Social Sciences
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Up to $150bn damage in LA fires unleashes wave of anger at cancelled insurance
Galina Hale, a professor of economics at the University of California Santa Cruz, told The i Paper that insurance companies use models to determine what is termed “actuarily fair” insurance policy pricing. “Some areas have such high risks that insurance companies would have to charge insurance premia above what people might be willing to pay,"…
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How Venture Capital Flattens Neighborhoods
Associate Teaching Professor of Community Studies Alison Alkon explained how gentrification tends to happen in phases, and the latest phase, funded by venture capital, has attempted to co-opt the aesthetic of the independent businesses that are often last hold-outs in the resistance against gentrification. “The force of this countermovement that was trying to make things kind…
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Study focuses on effect of climate change on California's grasslands
Several UC Santa Cruz researchers contributed to a recent study that combined long-term observational data with results from global change experiments in the region to show that, climate change is causing species that prefer hotter and drier conditions to become more dominant in regional grassland communities. "(We need to) understand what's happening so that we…
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China Is Ready to Take Advantage of Trump Trashing Clean Energy
Environmental Studies Professor Sikina Jinnah discussed how backtracking on climate change affects America's standing with Europe and the rest of the world. “They’re probably thinking, ‘Oh god. Not again,’” she said. “[Trump’s win] signals to not only Europe but the rest of the world that we’re an unreliable partner in multilateral negotiations — not only in…
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Research by UC Santa Cruz professor, others yields gruesome discovery
New research by an anthropology professor at UC Santa Cruz and other experts revealed a startling twist on the human sacrifice traditions of an ancient people of Peru.“Most of what we know about human sacrifices with the Moche relates to very public and gruesome forms of human sacrifice,” said Lars Fehren-Schmitz, an archaeogeneticist at UC…
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Three-quarters of the world’s land is drying out, ‘redefining life on Earth’
Climate change has made great swaths of the planet drier and soils saltier, jeopardizing food production and water access for billions. We can look to current geopolitical and ecological events that are playing out currently to understand what we can expect in the future,” said Hannah Waterhouse, a soil and water scientist at the University…
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A haze of institutional weakness
In an opinion article, Distinguished Professor of Economics Nirvikar Singh argues that the standard approach of localized and reactive policies will not India’s air pollution problems.
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California’s attorney general leads a ‘know your rights’ workshop for immigrants
California Attorney General Rob Bonta and other immigrant advocates have warned people to be careful about the legal help they seek and to only use qualified and licensed immigration attorneys. Scams offering fake immigration services or extorting payments by threatening deportation target vulnerable communities, especially in Los Angeles. Cal Matters shared research by UC Santa Cruz…
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Exploring gender roles in 2024, from ‘girlboss’ to ‘trad wife’
UC Santa Cruz gender and sexual identity diversity expert Dr. Phillip Hammack joined Detroit Public Radio to discuss how gender roles have shifted in the past decade. Hammack said that new labels popularized on social media show that "ideas around how to be a woman, how to inhabit your gender, have now opened up, and…
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Shuttered Radiation Lab Poses Ongoing Health Risks for Growing Neighborhood
Coverage of the history of cleanup and development plans at the Navy's San Francisco lab cited research by Associate Professor of Sociology Lindsey Dillon and quoted Daniel Hirsch, the retired director of UCSC's former Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy. Hirsch says there is “high likelihood that contamination migrated from the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard…
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Georgia prison system engages in deception as crisis builds
A leading expert on prison conditions and solitary confinement, Craig Haney, was brought in to study the unit, and he described the SMU as "one of the harshest and most draconian" solitary confinement facilities he had ever seen. … "The atmosphere inside E Wing was bedlam-like, as chaotic and out of-control as any such unit…
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Scotts Valley didn’t get a tornado warning, but San Francisco did. Why?
Environmental Studies Professor Michael Loik explained how climate change could potentially lead to increased opportunities for tornado development. “From a mechanistic standpoint, if you warm up the atmosphere, you warm up the ocean, you create more evaporation, you create more storminess,” he said. “From a statistical standpoint, then that might lead some to predict more…