November 8, 2011
December 6, DCDC Water/Climate Briefing, Cotton, Condos, and Climate: Agriculture and Arizona's Water Future. Organized by School of Sustainability graduate students, this DCDC Water/Climate Briefing explores the climate-water-agriculture-nexus in Arizona. Over the coming year, academic researchers, farmers, water managers, and other stakeholders throughout Arizona will continue this work and will provide new insights into this critical challenge.
Using Social Psychology to Promote Sustainability. Our colleagues, Susan Ledlow and Mick Dalrymple at Energize Phoenix are featured prominently in The Atlantic Cities article, "In Arizona, Reducing Water and Energy Use Through Peer Pressure."
ASU ‘Changing Planet’ town hall airs Nov. 16 on The Weather Channel. This edition of "Changing Planet" brings together over 400 students and features four leading experts from science, academia and politics: Bill Richardson, former Governor of New Mexico; Grady Gammage Jr., senior sustainability scholar with the ASU Global Institute of Sustainability and senior research fellow with the ASU Morrison Institute for Public Policy; Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority; and Heidi Cullen, former climate expert for The Weather Channel and current research scientist and correspondent with "Climate Central."
Check out DCDC researcher David Sampson's interview on Fox News as part of ASU student Daryl Bjoraas' exploration of innovative techniques used to conserve water in Phoenix.
Rating Phoenix Sustainability: What Matters Most by Grady Gammage at ASU. It is understandable that Phoenix strikes people as a fragile place. But at the end of the day, the verdict on urban sustainability is not about geography, but about politics. Before we brand Phoenix as "the world’s least sustainable city," we need to figure out how to rate political foresight and willpower. The real measure of sustainability is in how a place responds to challenges.
In Phoenix, the Dark Side of the 'Green' City by Andrew Ross in The New York Times. While cities like Portland, Seattle and San Francisco are lauded for sustainability, the challenges faced by Phoenix, a poster child of Sunbelt sprawl, are more typical and more revealing.
In Arizona, Reducing Water and Energy Use Through Peer Pressure by Emily Badger at The Atlantic. The city of Phoenix, Arizona State University and the local power utility are trying to figure this out in a three-year project funded by a federal stimulus grant. The program, Energize Phoenix, is targeting 1,800 residential units and 30 million square feet of commercial space in an effort to get people to go for the low-hanging fruit of energy efficiency.
Engineering alum helps Arizona meet its water challenges. Among certainties about life in the desert Southwest are that the supply, use, conservation and management of water will always be pressing issues. So it’s certain that Arizona State University and Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering alumnus Michael Johnson will have a hand in shaping Arizona’s future.
Better economics: supporting adaptation with stakeholder analysis by Muyeye Chambwera, Ye Zou, Mohamed Boughlala. Across the developing world, decision makers understand the need to adapt to climate change — particularly in agriculture, which supports a large proportion of low-income groups who are especially vulnerable to impacts such as increasing water scarcity or more erratic weather.