Two of the state’s universities, the University of California and Stanford University, are taking new steps to eliminate carbon emissions in their buildings. With governments squeezing carbon out of their power grids, zero-emission buildings will emerge as an important tool for reaching carbon neutrality by mid-century.
UCSF decided to replace the 10 diesel and five gasoline-fueled shuttles with electric buses to help clear the air and reach the UC-wide goal of being carbon-neutral by 2025. The UCSF shuttle system transports about 8,000 people a day on 16 routes that travel among university campuses, facilities and the 16th Street BART Station. The shuttles log about 1 million miles per year.
Valeree Catangay, a fourth-year environmental science student at UCLA and Student Engagement Fellow for UC's Carbon Neutrality Initiative, received the Brower Youth Award for Environmental Leadership in August for her work in environmental justice. Catangay also recently won the #YouthStepUp climate action competition for Activism at the Global Climate Action Summit for her work as a part of the California Allegory Youth Fellowship, a group of California youth activists and artists on the frontlines of climate injustice.
At the Chancellor’s Dialogue on Diversity and Interdisciplinarity on Sept. 13, Professor Donna Riley addressed the need to take a different approach in diversifying the science, technology, engineering and math fields. Age and student demographics make UC Merced the right university to lead the change, Riley said, calling out recent grants received to create curriculum in biological sciences and chemistry that is more inclusive of underrepresented, non-traditional students. She also noted that curriculum design can make a huge impact on inclusivity and student success.
Across the UC system, 44% of undergraduates and 26% of graduate students say they are food insecure, meaning they experience reduced food intake or disrupted eating patterns at times due to a lack of money and other resources, according to a report from the UC Global Food Initiative. A successful push at UC Berkeley last year to start helping an estimated 10,000 Berkeley students in need to sign up for CalFresh, a federally funded program that issues a free debit card for groceries to those who qualify, is intensifying, with a goal of 3,000 students applying in 2018-2019.