Q&A with Ann Kinzig

Ann Kinzig is chief research strategist for the Global Institute of Sustainability, affiliated faculty in the School of Sustainability, and professor in the School of Life Sciences. In her research, she studies ecosystem services, interactions between conservation and development, and the resilience of natural resource systems. She also teaches courses in biodiversity and ecosystem services, urban ecology, current environmental issues, and undergraduate research training.

What triggered your focus on sustainability?

As a graduate student in 1989 with an M.A. degree in physics, I decided to expand my horizons. I went to work with John Holdren (now President Obama’s science advisor) at Berkeley – basically thinking systemically about society’s natural resources and energy requirements and the types of economic and political preconditions for successfully managing them. Two years later, as I was feeling increasingly drawn to the life sciences, the Ecological Society of America published their Sustainable Biosphere Initiative. This was a clarion call for me. Here, suddenly, was a field that allowed one to not only do interesting science, but also help save the world.

What are your most important sustainability-related research projects?

I am wrapping up Advancing Conservation in a Social Context, a grant with the MacArthur Foundation aimed at improving ways to identify, analyze, and negotiate the complex trade-offs between conservation and development. After five years, we can say that conservation organizations are getting better at navigating the trade-offs, but numerous challenges remain. For example, many beneficial natural systems remain undervalued, in part because we lack mechanisms for making difficult choices among different ecosystem services (some of which are delivered globally) and incorporating the value of these services into decision-making at the local level. In response, I plan to work with colleagues at Conservation International to model how ecosystem services are delivered under different policies and landscape configurations. This work builds on an ongoing collaboration between the ASU ecoServices group (faculty and students focused on international biodiversity projects) and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

How can your research affect real-world policy decisions?

Our models can tell decision-makers and managers how local policies will affect landscapes and the wider flows of ecosystem services. For example, we are currently working in the Panama Canal Watershed to model the ecosystems that provide water for the locks. If the delivery of water were substantially diminished, the world would see major consequences for global shipping and trade. Our goal is to identify the best landscape configurations for both local and global benefits.

What is the world sustainability challenge that concerns you most?

First, I am concerned about our capacity to understand and manage complex adaptive systems. We have to recognize that these systems are not linear or fully predictable and that policy decisions must be revisited as we monitor results and correct course. A second challenge is that most of our major environmental issues transcend national boundaries. We need global governance mechanisms in place to deal with this.

What are your plans as new chief research strategist for the Global Institute of Sustainability?

My goal is to launch a collective exercise among faculty to imagine what sustainability science should look like a decade from now if it is to serve society. We need to identify both the looming challenges and the gaps in meeting those challenges, and then decide which gaps we at ASU want to fill. One example may be to join our strengths in energy technologies with our knowledge about society and decision-making to improve our understanding of the potential promise and unintended consequences of next-generation energy technologies. Few places examine innovation from both a technological and social perspective, but it is essential in meeting global challenges in a timely fashion without creating new hazards.

October 26, 2010

Almost every bike rider has experienced the pain of a flat tire and the agonizing search for a way to fill it back up. Now, the ASU community will have a quicker, easier solution for their flat tires! With financial support from State Farm Insurance, ASU is installing seven air compressor stations across the university that cyclists can utilize. Four stations will be installed on the Tempe campus, and one on the Polytechnic, Downtown, and West campuses. In addition to the conventional Schrader valve used on most beach cruisers and mountain bikes, there will also be a high pressure Presta valve for road and racing bikes. The system was designed to be easy for users of any experience, with the pressure set to prevent the possibility of blowouts. Additionally, there will be a sign with instructions on how to use the air station.

If you need more help with your bike, stop by the Bike Co-op, which is located on the south side of the Student Recreation Center (Tempe) or inside of the PAC (Poly). The Bike Co-op, sponsored by the Undergraduate Student Government, has student mechanics that can fix your bike and carries common bike parts for easy repairs. Check http://src.asu.edu/Bike for more details on the shop.

Locations for the new air pumps:

Tempe: GIOS, Palo Verde Main, Hassayampa, Physical Education West(near the MU)

Polytechnic: Santan Hall

Downtown: University Center Parking Garage

West: TBD

By Alex Davis

Gene Baur: Sustainability Series from Sustainability in Action Blog on Vimeo.

How and what we eat is quite a hot topic right now in sustainability. Much like the challenge of curbing air pollution, clear cut solutions to this ethical dilemma are broad and far reaching. Watch this video and see what Gene Baur, co-founder and president of Farm Sanctuary has to say about it.

By Jehnifer Niklas and Daniel Cavanaugh

ASU hosts two international conferences to advance sustainability efforts and progress                

PHOENIX/TEMPE, Ariz. – Reinforcing its role as a leader in interdisciplinary global environmental and climate change conversations, Arizona State University (ASU) will host conferences for both the International Conference on Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) and the Global Land Project’s (GLP) Open Science Meeting.

How have humans changed the Earth’s surface? How do urbanization and global environmental change interface? What are new pathways for sustainability that link urbanization and land change? How can we adapt to changes that have already occurred?

These themes play significantly in both of the groups’ individual and joint conferences. They are also top of mind among next-phase thinkers in the fields of environment and sustainability and are expected to play prominently in upcoming agenda-setting reports.

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Bike enthusiasts unite! The Tour de Fat is making its annual homage to our dear city of Tempe. Named for one of the organizations most popular brews, Fat Tire, featuring an iconic red bicycle on the label will amuse and delight crowds with their whimsical bike festival this Saturday, October 9^th. The event features a bike parade filled with costumed cruise-aders that plan to take the city by storm at 9AM. The parade concludes its trek back at Tempe Beach Park where doors open at 10AM for a fun filled day of food, drinks and entertainment. This event is so special and unique. Not only does it focus its efforts on the many wonders the bike brings us, but they strive for zero waste! Event goers will be greeted by friendly volunteers who help them recycle and compost their event generated waste all day long.  My favorite attraction of the day is the squirm burpee circus.  Comedic performance artists dress up in clothing reminiscent of time long ago and delight onlookers with witty banter and death defying stunts.  For more information on the event, visit:  http://www.newbelgium.com/tour-de-fat

By Jehnifer Niklas

CAP LTER has been featured as an urban sustainability research program in a recent National Research Council publication, Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Research and Development. The book is the result of a workshop on the status of urban sustainability research and development programs in the United States that sought to understand how current research and planning is contributing to the development of sustainable urban systems which provide healthy, safe, and affordable environments for Americans living in cities. Click this link to download an online copy of the book.

Q&A with Matt Fraser

Dr. Fraser is director of research development for the Global Institute of Sustainability and associate professor in the School of Sustainability. Dr. Fraser’s primary research focuses on urban air quality with particular emphasis on developing methods to identify, monitor, and control ambient air pollution. He also oversees the Institute’s sustainability-related research portfolio and teaches courses on sustainable energy, materials, and technology.

What triggered your career focus on sustainability?

When I was an undergraduate, I was studying chemical engineering; studying about petroleum refining and chemical manufacturing and things like that. I realized that I wanted to focus more on the natural environment; the chemical reactions that are occurring in the atmosphere and how things are transported throughout the atmosphere.

At some point, I started to realize that no matter how environmentally conscious we were, if we didn’t address the insatiable demand that we have for energy and for water and for manufactured goods, we could never be sustainable. No matter how environmentally benign or environmentally conscious you are, if you have an insatiable demand, that just can’t be sustained. So, at some point I started thinking what is the long-term trajectory? Where are we going with our water systems, with our energy systems, with our manufacturing systems and what is the longer-term future for our society? That really focused my—triggered my focus on sustainability.

What are your two most important sustainability-related projects?

The first is our outdoor air quality work. We do a lot of work understanding the source of ambient air quality and the pollution in the outdoor environment. This is one of our ambient air quality samplers. What these samplers do is they pull air through a filter. That filter collects the particles that are suspended in the atmosphere. The reason that we do this is we want to take the particles that are suspended in the atmosphere, collect them on the filter, return that filter to our laboratory where we can do a series of detailed chemical analyses to figure out what the chemical composition of these particles is. Now the reason that we do this is understanding the chemical composition is vital as far as determining what the original source of those particles was. So if we want to reduce the ambient particles in the environment, we figure out what sources are contributing and then we go and control those most important sources. This type of work is vital for environmental regulators to understand which sources should be controlled and to develop effective control strategies.

How does this research affect real world problems?

One of the reasons we are most concerned about these particles is obviously if they’re in the ambient environment, people are going to breathe these particles in. When you breathe these particles in, they interfere with your respiratory system, they can trigger asthma attacks or worsen existing respiratory disease, and they also give an additional burden to your cardiopulmonary system. They lower your lung function which makes your heart work harder to pump oxygen throughout your body, so it’s a real health concern and controlling these particles is very important towards human health.

What is your second sustainability-related project?

The second project deals with indoor air quality. With a lot of focus on energy efficiency retrofits, we want to understand what the effect of energy efficiency retrofits is on indoor air quality and health. What we’re doing is looking at the before and after air quality in a building that is undergoing an energy efficiency retrofit. Because often these retrofits seal the building envelope keeping the hot air out and the cool air in here in Phoenix, and so it’s important to understand whether those retrofits trap indoor sources of air pollution.

What we’re doing is we’re measuring indoor air quality at an apartment complex for seniors, and we’re concerned about seniors because they are some of the more vulnerable members of our population to environmental burdens. What we’re doing is we’ve done sampling in 72 different apartments at a senior apartment complex before the energy efficiency retrofit. The retrofit is going on now. And we’re going to do indoor air quality sampling after to see if sealing the building envelope affects the indoor concentrations of pollutants. At the same time, we’re most concerned about the health of the seniors and so we’re working with the College of Nursing and Health Innovation here at ASU to do a health survey which will be administered again before the retrofit and after the retrofit so we can figure out what link there is between indoor air quality and their health, and whether the building retrofit has had an impact on health.

Instead of using the big noisy pumps that we use for ambient air quality sampling, we’re using these portable sensors, and we’re deploying these at different locations throughout the apartment complex to figure out what the indoor and outdoor concentrations of pollutants are.

How will this project affect policymaking?

It’s vitally important to understand the role of energy efficient retrofits on indoor air quality. For example, right now, in the Global Institute of Sustainability, we are working with the city of Phoenix on a $25 million project funded by the Department of Energy to promote energy efficiency retrofits, so we have to better understand the role of energy efficiency and sealing the building envelope on indoor air quality because it will directly affect residents’ health.

What sustainability challenge concerns you most?

When I think about sustainability challenges, the one that I’m most concerned about is climate change. When I think about climate change, you immediately think of our energy systems because our energy right now is linked to fossil fuels, and we need to have energy to continue to provide a better livelihood for people across the globe. But climate change is more than just energy and the atmosphere. It’s also the other systems such as water and our food systems and how we build our cities. All these have to be adapted in the future to mitigate climate and that’s what concerns me the most.

September 30, 2010

This year’s crop of plant biology students will use more than their brains to learn, if Arizona State University professor Jeffrey Klopatek has a hand in it.

Klopatek, a culinary savant and climate change professor in the School of Life Sciences in ASU’s College of Liberal Art and Sciences, is attempting to cultivate undergraduates’ gut instincts. To do this, Klopatek has planted a fork in the proverbial scholarly road. He has veered from the norm to create his own menu for a dynamic, hands-on plant biology curriculum built around sustainability and food choices.

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Each August, nearly 10,000 students on the Tempe campus alone move in to their new homes with all of their boxes and bags of things. It is the first chance we have to educate residents, mostly new-to-ASU Freshmen, about the recycling practices at the university, and it is also the first major waste-generating event of the year. This year, led by Rebecca Reining of University Housing, a team was assembled with representatives also from Grounds Services, Facilities Management, University Sustainability Practices, and the Center for Student Sustainability Initiatives (CSSI) & their Green Team volunteers to coordinate and run the program, which started in early May before Move-out was even finished.

Even with so much coordination, Move-in recycling doesn’t happen magically all by itself: it happens through the efforts of a few hundred volunteers out by the dumpsters and compactors from dawn until well past sunset educating the new residents about the university’s recycling program while working to keep things running smoothly. These volunteers - almost exclusively ASU students - were wonderful, and we would like to thank them for doing so much to get this year off to a great start.

Building off of last-year’s program, we knew that most of the waste generated would consist of 3 things: cardboard boxes, Styrofoam™, and plastic bags. Cardboard has always been a valuable recyclable material, and as long as the boxes were broken down so as to not fill up our dumpsters with empty space, we knew they wouldn’t be an issue. Fortunately for our efforts, the ASU Tempe Campus recycling program this year can now take empty plastic bags with the other co-mingled items thanks to some new machines at the recycling facility.

Unfortunately Styrofoam is still considered trash in the university’s program. However, by working with a local company that mixes Styrofoam with concrete for some of its construction work, we were able to divert nearly 100 cubic yards of Styrofoam from the landfill, and without us paying a penny! It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to haul our trash to the landfill, so it is good to be saving money as well as the environment – it helps in getting extra support from the university higher-ups J. All in all, it was quite a successful move-in, and what few issues we noted will be optimized for Move-in 2011!  Volunteers can sign up to help with future programs by emailing CSSI@asu.edu

By Eric Tank

During Passport to ASU 2010 a student asked me why he should shop at a farmers market.  I told him that The Tamale Store tamales are delicious, that it’s like drinking an apple when you have some Sedona Sweet Cider, and that it is a slice of heaven to eat a tomato from Big Happy Farms.  This fall’s Farmers Market at the ASU Tempe campus starts on Tuesday, October 5^th, and it will continue every other Tuesday (October 19, November 2, November 16 and November 30).  From the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) there are 10 more good reasons to shop at the Tempe campus Farmers Market.

1.       The fruits and vegetables are the freshest and tastiest available.

2.       The food you buy connects you with the cycles of nature within our region.

3.       You support small family farms.

4.       Locally grown food uses fewer resources and reduces water, land and air pollution.

5.       The food is grown without pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, and genetic modification.

6.       A Farmers Market offers a greater variety of foods.

7.       You can find meats, cheeses, and eggs from animals raised without hormones or antibiotics.

8.       You reconnect with the source of your food.

9.       Farmers offer free advice about how to cook the foods they are selling.

10.    You shop outdoors on a beautiful Arizona sunny day instead of under artificial lights with piped-in music.

The Farmers Market at the ASU Tempe campus will be located just west of the Memorial Union fountain.  You can try one of the fresh tamales, drink the cold apple cider or enjoy some free samples – Try Before You Buy.  For more information, visit asu.edu/farmersmarket.

By Betty Lombardo

We might not have the same sleek sunglasses as Horatio Caine, but the new Center for Student Sustainability Initiatives (CSSI), or as we like to call it, “CSI: Students,” is just as cool. Resulting from the mutual merger of the Undergraduate Student Government’s Campus Environment Department and the Sustainability Initiatives Group, and in collaboration with University Sustainability Practices, CSSI is poised to be the leading student group on the Tempe campus for engaging students in projects, initiatives, and events here on our campus.

With the fantastic support of the USG administration and USP, CSSI is able to reach heights never before attainable with the way student sustainability groups were structured. The widely-recognized “Green Team” volunteer force will be housed within CSSI and will expand its role to also include sustainable event management and aiding with the implementation of the Green Events guidelines, in addition to providing event recycling services. We will also be developing numerous other projects, events, and groups under the umbrella of CSSI. One program we aim to collaborate with University Housing on is the “Eco Devils” res hall sustainability reps; student members would serve as the go-to for questions related to sustainability in the halls and additionally put on events and aid with large scale programs such as Move-in and Ditch the Dumpster.

One of the areas we are really excited about is developing intern/liaison positions to the various student-centric groups and departments on campus (eg, the Memorial Union, Student Recreation Center, Student Organization Resource Center, ASU Athletics, etc). This program is still in its conceptual phase, but hopefully CSSI will sponsor one or more interns/liaisons the to various departments who will assist both in greening the operations as well as promoting and marketing sustainability within the different areas in exchange for course credit.

This year is going to fly by with all the incredible things going on in CSI: Students. We have opportunities for students of any level or background! Faculty, staff, and community members can even get involved by helping out with our volunteer opportunities or by aiding in any of our projects or initiatives. To learn more or to get involved in any of our efforts, email cssi@asu.edu to get on our list and keep up to date with the latest meetings and newsletters. Also, check our website at cssi.asu.edu in the coming weeks for our official site launch.

By Andrew Latimer

ASU and The Pack Shack are discovering ways to reuse old and tattered banners that would otherwise be sent to a landfill or a recycling center.

We repurposed dozens of ASU vinyl banners this summer and what was produced were colorful, heavy duty, multipurpose bags.

The many events and groups on all four campuses generate a vast number of vinyl banners each year.  Most have great designs and graphics, but unfortunately this material eventually goes to waste.  As a result, the university pursued the creative idea of repurposing these banners by turning them into one-of-a-kind ASU Banner Bags.

We began collecting banners last year when we located a local designer to partner with.  We plan on holding biannual collection drives at the end of every semester, although used vinyl banners can also be sent to us throughout the year.  Use mail services and direct to mail code 5402, or bring to the 4^th floor of GIOS.

The used banners are taken to Eager, Arizona where the local designer has a small business, The Pack Shack, which sews heavy-duty firefighter accessories, like flame retardant backpacks and wallets.  The ASU banner bags are available in several styles; a purse, a grocery/tote bag, a messenger bag, and shoulder bag- all 100% unique and oozing with school spirit.

Be sure to look for them in ASU’s Bookstore and become a fan on facebook!

By Beth Magerman

When: 3:30-5:00 PM Friday, September 17, 2010

Where: Global Institute of Sustainability, Room 481, 800 S. Cady Mall, Arizona State University at the Tempe Campus

Who: All currently involved faculty and students and those who are interested in becoming involved in the project.

What: An introduction to the Central Arizona – Phoenix Long-term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) project in the Global Institute of Sustainability.

Please join us to kick off a new year of CAP LTER activities. We will have a brief program introducing the project and indicating how you can get involved. Plus, we will have an opportunity for you to meet and talk with fellow researchers. We look forward to seeing ongoing CAP collaborators at this event as well as new faculty and graduate students. Please contact Marcia Nation (Marcia.Nation@asu.edu) for more information.

CAP LTER scientist, Paige Warren traveled to Ferrara, Italy in July for the Fifth European Conference on Behavioral Biology. She was invited to serve as the opening speaker in a symposium on "Consequences of an Urbanizing World: from Physiology to Behaviour," organized by Henrik Brumm (Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany) and Diego Gil (Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC, Madrid). 

Warren spoke about the transition in urban community ecology from describing pattern to an emerging understanding of the underlying processes – from extinction-colonization dynamics to the importance of species interactions like competition (an idea highlighted in a recent BioScience paper led by CAP scientist Eyal Shochat). She argued that behavioral biologists have an important role to play in distinguishing among these candidate mechanisms. She also called for greater collaboration with social scientists, recognizing that interdisciplinary approaches will yield greater insights into all these questions than solely disciplinary approaches.

Arizona State University broadens scope of sustainability education offerings

TEMPE, Ariz. – Arizona State University (ASU) has launched a new minor in sustainability that can complement a student’s major in another academic discipline. This unique 18 credit hour program enables undergraduate students to explore the challenges of sustainability and learn what determines the sustainability of human institutions, organizations, cultures, and technologies in different environments at the local, national, and international levels.

The minor offered this fall, 2010, marks a milestone for ASU’s initiative to make sustainability education and practices university-wide across all four campuses.

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Q&A with Margaret Nelson

Dr. Nelson is a professor in the School of Sustainability and the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and is Vice Dean of Barrett, the Honors College. Her research involves collaborative fieldwork to understand sustainability issues for prehistoric inhabitants of the U.S. Southwest and the lessons that can be learned for contemporary society. Her innovations in teaching have earned her the ASU President’s Professor Award, Professor of the Year honors from the ASU Parents Association, and the Centennial Professor designation by the Associated Students of ASU. Nelson teaches graduate and undergraduate seminars in interdisciplinary research for the School of Sustainability.

Dr. Nelson is a professor in the School of Sustainability and the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and is Vice Dean of Barrett, the Honors College. Her research involves collaborative fieldwork to understand sustainability issues for prehistoric inhabitants of the U.S. Southwest and the lessons that can be learned for contemporary society. Her innovations in teaching have earned her the ASU President’s Professor Award, Professor of the Year honors from the ASU Parents Association, and the Centennial Professor designation by the Associated Students of ASU. Nelson teaches graduate and undergraduate seminars in interdisciplinary research for the School of Sustainability.

How did “sustainability” become part of your research focus?

In 1999 the Turner Foundation awarded my research partner and me a three-year grant to study how the Mimbres culture in southwestern New Mexico practiced sustainable land use. With the help of further grants by the Turner Foundation, National Geographic, and the National Science Foundation, we began collaborating with a group of archaeologists and ecologists working in the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico to understand issues of sustainability and resilience over long time spans.

What is your most important sustainability-related research project?

I lead an interdisciplinary research group from the fields of ecology and anthropology who are conducting integrated projects that examine cycles of stability and transformation during the last 1,000 years in the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico. The projects focus on a number of key assumptions about resilience and sustainability that have never before been studied across such long periods. Our work involves building an extended record of evidence that explains how issues such as diversity, robustness, vulnerability, and social rigidity can contribute to a society’s stability or collapse.

How do you think your sustainability-related research can affect decisions in the “real world”?

Policymakers and managers currently make decisions based on recent evidence and short-term consequences. Our work provides a considerably longer record of evidence about the processes that either contribute to or interfere with resilience and sustainability. With this much broader understanding, decision-makers have the tools to make better choices for a sustainable future that is lasting.

What is the world sustainability challenge that concerns you the most?

I cannot pick only one. Among the concerns on my list are social isolation policies, high population, abysmal quality of life for many, inattention to future consequences, and lack of education.

August 30, 2010

At West, the Freshman summer reading was In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.  In a recent article in Utne Reader, he stated that “Americans have not had to think very hard about where their food comes from, or what it is doing to the planet, their bodies, and their society.”  Well Mr. Pollan, your book got us thinking.  A full year series of events called “Much Ado About Food” kicked-off on August 26^th with the goal of educating our community about the impact of the foods we eat.  Education is just the first step though.  It is clear that we also need to create opportunities for our community to make lifestyle changes based upon the lessons they learn.

With that in mind, we are launching a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program on  September 15^th.  Each week for twelve weeks members of our program will receive fresh produce harvested from a local farm that grows its food free of synthetic chemical insecticides, herbicides, fungicides or fertilizers.  The cost? $20 per week.  For some, no price is too high when it comes to caring for our health, our environment and the economic stability of our community.  For others, $20 may seem a little steep for an amount of produce that you could buy for about $10-$15 at a regular grocery store.  But is the price we pay at the grocery store the real cost of food?

From a sustainable, holistic perspective, it certainly is not!  The Sierra Club put together a video and exercise that speaks directly to this point.  The True Cost of Food (http://www.sierraclub.org/truecostoffood/) breaks down the hidden costs of industrialized food.  It examines the cost of beef from a factory farm and the cost of a tomato from a monocropped field.

Factory farms waste an obscene amount of oil, water and healthy grain and corn, pollute our air with green house gasses, and blatantly disregard the health and well-being of the animals and the consumers of their meat.  When added up, the real cost for one pound of beef is $815.  Large monocropped fields are doused with toxic pesticides, loose tons of top soil each year, contaminate our rivers and drinking water, historically loose more crop to bugs with pesticides than without, run local family farms out of business, and waste a tremendous amount of fuel.  When added up, the real cost for one tomato is $374.

So when you’re asking yourself if you can afford to spend $20 for a bag of produce, when the alternative is $1189 for one pound of beef and a tomato, the real question is, can you afford not to?

By Leslie Lindo

TEMPE, Ariz.—Professor Kevin Dooley has been appointed Interim Co-Director of The Sustainability Consortium for Arizona State University (ASU). Dooley, a Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management in the W. P. Carey School of Business and Affiliate Professor in the School of Sustainability, has deep knowledge and experience with the Consortium and its activities. Jon Johnson will continue as the Consortium's Co-Director for the University of Arkansas. Johnson is the Walton College Professor of Sustainability, Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas.

The Sustainability Consortium develops transparent methodologies, tools and strategies to drive a new generation of products and supply networks that address environmental, social and economic imperatives.

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No, I am not referring to the poppy dance group of yesteryear; I am of course referring to the newest addition of sustainability themed clubs at ASU. Arizona State Cycling Club (ASCC) formed in March of 2010.  They are a spunky, high spirited group and their numbers are growing fast.  The officers gained just enough momentum to organize one meeting and one social ride last spring.  They were hard at work over the summer planning a slew of bike themed meetings and fun rides for this fall. When asked what inspired him to found ASCC, School of Sustainability senior Tyler Viliborghi responded, “A few friends and I decided to spend an entire day exploring the town by bike and concluded with a picnic/feast in the park. It was such an amazing day that we decided we needed to share and protect these kinds of experiences by offering an outlet here at ASU.”

A vital bike culture is nothing new for ASU, or the Tempe scene.  Rambunctious cycling veterans, TBAG (Tempe Bicycle Action Group) have been tearing it up for years with their monthly theme rides such as “Bike in to the Drive in” or the ever popular “Mullet Ride.”  ASCC is extremely excited to be TBAG’s college link.  Members and participants can expect a fun, easy going time as they tone up their muscles while toning down their carbon footprint. Also, be sure to check in with ASU’s Bike Co-op for free tune-ups, tire fills and sweet deals on headlights and helmets.

They plan to sponsor a bike scholarship program which will outfit one lucky sun devil with a new bike to get around with. E-mail ASUbike@gmail.com if you are interested in entering the essay contest. Or- you can look them up on facebook and get all the latest and greatest that is ASCC!

By Jehnifer Niklas

Q&A with Nobel Laureate Dr. Elinor Ostrom Finding the key to sustaining shared resources Elinor Ostrom is a research professor at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and is founding director of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity.

In 2009, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for her work in economic governance, particularly as it applies to shared resources such as pastures, fisheries, and groundwater basins. Her research examines ways that institutions and users operating at widely different scales can work together to sustain such resources.

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