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February 7, 2022
In this series, we’re meeting with Swette Center team members to explore their background in food systems, what they are currently working on, and their vision of food systems transformation.
Read on for an interview with Tucker Larson, Student Worker.
February 4, 2022
By Ella Schneider, GFL Communications Intern
The virtual launch of SheTrades and Women’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator (WEA) on January 18, 2022 was moderated by Amanda Ellis, the lead for global partnerships at Arizona State University’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory (GFL) and co-chair of WE Empower UN SDG Challenge. This event marks the revolutionary launch of the free Entrepreneurship Certificate Program, available online through SheTrades. WEA convenes five UN agencies International Labor Organization (ILO), International Trade Centre (ITC), UN Global Compact (UNGC), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), UN Women, private-sector MaryKay and includes the most recent partnership with WE Empower. These partnerships help over 5 million women gain access to certificates, networks and mentors that foster the growth and success of women-led and women-owned businesses around the globe.
February 1, 2022
In this month's episode, we talk with Nkosi Muse (@weatherkos), a scientific advisor on climate change adaptation to the city of Miami and Ph. D. student at the University of Miami, about climate change and gentrification processes in Miami. We delve into the phenomenon of "climate gentrification," a form of gentrification that proceeds by the wealthy buying properties in marginalized communities in Miami because of their higher elevation and longer-term resilience to climate change. We also touch on another form of gentrification, "downward raiding," identified elsewhere in the world that probably also exists in the US. Finally, as potential inspiration to other academics working in urban resilience, we talk about how Nkosi obtained his dual-status as academic researcher and scientific advisor.
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Listen on iTunes, StitcherGoogle Podcasts, Spotify, or Buzzsprout.
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.URExSRN.net.
February 1, 2022
In this series, we’re meeting with Swette Center team members to explore their background in food systems, what they are currently working on, and their vision of food systems transformation.
Read on for an interview with Mauricio Bellon, Research Professor.
January 28, 2022
Gill nets are massive walls of netting that hang in the water. They’re designed to allow fish to get their heads through the netting but not their body.
The nets are the most widely used fishing gear the world over. However, they catch a lot more than fish; endangered, threatened and protected species like sharks, sea turtles and marine mammals get snagged in the nets and die.
Fishermen don’t want them, so they’re tossed overboard. Accidental captures are known as “bycatch.” Bycatch is a significant contributor to declines in endangered species around the world.
January 28, 2022
As climate risks from ongoing drought and rising urban heat
continue to grow, Arizona will need to find innovative ways to significantly reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. Many of the state’s electric utilities, industries and cities are planning actions to nearly eliminate their own emissions by 2050. But reaching carbon neutrality for all of Arizona’s economy will require greater effort.
In a new research collaboration, Arizona State University and Salt River Project have developed important insights into the significant decisions that lie ahead in determining how to cut CO2 emissions throughout the state.
During the past 1.5 years, an ASU research team with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory examined the future of Arizona’s economy and energy systems. The team assembled several working groups with representatives from academia, industry, utilities, governments and non-profit organizations. Through participatory workshops, interviews and data collection, the researchers analyzed key findings and integrated them with relevant studies on low-carbon technologies and decarbonization options in the United States.
Four potential pathways to decarbonization emerged, with important implications for the state of Arizona.
January 26, 2022
Kailin Kroetz, Assistant Professor in the School of Sustainability, has been appointed to the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC) of
the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. Kailin serves as the CBO Program Lead for Economics and Biodiversity, bringing her knowledge of aquatic and terrestrial species management and economics.
January 26, 2022
In this series, we’re sitting down with the Swette Center affiliated faculty to catch up on food systems, innovation, and what makes a good meal. See the rest of the series on our Food Systems Profiles page.
Read on for an interview with Maria Cruz-Torres, Senior Global Futures Scientist in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory; Associate Professor in the School of Transborder Studies, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
January 22, 2022
By Kathleen Merrigan, Executive Director of the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State University
The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines bioengineered food as food that “contains detectable genetic material that has been modified through certain lab techniques that cannot be created through conventional breeding or found in nature.”
If that definition sounds familiar, it is because it is essentially how genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are defined – common vocabulary many people use and understand.
January 20, 2022
Recently published by GreenLiving, ASU LightWorks' Bill Brandt explores the intersection of economic development and clean energy.
In a recent ASU LightWorks webinar panel on the development power of clean energy in Arizona, Comacho, City of Phoenix Mayor, Kate Gallego and Chief Strategy, Corporate Services and Sustainability Executive, Salt River Project Kelly Barr spoke on the topic.
January 19, 2022
The City of Peoria posted a lovely article about the partnership between ASU faculty and students and the city, which is going on three years! Here is a short excerpt:
"Project Cities is kicking off its third year of working with the city of Peoria, bringing ASU faculty and students alongside city staff to improve quality of life for residents.
The program brings cross-disciplinary collaboration and research-backed solutions to complex municipal sustainable challenges, while at the same time adding value to students’ learning experience by providing real-world applications to each student’s field of study."
January 19, 2022
In this series, we are taking a closer look at elements in the Hawaiian food systems including innovations and issues. Hawaiian agriculture is unique to the islands and showcases a host of special challenges.
Read on for Carly Wyman’s experience with Hawaiian agriculture. She is the Swette Center’s on-the-ground team member researching Hawai’i’s food, agriculture, and policy. In this series, Carly shares her insights on the unique challenges in the Hawaiian food systems.
January 13, 2022
“There is something called the doctor bride phenomenon in Pakistan, where parents want their daughters to become doctors and get a medical degree so that they end up getting the best hand in marriage. And that’s where the buck stops. Then, very few people want them to actually work.” — Sara Saeed, WE Empower 2021 Awardee
Sara Saeed, WE Empower 2021 Awardee, Co-founder and CEO of Sehat Kahani (left), speaks with WE Empower contributing author Amanda Kiviaho.
Sehat Kahani is an ICT-enabled video solution connecting a network of qualified female doctors, with a focus on doctor brides, to help underserved patients in Pakistan. Interview edited for length and clarity.
January 12, 2022
In this series, we’re sitting down with the Swette Center affiliated faculty to catch up on food systems, innovation, and what makes a good meal. See the rest of the series on our Food Systems Profiles page.
Read on for an interview with Rebecca Muenich, Assistant Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment; Senior Global Futures Scientist in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory; Program Lead for Agriculture and Biodiversity in the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes.
January 10, 2022
In this series, we are taking a closer look at elements in the Hawaiian food systems including innovations and issues. Hawaiian agriculture is unique to the islands and showcases a host of special challenges.
Read on for Carly Wyman’s experience with Hawaiian agriculture. She is the Swette Center’s on-the-ground team member researching Hawai’i’s food, agriculture, and policy. In this series, Carly shares her insights on the unique challenges in the Hawaiian food systems.
January 9, 2022
In this series, we’re meeting with Swette Center team members to explore their background in food systems, what they are currently working on, and their vision of food systems transformation.
Read on for an interview with Sharla Strong, Special Projects Coordinator, enrolled tribal member with the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.
January 7, 2022
The ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes is currently seeking a
n enthusiastic, sustainability-minded intern to support its daily administrative and communication projects.
Through this opportunity, interns will enhance transferable skills such as administrative organization, workflow, teamwork and strategic communication. They will also be exposed to a variety of fields such as copywriting and editing, social media, public relations and project management to advance biodiversity conservation efforts in the academic and environmental fields.
January 6, 2022
by Celina Osuna
The Global Drylands Center wishes to congratulate Executive Committee Member Enrique R. Vivoni on his latest publication this month in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, “A micrometeorological flux perspective on brush management in a shrub-encroached
Sonoran Desert grassland,” for which he is the first author. Vivoni is a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. His research focuses on water, climate and ecosystem processes and interactions with sustainability and management, with a specific emphasis on semiarid and arid regions of North America.
The article is the result of over 7 years of work studying and comparing “ecosystem responses to brush management in an herbicide-treated site to an untreated, control location to explicitly account for pre-treatment differences” in the Santa Rita Experimental Range (SRER) of the Sonoran Desert, just under 30 miles south of Tucson. Its contribution is especially important with regard to brush management strategies, which “rarely account for site differences that might occur prior to treatment.”
Below is the abstract, and you can access the full article here:
Woody plant encroachment typically limits the forage productivity of managed rangelands and alters a panoply of semiarid ecosystem processes and services. Intervention strategies to reduce woody plant abundance, collectively termed “brush management”, often lack observations to quantify and interpret changes in ecosystem processes. Furthermore, comparative studies between treated and untreated areas should account for heterogeneity since plant composition, microclimate, topoedaphic factors, and historical land use can substantially vary over short distances in drylands. Here, we quantify ecosystem responses to brush management after a single aerial herbicide application on an 18 hectare shrub-encroached grassland (savanna) in southern Arizona, USA. We conducted a pre- and post-treatment comparison of a flux tower site in the treated area with that of a tower in a nearby control site. The comparison, spanning a seven year period, included: (1) ground, airborne, and satellite-based measurements of vegetation structure, and (2) eddy covariance measurements. The herbicide treatment defoliated the dominant shrub (velvet mesquite, Prosopis velutina) and led to a temporary reduction in summer greening, but full foliar recovery occurred within two years. Contrary to expectations, perennial grass cover decreased and bare soil cover increased on the treated site. Relative amounts of evapotranspiration were reduced, while carbon uptake increased during the 2 year post-treatment period at the treated site due to a higher water use efficiency in the following spring. During mesquite recovery, carbon uptake was enhanced by higher gross primary productivity and accompanied by a decrease in ecosystem respiration relative to the untreated site. Mesquite recovery was facilitated by access to deep soil water, carbohydrate reserves in rooting systems, and a lower competition from reduced perennial grass cover.
January 6, 2022
In this series, we are taking a closer look at elements in the Hawaiian food systems including innovations and issues. Hawaiian agriculture is unique to the islands and showcases a host of special challenges.
Read on for Carly Wyman’s experience with Hawaiian agriculture. She is the Swette Center’s on-the-ground team member researching Hawai’i’s food, agriculture, and policy. In this series, Carly shares her insights on the unique challenges in the Hawaiian food systems.
January 4, 2022
Arizona State University's Sustainable Purchasing Research Initiative (SPRI) welcomes two new undergraduate interns. Anna Elovitz is a junior undergraduate student at the School of Sustainability and the W.P. Carey School of Business, pursuing two bachelor of science degrees in sustainability and economics. Matthew Santino is a senior undergraduate student pursuing a bachelor of science degree in sustainability at the School of Sustainability.
