The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) is hosting its fourth annual Energy Innovation Summit in Washington D.C. on February 25-27, 2013. The event is designed to collect esteemed individuals involved in the energy community- researchers, entrepreneurs, investors, corporate executives, and government officials- to engage in sharing ideas to develop and deploy next generation energy technologies. The summit is a unique opportunity to discuss innovative energy solutions that will fit the world’s future needs.

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Mark Henderson

Director, GlobalResolve

Co-Founder, InnovationSpace

Micah Lande

Assistant Professor, Department of Engineering

The sustainability movement is gaining momentum, but to keep the momentum going, it is important to prepare future sustainability leaders with a proper educational background. How does one teach the subject of sustainability?

In this talk, Mark Henderson and Micah Lande will share select projects from The Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts’ InnovationSpace and College of Technology and Innovation’s GlobalResolve. These project-based programs build on real-world issues and utilize collaborative, student-centered teaching practices to provide powerful learning approaches to sustainability education. Henderson and Lande will identify strategies for instructors to successfully design and implement project-based programs and highlight educational opportunities for students.

Mark Henderson is a professor of engineering at the College of Technology and Innovation and associate dean of Barrett, The Honors College. His research focuses on computer-aided design and engineering. Micah Lande is an assistant professor of engineering and editor-in-chief emeritus of Ambidextrous Journal of Design.

A Sustainability Series event presented by the Global Institute of Sustainability.

DCDC researchers shared their research at several conferences and meetings in the first half of the 2012-2013 academic year. From topics ranging from The Social Ecology of Residential Land Management to An Application Programmer’s Interface (API) to WaterSim: WaterSim 5.0, DCDC's interdis­ciplinary research projects form a broad effort to inform urban decision makers about the evolving challenges of coping with a changing climate.

Our researchers participated in the following poster symposia:

• 15th Annual CAP LTER Poster Symposium and All Scientist Meeting, Scottsdale, AZ, January 11, 2013
• American Geophysical Union Fall meeting, San Francisco, CA, December 3-7, 2012
• PhD Design, Environment, and the Arts Student Research Poster Exhibit and Reception, Tempe, AZ, October 4, 2012
• Long-Term Ecological Research All Scientist Meeting, Estes Park, Colorado, September 12, 2012

Larson, K.L., E. Cook, J. Brumand, S. Hall, and K. Feldbauer. 2013. The social ecology of residential land management: Complex effects, tradeoffs and legacies in the Sonoran Desert of Phoenix, AZ. Poster presented at the 11 January 2013, 15th Annual CAP LTER Poster Symposium and All Scientist Meeting 2013, Skysong, Scottsdale, AZ.

Larson, K.L. 2012. The social ecology of residential land management: Complex effects, tradeoffs and legacies in the Sonoran Desert of Phoenix, AZ. Presented September 12, 2012, at the Long-Term Ecological Research All Scientist Meeting, Estes Park, CO, September 10-13.

Middel, A., K. Häb, A.J. Brazel, C. Martin, and S. Guhathakurta. 2013. Impact of urban form and design on mid-afternoon microclimate in Phoenix neighborhoods . Poster presented at the 11 January 2013, 15th Annual CAP LTER Poster Symposium and All Scientist Meeting 2013, Skysong, Scottsdale, AZ. [Poster]

Middel, A., K. Häb, J.P. Erickson, A.J. Brazel, C. Martin, and S. Guhathakurta. 2012. Impact of microclimate on residential energy consumption in different Phoenix Arizona neighborhood types. Poster presented on October 4, 2012 at the PhD Design, Environment, and the Arts Student Research Poster Exhibit and Reception, Tempe, AZ.

Moreno, H., E. Vivoni, and D. Gochis. 2012. Exploring the limits of flood forecasting in mountain basins by using QPE and QPF Products in a physically-based, distributed hydrologic model during summer convection. Poster presented December 6, 2012 at the American Geophysical Union Fall meeting, December 3-7, 2012, San Francisco, CA. [Poster]

Quay, R., D. Sampson, D. White, C. Kirkwood, and P. Gober. 2013. Using advanced scenario analysis as an anticipatory tool: Exploring the uncertainty of urban water demand and supply within Central Arizona. Poster presented at the 11 January 2013, 15th Annual CAP LTER Poster Symposium and All Scientist Meeting 2013, Skysong, Scottsdale, AZ. [Poster]

Rice, J., and P. Westerhoff. 2013. Indirect potable reuse in the Phoenix metropolitan area: How much wastewater is in Central Arizona-Phoenix source waters? Poster presented at the 11 January 2013, 15th Annual CAP LTER Poster Symposium and All Scientist Meeting 2013, Skysong, Scottsdale, AZ. [Poster]

Rosales Chavez, J., A. Wutich, A. Brewis, A.M. York, and R. Stotts. 2013. Rules, norms, and injustice: A cross-cultural study of perceptions of justice in water institutions. Poster presented at the 11 January 2013, 15th Annual CAP LTER Poster Symposium and All Scientist Meeting 2013, Skysong, Scottsdale, AZ. [Poster]

Sampson, D.A., and R. Quay. 2013. Potential Central Arizona Project water shortages as influenced by climate and Upper Basin delivery schedules. Poster presented at the 11 January 2013, 15th Annual CAP LTER Poster Symposium and All Scientist Meeting 2013, Skysong, Scottsdale, AZ. [Poster]

Sampson, D.A., and R. Quay. 2012. An Application Programmer’s Interface (API) to WaterSim: WaterSim 5.0. Poster presented December 5, 2012 at the American Geophysical Union Fall meeting, December 3-7, 2012, San Francisco, CA. [Poster]

New Scientist Magazine was launched in 1956 "for all those men and women who are interested in scientific discovery, and in its industrial, commercial and social consequences".

In an interactive graphic display, Your Warming World, New Scientist Magazine presents results from a global analysis of surface temperatures from 1880 to the present called GISTEMP, produced by a team at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.

The graphs and maps all show changes relative to average temperatures for the three decades from 1951 to 1980, the earliest period for which there was sufficiently good coverage for comparison. This gives a consistent view of climate change across the globe. To put these numbers in context, the NASA team estimates that the global average temperature for the 1951-1980 baseline period was about 14 °C.

The analysis uses land-based temperature measurements from some 6000 monitoring stations in the Global Historical Climatology Network, plus records from Antarctic stations recorded by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research. Temperatures at the ocean surface come from a measurements made by ships from 1880 to 1981, plus satellite measurements from 1982 onwards.

Surface temperature measurements are not evenly distributed across the globe. So the NASA team interpolates from the available data to calculate average temperatures for cells in a global grid, with each cell measuring 2 degrees latitude by 2 degrees longitude. The analysis extrapolates up to 1200 kilometres from any one station, which allows for more complete coverage in the Arctic – where monitoring stations are sparsely distributed, but where the warming trend is especially strong.

The NASA team also corrects the data to remove local heating caused by dense human settlements – a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect. Temperature stations in urban areas are identified by referring to satellite images of the light they give off at night, and their records are adjusted to reflect the average trend of nearby rural stations.

Check out the data in your area at Your Warming World.

Credits

• Interactive built by Chris Amico and Peter Aldhous.
• NASA GISTEMP analysis by James Hansen, Reto Ruedy, Makiko Sato and Ken Lo.
• Thanks to Robert Schmunk for help in obtaining data.

Brookings Institution Report lists Phoenix among top 20 for patenting; ties Tucson patents to lower unemployment rate

TEMPE, Ariz. - February 1, 2013 - Despite economic unease, the U.S. patenting rate is higher than ever since the Industrial Revolution, according to a new report issued by the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, in collaboration with Arizona State University (ASU).

According to a previous Brookings Institution report, Phoenix, the sixth largest city in the U.S., ranks 18^th out of 358 surveyed metro areas for patenting from 2007 to 2011. In the new report, Tucson placed in the top ten cities with high patent growth and low unemployment rates. The report suggests patent rates are higher in metropolitan areas because they offer knowledge sharing, employment, and research-based universities—prime environments for inventors.

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Q&A with José Lobo

Note: José Lobo is a Senior Sustainability Scientist at the Global Institute of Sustainability, associate professor of research at the School of Sustainability, and faculty associate in economics at the W.P. Carey School of Business. His research applies statistics and data mining to understand metropolitan economic performance, particularly how urban size and social networks influence innovation. He has been a visiting researcher at the Santa Fe Institute and Italy's Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia.

When did sustainability become part of your research focus?

Since my days as a graduate student, my main research interest has been invention and innovation in cities. Now that urbanization has come to dominate our planet, it is impossible to think about the future of cities without considering their sustainability challenges. The trickiest part is clearly articulating who will bear the costs and reap the benefits from policy changes. There is no free lunch, even when it comes to sustainability.

What is your most important sustainability-related research question?

I am working with colleagues to identify and understand the complex behavior of cities. This is crucial because the 21st century will see more urbanization than in all of human history to date. By the end of this century, an additional 3 billion to 5 billion people will reside in cities, and nearly all of the increase will occur in the developing world. This new urbanization has the potential to reduce poverty and enhance human development, but the key issue is how best to accommodate urban expansion. Should we expand existing cities or build new ones? How can we make them more hospitable for all? Never before have our urban policy choices been more critical to human progress.

To address these issues and bring scientific understanding of urbanization to the decision-making process, my colleagues and I are investigating the systems involved in the urbanization process. We’re looking at what determines population size, how population size affects socio-economic activity, whether larger cities are more energy efficient, and whether the productivity advantages of larger cities are enough to offset the negatives associated with growing size. These are critical considerations. One thing we’ve learned so far: as cities grow larger they create more wealth and innovate at a faster rate than they did previously. Larger is smarter.

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TEMPE, Ariz. - January 22, 2013 - Arizona State University’s (ASU) Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS) and the Municipality of Haarlemmermeer, The Netherlands, have created an innovative collaboration to solve challenges of sustainability.

The partnership and the establishment of an ASU Global Sustainability Solutions Center (GSSC) in Haarlemmermeer will serve as an international platform for engagement with organizations and people who want to live and do business in Haarlemmermeer and the region. It will bring together the diverse and powerful resources of universities, businesses, NGOs, communities, and government organizations to tackle tough sustainability problems and ultimately find solution sets.

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Before joining Arizona State University, Nicole Darnall was an associate professor of management and public policy at George Mason University and an assistant professor of public administration at North Carolina State University. For almost two decades, Dr. Darnall has been examining firms' responses to sustainability in regulatory and social settings. Her research investigates the reasons why companies follow sustainability strategies, whether these strategies improve the environment, and whether companies that improve the natural environment also derive business value. More recently, she assesses consumer demand for corporate green strategies and how this demand might be influenced through public policy or business initiatives. To find out more about Dr. Darnall, you can read her commentary on the 2012 Greendex survey findings that assert Americans are the least green and feel the least guilt about it.

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DCDC founding director, Patricia Gober, writes in the January 15, 2013 editorial for the journal Water Resources Management, that North American water systems are inadequately prepared to deal with an uncertain future climate and other uncertainties relevant to long-term sustainability.

The water resources community has been slow to embrace new paradigms for long-term water planning and policy. Too much attention has been focused on reducing, clarifying, and representing climatic uncertainty and too little attention has been directed to building capacity to accommodate uncertainty and change.

Given the limited ability to forecast the future climate, emphasis must shift to the human actors and social dynamics of water systems, including planning processes, work practices, operational rules, public attitudes, and stakeholder engagement.

Continue reading the editorial at Water Resources Management.

CAP co-PI Sharon Harlan and the research team on the National Science Foundation-funded "Urban Vulnerability to Climate Change" project are featured in a special issue of International Innovation that focuses on making sense of Earth's dramatically changing climate. In the article, research team members reflect on the scientific significance and practical applications of their research, which investigates human vulnerability to urban heat in the Phoenix metropolitan area. This research is being conducted in collaboration with CAP LTER, which has supported some of the remote sensing work under the initiative.

Dr. William Solecki, Director, Institute for Sustainable Cities, City University of New York, and Professor, Department of Geography, Hunter College, City University of New York, was the keynote speaker for the 2013 CAP All Scientists Meeting on January 11, 2013. His presentation, "Transitions in urban environmental systems: Lessons from New York City and Hurricane Sandy," reflects on the past urban environmental system crises and transitions. He notes that the lens of critical transition theory and writings on urban system resilience can be used to sharpen our analytical capacity to study such issues. His presentation makes reference to the case of Hurricane Sandy, which heavily impacted the New York City metropolitan region and is now defined as one of the most damaging disaster events in U.S. history.

 

http://vimeo.com/57376921

 

CAP is a large research program and keeping up on all of our initiatives is difficult. We have a series of videos created for the 2013 CAP All Scientists Meeting that share important information on some of our core functions. You can access these through: http://vimeo.com/channels/445388

Video presenters and topics are:

• Monica Elser, K-12 education initiatives
• Billie Turner, Land cover classification project
• Philip Tarrant, Information management
• Stevan Earl, Site management, including new research initiatives
• Chuck Redman, Synthesis volume
• Arnim Wiek, Sustainable futures and scenarios work

 

A transdisciplinary team of scientists is using the hot and populous Phoenix metropolitan area to explore how different segments of the region are being affected by increasingly oppressive heat.

ASU sociologist and Sustainability Scientist Sharon Harlan is a leading investigator on the project, which is designed to look at patterns in the past and present and apply them to potential climate scenarios of the future. The project is featured in the January issue of International Innovation.

“Our research in this desert metropolis examines how climate, plants and people create a dynamic and complex social-ecological system that requires careful stewardship in order to sustain vital natural resources and human health,” said Harlan.

An associate professor in ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Harlan emphasizes that outreach and education are built into the project in an effort to help policymakers, as well as residents, deal with the rising challenges of urban heat.

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Climate change is one of the most important, and perhaps thorniest, issues confronting world leaders today. A lot is at stake. Issues in climate variability, loss of living space, extended drought, amplified weather cycles, growing season variability and even national security all link back to climate change. Sea levels are rising and last year was the hottest year on record for the United States. It’s clear that for climate change, the future is now.

The Origins Project at Arizona State University will hold a panel discussion on climate change, 7 p.m., Feb. 2, that will feature some of the world’s leading experts and policy analysts in the field, including School of Sustainability Dean Sander van der Leeuw and visiting scientist Wallace Broecker.

Tickets are now on sale for “The Great Debate: Climate Change, Surviving the Future,” which will take place in Gammage Auditorium on ASU’s Tempe campus.

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A 60-person Federal Advisory Committee (The "National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee" or NCADAC) has overseen the development of this draft climate report.

The Executive Summary begins with climate change already affecting the American people. Certain types of weather events have become more frequent and/or intense, including heat waves, heavy downpours, and, in some regions, floods and droughts. Sea level is rising, oceans are becoming more acidic, and glaciers and arctic sea ice are melting. These changes are part of the pattern of global climate change, which is primarily driven by human activity.

Many impacts associated with these changes are important to Americans’ health and livelihoods and the ecosystems that sustain us. These impacts are the subject of this report. The impacts are often most significant for communities that already face economic or health-related challenges, and for species and habitats that are already facing other pressures. While some changes will bring potential benefits, such as longer growing seasons, many will be disruptive to society because our institutions and infrastructure have been designed for the relatively stable climate of the past, not the changing one of the present and future. Similarly, the natural ecosystems that sustain us will be challenged by changing conditions. Using scientific information to prepare for these changes in advance provides economic opportunities, and proactively managing the risks will reduce costs over time.

Evidence for climate change abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans. This evidence has been compiled by scientists and engineers from around the world, using satellites, weather balloons, thermometers, buoys, and other observing systems. The sum total of this evidence tells an unambiguous story: the planet is warming. U.S. average temperature has increased by about 1.5°F since 1895; more than 80% of this increase has occurred since 1980. The most recent decade was the nation’s hottest on record. Though most regions of the U.S. are experiencing warming, the changes in temperature are not uniform. In general, temperatures are rising more quickly at higher latitudes, but there is considerable observed variability across the regions of the U.S.

U.S. temperatures will continue to rise, with the next few decades projected to see another 2°F 26 to 4°F of warming in most areas. The amount of warming by the end of the century is projected to correspond closely to the cumulative global emissions of greenhouse gases up to that time: roughly 3°F to 5°F under a lower emissions scenario involving substantial reductions in emissions after 2050 (referred to as the "B1 scenario"), and 5°F to 10°F for a higher emissions scenario assuming continued increases in emissions (referred to as the "A2 scenario") (Ch. 2).

The chances of record-breaking high temperature extremes will continue to increase as the climate continues to change. There has been an increasing trend in persistently high nighttime temperatures, which have widespread impacts because people and livestock get no respite from the heat. In other places, prolonged periods of record high temperatures associated with droughts contribute to conditions that are driving larger and more frequent wildfires. There is strong 36 evidence to indicate that human influence on the climate has already roughly doubled the probability of extreme heat events like the record-breaking summer of 2011 in Texas and 38 Oklahoma (Ch. 2,3,6,9,20).

Continue reading the report at the National Climate Assessment Development Advisory Committee website.

Provide comments to the report between January 14th and April 12th only. Please go to the Review and Comment System to provide comments on the draft. Visit the National Climate Assessment Development Advisory Committee website.

Can our energy future be reliable, affordable, and low-impact? Fossil fuels come with environmental, economic, and social pitfalls, but renewable energy sources have their downsides as well. Perhaps our future will be shaped by a combination of both.

ASU and the Arizona Science Center are hosting a public event on the future of energy, from 5-8 p.m., Jan. 24, at the Arizona Science Center IMAX Theater. During this panel discussion, American Public Media reporter Eve Troeh will moderate a former Shell Oil president, a climate scientist, and an environmental filmmaker as we all contemplate and envision sustainable energy options.

This event is hosted through a partnership between Arizona Science Center and Arizona State University. Arizona State University President Michael Crow and Arizona Science Center President and CEO Chevy Humphrey will provide opening remarks.

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ARIZONA, USA – January 8, 2012 – The membership of The Sustainability Consortium (TSC) has recently elected new corporate members to our Board of Directors.

During the inaugural board meeting in late January, The Consortium will welcome four new board members representing the corporate members of TSC: Charlene Wall-Warren of BASF, Karen Hamilton of Unilever, Kim Marotta of Miller Coors, and Kevin Rabinovitch of Mars whose organizations have all been members of TSC for over three years. Andrea Thomas, Senior Vice President of Sustainability at Walmart was re-elected for another term.

Kim Marotta, Director of Sustainability for MillerCoors, is responsible for driving and implementing MillerCoors’ sustainability strategy and managing MillerCoors’ responsibility initiatives.

“I am thrilled with the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from the other corporations, researchers, academics, and retailers. The Consortium pulls together some of the best minds in the business and I feel honored to be a member of the board,” said Marotta.

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DCDC is proud to co-sponsor the 15th Annual CAP LTER Poster Symposium keynote speaker, William Solecki, Director of the Institute for Sustainable Cities, and Professor, Department of Geography at City University of New York, at this year's Poster Symposium and All Scientists Meeting.

On Friday, January 11, 2013, Dr. Solecki will be presenting "Transitions in Urban Environmental Systems: Lessons from New York City and Hurricane Sandy." In this talk, he will reflect on the past urban environmental system crises and transitions. The lens of critical transition theory and writings on urban system resilience can be used to sharpen our analytical capacity to study such issues.

The agenda includes invited presentations on representative current research in the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research program. There will also be two interactive poster sessions featuring 60 posters from a variety of CAP LTER research and education projects, including exhibits from high school and middle school students participating in the Ecology Explorers program.

Special working sessions to discuss future research in the areas of water, climate, biodiversity, biogeochemistry, and CAP's foundational databases are planned for lunchtime. An RSVP is required to participate in these working sessions, at which lunch will be provided.

The Convergence Room at SkySong is in the northeast corner of the building. There is free parking north of the building, and SkySong is also accessible by Valley Metro (bus 72) from the Tempe Transit Center.

The Jan. 1 issue of the Arizona Republic featured a cooperative project between the City of Mesa and ASU’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning.

Mesa’s mayor Scott Smith envisioned a centrally located, public gathering place in the heart of the city, comparable to the town squares or plazas that exist in many other cities. When a bond election in November provided start-up funding to design the plaza, the city turned to ASU’s planning program for help.

The outcome is a spring 2013 course offering, “Place-making in Mesa,” in which graduate students will work at producing a viable concept for the town square. The course is taught by Senior Sustainability Scientist and School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning Professor David Pijawka.

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The New York Times reported on responses to the World Meteorological Organization’s announcement that Death Valley, Calif. now holds the record for the world’s hottest temperature.

ASU Professor and Senior Sustainability Scientist Randy Cerveny coordinated the international effort to evaluate the validity of the previously-held hottest-temperature record, which was based on a 1922 reading in El Azizia, Libya. Cerveny holds the title rapporteur of climate extremes for the World Climate Organization, and in this role brought together a team of 13 meteorologists – including experts from Libya, Italy, Spain, Egypt, France, Morocco, Argentina, the United States, and the United Kingdom – to evaluate the Libya record.

The New York Times article discusses responses to the announcement in the Death Valley community – for example, Randy Banis, the editor of an online newsletter promoting the area, stated “You don’t underestimate Death Valley.  Most of us enthusiasts are proud that the extremes that we have known about at Death Valley are indeed the most harsh on earth.”

“There are a lot of places that do like these records,” said Cerveny for the New York Times report. “It can be a source of pride for that country or a source of contention for other countries. Politics, unfortunately, are going to play a role sometime in the determining of these records.”

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