Making what’s commonly referred to as “green slime” artistic may seem like a herculean feat, but Arizona State University student Phillip Carrier is using tiny algae plants as inspiration for an art installation project as a Master of Fine Arts student from the Herberger Institute School of Art.

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ASU School of Art student Phillip Carrier will spend two summer semesters as an artist-in-residence at the Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation (AzCATI) creating a piece of work that combines science, technology, and art. Under the College of Technology and Innovation and the LightWorks initiative, AzCATI is a national testbed for algae research and development for biofuels, pharmaceuticals, and other biomass.

"Great minds, from scientists and researchers to philosophers and poets, must work together to create a cultural shift toward a sustainable existence," says Gary Dirks, director of LightWorks and  the Global Institute of Sustainability. "Artists like Philip tell stories that instruct us or stimulate us into thinking about what that future is going to look like."

Carrier will find inspiration at the many algae test beds on the Polytechnic campus. His completed artwork will be on display on the Polytechnic campus's Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 3.

Bradley Baker graduated from the School of Sustainability in 2012. Now, he works as a hazardous waste compliance officer at the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) Waste Programs Division. He learned at a young age that our resources are finite, and taking care of them takes personal and group responsibility.

In his position, Baker inspects local businesses and facilities to make sure they are following hazardous waste regulations.  Baker says his real-world experience from internships helped him gain his position.

"Find an internship, whether it is paid or unpaid," he tells fellow students. "I have well over a year's worth of experience doing unpaid internships, and I would not have been able to apply for the jobs I did without them."

The International Paris Air Show, inaugurated in 1909, is the world’s oldest (and largest) aviation show, drawing participants from all over the world. Open to both professionals and the general public, it is the leading global networking event in the aerospace industry and a prime location for the development and display of leading edge aviation and space innovations. The show is organized by Salon International de l'Aeronautique et de l'Espace (SIAE), a subsidiary of Groupement des Industries Françaises Aéronautiques et Spatiales (GIFAS). This year’s event will take place June 17-23, 2013 at Le Bourget Exhibition Center.

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By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times

May 28, 2013

SAN DIEGO — Officials in the seven states that depend on the drought-beset Colorado River expressed a cautious willingness Tuesday to join the federal government in a complex, possibly contentious effort to step up conservation.

At a meeting in San Diego, officials of the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation announced the establishment of three inter-state committees to devise plans for conservation, possibly including water reuse, desalination, water banking and the sale of water from farms to cities.

"While the solutions won't be easy for anyone involved, the consequences of failure are too dire to ignore," said Patricia Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

The committees have been ordered to have their recommendations ready by year's end — virtually lightning speed for water-sharing issues that regularly take years, often decades, to resolve, if they can be resolved at all.

One committee will be composed of major municipal and industrial water users, one of agricultural interests, and one will have representatives from environmental groups. Also, the federal government is pledging to work on conservation projects with 10 American Indian tribes that have rights to the Colorado River and its tributaries.

On one point, there appears to be no disagreement: The hour is late and shortages loom as demand threatens to outstrip supply. Last year was the fifth driest on record; this year is headed to be the fourth driest.

By Oct. 1, the river's two reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, could be at less than half of their capacity, according to the Bureau of Reclamation.

"The time for action is now," said Jennifer Pitt, head of the Environmental Defense Fund's Colorado River Project. "Communities that depend on the Colorado River — for water supply or as the foundation of a $26-billion recreation economy — cannot afford to wait."

Continue reading at the Los Angeles Times.

A Thought Leader Series Piece

By Mick Dalrymple

Note: Mick Dalrymple is a LEED-accredited professional and co-founder of the Arizona Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. He is the ASU project manager of Energize Phoenix, an initiative that aims to save energy, create jobs, and improve local neighborhoods along a 10-mile stretch of Phoenix's light rail. Recently, Dalrymple has been promoting the Global Institute of Sustainability's 2013 Energy Efficiency Idea Guide for Arizona.

Imagine what would happen if an array of stakeholders made a concerted effort to cool the overnight low temperature of downtown Phoenix by one degree. For starters, more people would spend their evenings outdoors, increased economic activity would boost local businesses and tourism dollars, and roughly 21 million kilowatt hours (nearly $2.1 million) of energy would be saved per year.

But most importantly, Phoenix would become a real example to the world that we all can work together to positively change our climate.

Such is the power of One Degree, a simple concept that describes a tremendously complex and ambitious (but doable) challenge to create concerted change that improves community sustainability.

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To assist ASU's 2015 zero waste goal, the ASU Materials Management team has organized a collection service for used and unwanted office supplies. Since it first started, the collection service has rounded up more than 400 pounds of CDs, DVDs, plastic jewel cases and more than 150 cell phones in addition to 17,200 toner cartridges and 2,500 writing utensils.

"It’s the little things that add up," says Maureen King, manager of Materials Management. "Each act does not have much impact by itself, but collectively all this work leads to the larger goal of creating a sustainable future."

Mail Services reuses the rubber bands, while ink and toner cartridges and utensils are sent out for recycling.

In this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal, two ASU scientists published their study on the Panama Canal watershed, an area under review for reforestation in order to compensate for increased cargo ship use and more channels. Charles Perrings, a Senior Sustainability Scientist in the Global Institute of Sustainability, is the co-author alongside Silvio Simonit from ASU's Ecoservices Group.

The duo's paper examines the interactions and outcomes of multiple ecosystem services provided by reforestation including water flows, carbon sequestration, and timber production.

"Our research provides an insight into the importance of understanding the spatial distribution of the costs and benefits of jointly produced services," says Simonit.

Arizona State University is awarded a $4,000 Think Green Grant from Waste Management, Inc. and Keep America Beautiful. ASU proposes to expand its Green Bin program by having ASU Facilities Development Management Recycling program staff collaborating with the ASU School of Sustainability in a capstone class. The students will develop ideas to divert ASU's waste from the landfill.

"This gives us the opportunity to connect academics with operations by asking School of Sustainability students to innovate solutions to Green Bin organics collection expansion," said Alana Levine, ASU Recycling Program Manager. "Students will actually see their ideas realized at ASU and establish a collection model for other communities to use."

ASU is aiming to be a zero waste university by 2015.

Arizona State University's School of Sustainability hosted its year-end open house and project showcase on April 24 where students and faculty got to show off their innovative course assignments and partnerships. For example, students in Professor David Manuel-Navarrete's Sustainability Leadership and Social Change course introduced their video highlighting ASU's transformation towards university-wide sustainability.

"Since the School was first established, we have put value on diverse learning and teaching strategies that simulate professional team settings, address real-world sustainability issues and involve community members as project partners," says Katja Brundiers, the School's university-community liaison and the event's organizer.

The event created new collaborations as part of the School's Project-and Problem-Based Learning. Students and faculty interacted together one-on-one as well as with members of the public. The event was part poster session, part mixer, part lecture, and part discussion.

The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University has announced its list of top 10 new species discovered during 2012. More than 140 species were nominated and the international committee chose according to appropriate nomenclature and official 2012 naming.

"Sustainable biodiversity means assuring the survival of as many and as diverse species as possible so that ecosystems are resilient to whatever stresses they face in the future. Scientists will need access to as much evidence of evolutionary history as possible," said Quentin Wheeler, founding director of the International Institute for Species Exploration at ASU and a sustainability scientist at ASU's Global Institute of Sustainability.

The top species include a carnivorous sponge, a glow-in-the-dark cockroach, flowering bushes, a false coral snake, and a new monkey.

Last week, carbon dioxide amounts in the Earth's atmosphere reached past 400 parts per million, according to Mauna Loa Observatory. This is the highest its been since humanity's beginning. ASU's Origins Project director Lawrence Krauss says mitigating climate change will need more than reducing emissions; we need to extract carbon that's already in the atmosphere.

Krauss writes in a Slate Magazine Future Tense article:

"Though there could be huge advantages to directly extracting carbon dioxide from our atmosphere instead of from its source, there has been almost no R&D funding to explore making it a reality. Meanwhile, literally hundreds of billions of dollars have been put into subsidies for fossil fuel exploration and production."

"I am riding the crest of a great wave of inspiration — so much so that I’ve thrown myself into research for my chapter contribution. It truly was a rare group of intelligent and passionate people whose participation made this seminar SHINE. Having been to many workshops and seminars, I can’t honestly think of any comparable to this one. The place, the land, the people, the food — all blend together in my mind to make this a time I will always remember and will continue to be inspired by."

— Dennis Martinez

Chair Indigenous Peoples' Restoration Network (IPRN)

Member Indigenous Peoples' Biocultural Climate Change Assessment Initiative (IPCCA) Steering Committee Co-Director Takelma Intertribal Project (TIP)

Douglas City, CA

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via The New York Times

By MICHAEL WINES

Published: May 19, 2013

HASKELL COUNTY, Kan. — Forty-nine years ago, Ashley Yost’s grandfather sank a well deep into a half-mile square of rich Kansas farmland. He struck an artery of water so prodigious that he could pump 1,600 gallons to the surface every minute.¶ Last year, Mr. Yost was coaxing just 300 gallons from the earth, and pumping up sand in order to do it. By harvest time, the grit had robbed him of $20,000 worth of pumps and any hope of returning to the bumper harvests of years past.

"That’s prime land," he said not long ago, gesturing from his pickup at the stubby remains of last year’s crop. "I’ve raised 294 bushels of corn an acre there before, with water and the Lord’s help." Now, he said, "it’s over."

The land, known as Section 35, sits atop the High Plains Aquifer, a waterlogged jumble of sand, clay and gravel that begins beneath Wyoming and South Dakota and stretches clear to the Texas Panhandle. The aquifer’s northern reaches still hold enough water in many places to last hundreds of years. But as one heads south, it is increasingly tapped out, drained by ever more intensive farming and, lately, by drought.

Vast stretches of Texas farmland lying over the aquifer no longer support irrigation. In west-central Kansas, up to a fifth of the irrigated farmland along a 100-mile swath of the aquifer has already gone dry. In many other places, there no longer is enough water to supply farmers’ peak needs during Kansas’ scorching summers.

And when the groundwater runs out, it is gone for good. Refilling the aquifer would require hundreds, if not thousands, of years of rains.

Continue reading at The New York Times.

An Underground Pool Drying Up

via The New York Times

Portions of the High Plains Aquifer are rapidly being depleted by farmers who are pumping too much water to irrigate their crops, particularly in the southern half in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Levels have declined up to 242 feet in some areas, from predevelopment — before substantial groundwater irrigation began — to 2011.

Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability Alumni Chapter won first place in the Sparky’s Membership Mania Competition for the second consecutive year. This competition provides a $500 cash award to the ASU Alumni Chapter with the largest increase in membership each year. Thank you to the many School of Sustainability graduates who have joined the School of Sustainability Alumni Chapter. We appreciate your talents, expertise, and connection to your alma mater! Pictured left to right: Alissa Pierson (ASU Alumni Association), Brigitte Bavousett (School of Sustainability Alumni Chapter President), Dr. Christine Wilkinson (ASU Alumni Association).

Omaya Ahmad, a fellow with Arizona State University’s Sustainability Science for Sustainable Schools program and a School of Sustainability doctoral student, integrates sustainability in Greenway Middle School's curriculum and established courses.

Particularly, Ahmad teaches environmental sustainability to seventh-graders and societal sustainability to eight-graders. Through Greenway's partnership with the Phoenix Art Museum and the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, Ahmad was able to use local artwork to give her students real-life lessons outside the classroom.

“I wanted to do my fellowship in the Paradise Valley Unified School District because I graduated from a school in that district,” says Ahmad. “They matched me to Greenway, because of the opportunities with the honors core there. It was such a great match. It was gratifying to watch the students learn, and I learned a lot, too.”

To locate global power plants and record their greenhouse gas emissions, Arizona State University scientists are calling on citizens for help.

The researchers, including Sustainability Scientist Kevin Gurney, developed a website with a Google Earth interface that makes it easy for everyday people around the world to enter information. The website, "Ventus," aims to create a complete list of global power plants, something that does not exist and is needed to fully comprehend the global carbon emissions cycle.

"Through Ventus, people around the world can play an active role in helping to solve the climate change problem," Gurney said. "We hope to gather a global team of people who want to make a difference—and do so, right now. The information we gather from Ventus can ultimately help determine what we as a society can do locally and globally about climate change."

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Before becoming a Sustainability Scientist and professor in the School of Sustainability, BurnSilver was a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, West Africa. She received her doctoral degree in human ecology from Colorado State University. BurnSilver combines all facets of science—like common property theory, landscape ecology, conservation, and vulnerability—to provide useful research for decision-making. She co-authored a paper with researchers from Colorado State University and the International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya, Africa that describes a new model for conducting research. The model advises to include local people at the very beginning of the research process and then work with them to disseminate the results at a community level. The paper received Ecological Society of America’s Sustainability Science Award for 2012.