CSUN On Point

Climate change is a problem affecting the entire planet, but not everyone is educated on the subject.

A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the world has approximately a decade to get its act together before catastrophic climate changes begin to happen.

“It is the biggest story of our time, without question,” CSUN Physics, Mathematics and Sustainability Professor Loraine Lundquist said. “The reason media don’t cover it, is because it doesn’t get good ratings.” 

Many people, including some powerful ones, seem oblivious to the global warming issue. Websites like End Climate Silence promote a healthy discussion on the topic, and also provide links and other information on minimal changes people can incorporate into their everyday lives.

“As dire as the IPCC report was, what it is basically saying is, we do have a very narrow window now to get a handle on climate change,” said Sean Carlin, environmental activist and a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps program.

California State University, Northridge was one of the first universities to partner with DC Solar to install 39 solar panel mobiles around campus. The goal was to educate and empower the community by promoting solar energy. The university established a recycling program in 1991, offering opportunities for students to volunteer. The Sustainability Center does community clean ups, and promotes the use of recycling bins and water-bottle refill stations on campus. They also suggest eating less meat for the good of the environment, by providing their Instagram followers with vegan recipes to try.

Animal agriculture is the one of the leading causes of greenhouse gases. The American diet is heavily meat-based. Shifting 320 million Americans to a more plant-based diet could save 91 million acres of land currently used for livestock cultivation. Raising livestock for food is also one of the leading causes of global deforestation. Nearly a third of biodiversity loss is linked to animal agriculture. Many CSUN students say they have started cutting down on their meat intake. They say they have not gone completely vegan, but are committed to buying more plant-based foods.

“I think that these small stories about single-use plastics, plant-based eating and innovation around that, electrification of vehicles, Tesla, Elon Musk, [make a difference],” artist and Valley Green conservationist Miles Lewis said. “People [like Musk] end up being on the news, and they all implicate climate change as sort of the larger topic, so hopefully that gets people identified with a way of being, and a change in industry.”

Moderator: Leonard Tesher

Producer: Andrea Tanchez

Associate Producer: Samantha Rodriguez

Anchor: Nicholas Logan

Social Media Editor: Tory Isaac

Reporters: Brandon Benitez, Tory Isaac, Nicholas Logan, Samantha Rodriguez, Andrea Tanchez and Leonard Tesher

Fire is a word Californians are all too familiar with these days.

Every year people anticipate fire season, however more and more fires are happening outside the seasonal norm. Human activity as well as climate change have caused this irregularity.

“We used to think there was a fire season,” CSUN Geography & Environmental Studies Professor Amalie Orme said. “In our traditional way of thinking, probably from mid-20^th century into the early years of this century, we always thought it was going to be sometime in the fall and maybe into early winter, but I think in the last two decades now, we’ve seen a very different type of pattern, where we can see fire year round.”

Data show that these fires are becoming larger as well. The most recent highly destructive fire in Southern California was the Thomas fire. It burned for more than a month, leaving thousands of acres burned and destroying nearly 800 homes.

In efforts to control fires, campaigns like Smokey Bear have been used. This wildfire prevention campaign educates the community on what it can do to prevent these fires with fuel management practices. Unfortunately, these efforts do not always work when Mother Nature gets involved.

“All these fires are driven by these natural things,” retired LAFD fire-fighter and FlameMapper.com co-founder Anthony Shafer said. “The real thing, that I personally think adds to it, is the buildup over the years of fuels, and the tons per acre of dry fuels on the landscape, and the fact that we haven’t figured out how to get rid of that, or decrease that.”

“You have this other dynamic in here,’ Orme said, “when you have this big fuel-loading, especially in areas that are difficult to access, because when you start to look at the way fires are patterned over time…we wind up with these mosaics of vegetation, which may not have the adaptive capacity to regenerate and prevent the understory from basically refueling itself.”

Climate change is another driving force behind these California flames. Temperatures are rising, causing landscapes to be drier for longer periods of time. The current California drought does not help the situation either, and experts say heavy rainfall may not even be enough to counteract the rising temperatures. These conditions leave certain areas more susceptible to catch and sustain fire.

These susceptibilities can change someone’s life overnight.

“When I was about 8-years-old, my family lost their home to the 1993 Topanga fire,” FlameMapper.com co-founder Shea Broussard said.  “I didn’t really understand how to process the feelings of emotion at the time. It was very strange and very odd. When you lose your house, you don’t realize you lose that sense of place, that sense of home… You’ve had the worst day that could ever happen to you, and you don’t have a place to go home to.”

Broussard said no one can really prepare for the devastation of a fire. Fires occur unexpectedly, and many people do not know what to do after they’re over, or how they can protect their homes against the scorching flames.

“[People] don’t have their to-go bags,” Shafer said. “They don’t have all their financial information; they don’t have all their insurance documentation…That’s where the devastation is, the fact that they get to [shelters], and they’re sitting there on this bench, and they realize the only thing they’ve got in the world is what they are sitting there with.”

No two fires are the same, but they have similar and lasting effects.

“A fire can really change a community,” Broussard said. “It takes years to try to recover, and it’s a bigger event than people can actually wrap their brain around.”

Moderator: Angela Bickmann

Producers: Angela Bickmann and Marissa Martinez

Anchor: Marissa Martinez

Social Media Editors: Karin Abcarians and Melanie Rosales

Reporters: Karin Abcarians, Angela Bickmann, Jesyka Dunn, Marissa Martinez and Melanie Rosales

Los Angeles is the most congested city in the nation, according to INRIX, a transportation and traffic data analysis company.

That’s one reason L.A. is pushing for improved public transportation options to encourage more residents to get out of their cars and use public transportation.

After voters approved Measure R in 2008, L.A. made some steps to improve its public transportation options. But one key part of town was left out of those measures: the San Fernando Valley.

Now, city and transit officials are trying to change that. The Metropolitan Transit Authority has proposed a new $120 billion plan that would include funding for a tunnel through the Sepulveda Pass, toll roads on the 105 and 405 freeways, and extensions to other light rail routes in the city.

At Cal State Northridge, some 59 percent of students drive alone to school and 73 percent of the faculty and staff drive to school, according to a recent study done by CSUN’s Institute for Sustainability. Some 200,000 vehicles come to campus in an average week.

“In the Valley, public transportation has been overlooked for years,” said Ken Premo, the manager of Support Services for Associated Students at CSUN. “There is limited service, and any student who comes to the university knows that they can’t easily get from place to place. There’s not a lot of stops and there’s not a lot of options.”

It can take some students up to two hours one way to get to campus via public transportation, Premo said. The students also have to make transfers on and off buses multiple times in order to get to campus.

“A robust transit system that serves the needs of our students means a student would be able to better balance a very busy class schedule and a part time job,” CSUN’s President Dr. Dianne Harrison said at the Valley Transportation Summit in March.

But not everyone thinks adding more public transit options is the solution. The Metropolitan Transit Authority reported in January that it lost more than 10 percent of its boardings from 2006 to 2015. The Times also said Metro has fewer boardings than it did three decades ago.

Larry Isrow, CSUN’s Parking and Transportation Services Manager, said ridership has declined across the region because transit routes aren’t convenient.

“We did a study on campus that showed that 57 percent of people would be inclined to take the bus if they only had to take one bus,” Isrow said. “Once you have to start making transfers, it becomes inconvenient and too time consuming, and people won’t do that.”

According to CSUN data, half of the university’s population lives within a ten mile radius from campus. That’s why Isrow believes CSUN should be a transportation hub.

“We would like to see the transit center connect with the proposed East Valley Transit Corridor via Nordhoff Street,” Isrow said. “We’d also like to see the [CSUN] transit center have improvements made to it, so we could increase the volume and number of lines that are coming into there.”

State Senator Bob Hertzberg, a Democrat representing the 18th District in the San Fernando Valley, agreed that CSUN should be a transportation hub.

“If you go and show a big picture map of the Valley, and you include a bus rapid transit coming down Nordhoff and one coming up Reseda, it sends a message that the Northwest Valley is included as part of this larger transportation plan,” Hertzberg said. “The Northeast Valley benefits because so many students from CSUN come from the Northeast Valley. It fundamentally completes the picture of the San Fernando Valley.”

While cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, and Washington D.C. may have been built for public transportation use, L.A. has more suburban ground to cover and may seem better suited for the car. But CSUN Urban Studies and Planning Professor Craig Olwert said it is not too late for L.A. to get into the public transportation game.

“The subway system has been fairly successful and the Orange Line has been very successful,” Olwert said. “There is a demand for [public transit] and as we keep allowing more high density to be built around those stations, eventually you’ll start seeing an increase in ridership.”

Ultimately, the decision to bring more transit options to the Valley may be be left in the hands of voters. If the new plan is approved by the Metro Board of Directors in June, it will go on the November ballot, where it will need two-thirds approval to pass.

Moderator: Jarvis Haren

Anchor: Mariah Robinson

Producer: Jarvis Haren

Social Media Editors: Ayo Adelaja and Haley Kramer

Reporters: Ayo Adelaja, Harry Bennett III, Jarvis Haren, Valerie Hernandez, Sofia Levin and Mariah Robinson

On February 18, SoCal Gas announced that it had permanently sealed the largest methane leak in US history – but not before thousands of Porter Ranch residents had been exposed to the leak for four months.

Some residents were evacuated, while others suffered with nausea, dizziness, nosebleeds and other physical illnesses related to the methane in the air.

“Nobody knew what was going on,” said Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council member Cheri Derohanian. “In fact, my 12-year-old twin girls, who were seventh graders at Porter Ranch Community School, were running the mile daily, and I was wondering why a school would let kids do that when everyone smells gas in the community. It was frustrating, it was frightening.”

One of the most frustrating aspects of the incident for residents was how preventable the leak was from the beginning.

“This well that leaked, had a safety valve on it that was taken off by choice,” said Dr. Loraine Lundquist from the CSUN Institute for Sustainability. “If that safety valve had been in place, it would have stopped the leak within hours.”

The leak has led to a lawsuit by residents, against SoCal Gas, that some experts believe will take years to complete.

“We’re just trying to help [Porter Ranch residents] band together to be able to advocate for themselves and get the compensation they deserve,” Frantz Law Group attorney Regina Bagdasarian said. “We want [SoCal Gas] to be responsible, not just by acknowledging responsibility, but by compensating people for the harms they suffered.”

Although it’s been almost a month since the leak was sealed, the problems for residents are not over. Some residents have started moving back, but a judge recently ordered SoCal Gas to pay expenses until mid-March for those who want more time. This week, crews have begun inspecting and cleaning up Porter Ranch playgrounds after spots of sticky and potentially toxic substances were found.

And some believe, as big of a problem as the gas leak was, it was just a small part of an even bigger issue.

“We are suffering from this incredibly urgent problem of imminent climate change, that literally does threaten to destabilize human civilization within the course of less than a century,” Lundquist said.

There may be an upside to all this, however – as some believe that the Porter Ranch gas leak offers an opportunity for change.

“I think people have to be their own advocate,” Bagdasarian said.

“This is an excellent time for residents of Los Angeles to band together, and demand that our city pledge to go to 100 percent renewable energy,” Lundquist said.

Moderator: Jasmin Dalton

Anchor: October Primavera

Producer: Jasmin Dalton

Social Media Editors: Anna Logan and October Primavera

Reporters: Harry Abelson, Jasmin Dalton, Glenna Dixon, Kiara Draper, Anna Logan and October Primavera