L.A. Times: CSWAC Member Stephanie Pincetl’s Climate Change Research Featured
The LA Times article, “Hotter, drier and all-around different: How climate change will alter your life in L.A.” warns that climate change is making heat waves in the West more frequent, more severe, and more lethal. Los Angeles could be trapped in its own “Twilight Zone,” where extreme heat, wildfire smoke, and water shortages are commonplace. To adapt, the city must invest in water recycling, electric vehicles, renewable energy, and urban planning that prioritizes shade and cooling. These efforts will be crucial for survival in the face of rising temperatures and sea levels.
Applied widely, the concept could make for a Los Angeles that is not just more hospitable, but also much cooler in the face of warming temperatures, said Stephanie Pincetl, founding director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA and member of our center’s advisory committee.
“If we reduce the size of roads considerably and devote more of what’s there to bicycle transportation and buses and public transportation, we will be mitigating the urban heat island,” she said. “It’s not a brand new revolutionary technology, but it would be brand new revolutionary infrastructure.”
