’s the path forward for sticking to credible benchmarks? Is there a role for carbon offsets and voluntary carbon markets?
You’ll hear from Catherine McKenna, CEO of Climate and Nature Solutions and chair of the United Nations high-level expert group on net zero emissions commitments of non-state entities. McKenna served as Canada’s minister of environment and climate change from 2015 to 2019 and minister of infrastructure and communities from 2019 to 2021.
McKenna is a visiting scholar at the UCLA Emmett Institute. She’ll be joined in conversation with Distinguished Counsel Mary Nichols, former chair of the California Air Resources Board, and also a member of the UN high-level expert group on net zero emissions commitments.
REGISTER HERE
Please contact Heather Morphew, morphew@law.ucla.edu, with any questions.

PHN Presents: Passive House & Fire Resilience - Building Forward
2025-01-22 09:00 - 10:30 | Online
Growing wildfire devastation demands better-protected buildings – better protected by building design and better design of their surrounding landscape. Yet, after fire events, like in Los Angeles, there is a need to rebuild quickly. Join to investigate integrated approaches with Passive House, how they’ve been implemented following other wildfires, and the possibilities they demonstrate for building forward.
About the Presenters:
Birgitte Messerschmidt is Director, Research, National Fire Protection Association. She is responsible for NFPA’s Research Strategy, Research on fire problems and other safety issues, Data collection efforts to maintain NFPA’s fire incident and fire service databases, and the NFPA Research library. She has a M. Sc. In Civil Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark and has spent her entire career working on fire safety issues. Making our built environment more resilient to fire through a better understanding the impact of construction products and methods, testing procedures, and policy has been a career-long passion. She has been involved in testing and research as well as standardization and advocacy. She has published and presented numerous papers on fire safety issues.
Andrew Michler has focused on high-performance building design and materiality since 1993. He has written and researched extensively on new architecture and is the author of the book Hyperlocalization of Architecture, released in 2015. He is a co-founder of Passive House Rocky Mountains, a founding board member of The Passive House Network, and was chair of the Northern Colorado Renewable Energy Society. He completed the first International Certified Passive House in Colorado in 2016, which has won several awards and has been prominent in international design media. His experience designing Passive House throughout the Colorado Rockies has focused on wildfire hardening techniques merged with Passive House methodologies.
REGISTER HERE

*POSTPONED* Welcome Reception for 2025 UCLA Activists-in-Residence
2025-01-21 16:00 - 18:00 | UCLA Perloff Hall, DeCafe, 365 Portola Plaza, Room 1302, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
With a shared commitment to “turn the university inside out” and invite artists, community organizers, and movement leaders to undertake power-shifting scholarship and pedagogy focused on social change, the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, cityLAB-UCLA, and the UCLA Center for the Study of Women|Barbra Streisand Center are pleased to announce Lupita Limón Corrales, Kaya Dantzler, Kari Okubo, Romarilyn Ralston, and James Suazo as the 2025 UCLA Activists-in-Residence.
Learn more about each of the UCLA Activists-in-Residence here, and please join in warmly welcoming our activists to the UCLA community at this year’s welcome reception.
REGISTER HERE
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Parking information: The nearest parking lot is Parking Structure 5 (340 Royce Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90095). Pay-by-space parking is available on level 6 of Parking Structure 5. Use Parking Structure 3 as an alternate, located on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Hilgard Avenue. Pay-by-space parking is located on level 1 of Parking Structure 3.
Only cash and credit cards may be used at campus payment stations/kiosks. Pay stations accept Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express for your convenience. Pay stations only accept $1, $5, and $10 bills and do not give change in the form of cash or credit. Park in an unmarked space and place the permit on your car dashboard so it is visible.

826LA@Hammer: Collaging for Mother Earth
2025-01-12 11:00 - 13:00 | Hammer Museum
Free collaborative workshops, presented with 826LA, combine writing with creative activities for groups of up to 20 students.
Recommended for ages 8–14.
A lot of people know how important it is for the environment to recycle and reuse art materials, but not everyone knows how much fun it is! In this workshop, students will learn what it means to be an eco-surrealist. They will expand their creativity by gluing magazine cut outs and found objects to a surface in order to create their very own metaphorical self portrait. Led by artist Morgan Moto.
ATTENDING THIS PROGRAM?
Ticketing: These free workshops are designed for up to 20 students. Reservations are encouraged: visit 826la.org/programs/workshops or call 310-915-0200. Drop-ins are welcome, if space allows.
Parking: Under the museum, $8 flat rate on weekends. Cash or credit card.

POSTPONED - Fowler Exhibition Opening Celebration: Fire Kinship
2025-01-11 18:00 - 21:00 | Fowler Museum
**Due to the ongoing wildfires in the Los Angeles area, we have decided to postpone this event. Stay tuned for details on the rescheduled event.**
Join the Fowler Museum for the opening of the exhibition Fire Kinship: Southern California Native Ecology and Art. The evening will begin with a welcome from a local California Indian community, followed by a celebration with food, dance, and music.
Fire Kinship, the Fowler’s second PST ART exhibition, seeks to counter attitudes of fear and illegality around fire, arguing for a return to Native practices in which fire is regarded as a vital aspect of land stewardship, community well-being, and tribal sovereignty. The exhibition, on view through July 13, 2025, presents a living history that centers the expertise of Tongva, Cahuilla, Luiseño, and Kumeyaay communities past and present.
REGISTER HERE

Botany Workshop: Container Gardening
2025-01-04 11:00 - 12:00 | UCLA Mildred E Mathias Botanical Garden, La Kretz Garden Pavilion, 707 Tiverton Dr, Los Angeles, CA, 90095
Join a workshop on container gardening and a demo on creating beautiful container arrangements! Learn from the Garden’s Assistant Director Allison Keeney and Museum Scientist Matthew Southall.
This event is free with a reservation. RSVPs are required.
REGISTER HERE
