Unfold

Bonus: Decarbonizing Energy

A quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions comes from heating and electricity. In this episode of Unfold, we talk with Alissa Kendall, professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering about our energy use. We’ll discuss renewable energy and other decarbonizing technologies and the importance of life-cycle analysis when discussing climate change solutions.

In this episode:

Alissa Kendall, professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

 

Oceans Under a Changing Climate

Oceans have always done us a favor, absorbing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But now rising greenhouse gases are warming the ocean and changing its chemistry. All of this is putting marine species and ecosystems at risk, threatening food security and the livelihoods of people along its shores. In this episode of Unfold, we’ll take a deep dive into the ocean to examine the effects of climate change.

 

In this episode:

Priya Shukla, Ph.D. student at Bodega Marine Laboratory, Department of Environmental Science and Policy

Tessa Hill, professor and oceanographer, Bodega Marine Laboratory.

Rock Dust: A Climate Change Solution

Agriculture is responsible for 24 percent of our global greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this, UC Davis researchers say agriculture holds huge potential to be one of the biggest solutions to climate change. Carbon farming may hold the key. In this episode of Unfold, we examine how scientists are adding rock dust to crops to see if it can sequester carbon while also increasing yields for farmers.

In this episode:

Ben Houlton, affiliate faculty member, former director of the John Muir Institute of the Environment at UC Davis

Maya Almaraz, program manager in the Houlton Lab and terrestrial biochemist

Iris Holzer, graduate student in the Houlton Lab

Derek Azevedo, executive vice president, Bowles Farming Company in Los Banos, California

George Dias, Specialty Granules in Ione, California

Bonus: E-Commerce and Climate Change

It’s so easy. One click of your mouse and you’ve ordered just what you want, delivered to your doorstep in just a few days or even a few hours. Since COVID-19, our online shopping habits, particularly all those groceries, have increased dramatically. What that has meant for our carbon footprint might just surprise you. Miguel Jaller with the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies will unfold all the complexities of e-commerce in this brief bonus episode of Unfold.

In this episode:

Miguel Jaller, Co-director of the Sustainable Freight Research Center at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies

Hotter, Drier, Windier: California Wildfires Under a Changing Climate

California wildfires burned millions of acres this year, destroying entire towns and killing people. As wildfires become more difficult to control and more deadly, scientists say it will only get worse. Now, wind-driven wildfires like the Santa Anas that Southern California experiences, are moving further north and striking when conditions are hotter and drier. This episode of Unfold examines how fire is changing California’s landscapes and how we might manage this going forward.

In this episode:

Malcolm North, UC Davis associate professor and research forest ecologist, United States Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station

Andrew Latimer professor, Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis

Derek Young, postdoctoral researcher, Andrew Latimer Lab, Department of Plant Sciences

Hugh Safford, affiliate faculty in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy, United States Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region

Emma Underwood, research scientist at the Information Center for the Environment, Department of Environmental Science and Policy

Becoming Arizona

By 2100, Sacramento is expected to feel much like Phoenix, which last year had more than 100 days over 100 F. In this Unfold episode, co-host Kat Kerlin discusses her “Becoming Arizona” series, which looks at how to prepare for a hotter future. We also examine how cities nationwide are dealing with triple threats: rising temperatures, racial inequities and a pandemic. And we’ll discuss the efforts needed to build socially just, climate-resilient communities.

In this episode:

Mary Cadenasso, professor, and landscape and urban ecologist at UC Davis

Stephen Wheeler, professor of landscape architecture and urban design at UC Davis

Helene Margolis, associate adjunct professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, UC Davis School of Medicine

Adrienne Lawson, senior director for the UC Davis Office for Health Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Victoria Dearborn, graduate student in the Cadenasso Landscape and Urban Ecology Lab

Victoria Vasquez, South Sacramento NeighborWoods organizer, Sacramento Tree Foundation

Climate Change and COVID-19

The coronavirus pandemic stay-at-home orders and lockdowns resulted in a huge drop in global greenhouse gas emissions — the largest reductions since World War II. The reductions were short-lived as the U.S. and other countries opened back up, but there are lessons we can take away from the pandemic about global climate change and how we’re handling both crises. In this episode of Unfold, we look at surprising similarities between the climate crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.   

In this episode:

Fraser Shilling, co-director, Road Ecology Center at UC Davis

Ben Houlton, affiliate faculty member, former director of the John Muir Institute of the Environment at UC Davis

Helene Margolis, associate adjunct professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, UC Davis School of Medicine

Tracey Goldstein, associate director, One Health Institute at UC Davis

Unfold Season 2: Climate Change

The Earth’s climate is changing. Temperatures around the world are rising. Traditional weather patterns are shifting and extreme weather events are happening more often. In Season 2 of Unfold, hosts Amy Quinton and Kat Kerlin will talk to researchers who believe this unprecedented crisis calls for unprecedented solutions, including projects that pull carbon dioxide out of the air. From carbon farming to electric cars, we’ll examine the best ways to transition to a low-carbon future. We’ll travel from California to Kenya to examine how climate change is punishing the world’s poor and how insurance might protect them when drought hits. We’ll also examine what the coronavirus crisis is teaching us about the climate crisis.

Encore: What Happened to Flavor?

Breeding for pest and disease resistance in plants is common practice in modern agriculture. Scientists typically focus on breeding for traits that result in higher yields and a longer shelf-life to keep up with supply and demand. But in this Bonus Bite episode, we shift into a conversation about breeding for flavor, a mostly neglected trait up until now. Flavor breeding is considered “the last frontier of plant breeding” by some experts and could bring tastier products to our tables. This episode covers the work of UC Davis researchers in search of a tastier fruit.

Encore: The Father of Wine

California wine country tempts visitors from across the globe with its famous fruit. But the Golden State wouldn’t be able to boast its world-class bounty without UC Davis wine scientist, Maynard Amerine. This Bonus Bite episode centers around the pioneering researcher and his contributions to the California wine industry. The former professor and viticulture chair passed away in 1998 but left behind a legacy of work including his co-development of the Winkler Index, which is still used to determine optimal wine grape growing regions. Amerine is also credited with helping develop an objective way of judging wine quality, elevating the market for wine.