The Environmental Humanities Initiative's 2020 distinguished lecture with Elizabeth Hoover was rescheduled to November 5. The lecture was accompanied by a reading group event series.

Watch the recording of the lecture discussion, and a pre-recorded distinguished lecture video.

Elizabeth Hoover's work focuses upon Native American food sovereignty and seed rematriation; environmental reproductive justice in Native American communities; the cultural impact of fish advisories on Native communities; and tribal citizen science. She serves on the executive committee of the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance and the board of North American Traditional Indigenous Food.

Her first book, The River is In Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community, is an ethnographic exploration of Akwesasne Mohawks’ response to Superfund contamination and environmental health research. Her second book, a project-in-progress, From Garden Warriors to Good Seeds; Indigenizing the Local Food Movement, explores Native American community-based farming and gardening projects and the role of Native chefs in the food movement.

Register for this live online event.

A new, 24-minute film called Nations United has been created by the United Nations on its 75th Anniversary and to mark five years since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals. In the midst of a pandemic radically transforming our world, Nations United tells the story of the world as it is, as it was, and as it could be. It focuses on the solutions and action we need to tackle poverty, inequality, injustice and climate change.

Sierra magazine, the national publication of the Sierra Club, released its 14th annual “Cool Schools” competitive ranking of North America’s greenest colleges and universities on Sept. 28, ranking Arizona State University fourth out of more than 300 institutions.

This is the fourth year ASU has scored in the top 20; last year it was No. 10.

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Ferran Garcia-Pichel, Arizona State University professor and researcher, has been awarded the 2021 D.C. White Award by the American Society for Microbiology.

The American Society for Microbiology is one of the largest professional societies dedicated to the life sciences and is composed of 30,000 scientists and health practitioners.

The award recognizes distinguished accomplishments in both interdisciplinary research and mentoring. It was created in honor of David C. White, a well-known microbial ecologist widely recognized as a leader in interdisciplinary science, and for his dedicated and inspiring work as a mentor and teacher.

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The ASU School of Life Sciences will be hosting their Fall 2020 New Faculty Showcase on Friday, September 25, 2020, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. MT (5:00-6:00 p.m. EST).

ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Assistant Research Professor Danica Schaffer-Smith will present: "Water resources management under extreme events: human and natural engineering solutions." Can infrastructure and floodplain management help to protect and sustain freshwater resources? Schaffer-Smith explores risks and opportunities with remote sensing, watershed modeling and stakeholder-based processes.

Assistant Professor Qiyun Zhu will present: "Untangling microbe-community-host interactions in light of evolution." Universal phylogenomic tree of microbial organisms enables an upgrade of shotgun metagenomics.

Join us to welcome SOLS new professors and learn more about their ongoing research projects. Register here.

Climate change may feel formidable, and people worldwide are already experiencing its effects, but our future is not yet decided. Catastrophe is not inevitable.

Countless people around the world, recognizing the urgency of this moment, are taking climate action in a way that draws from their personal experiences and passions. A new PBS video series in collaboration with the Arizona State University Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory is telling the stories of some of these courageous, innovative and captivating people.

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As the world rounds the final corner of an incredibly disruptive year for business operations and society at-large, it’s time to look ahead and envision how life will be in the years to come. What lessons will people take from 2020? What “new normals” will stick around for the long haul? How will businesses around the world adapt and remain competitive? What opportunities exist for society to build back better? 

Amidst all the speculation, one thing remains true: sustainability strategies are smart business. They reduce cost through efficiency, increase revenue, and help organizations come out on top in the talent war. Each year more and more businesses report on their sustainability impact, and professionals across countless industries are learning to adopt sustainability practices in their various roles.  

Arizona State University is excited to support this evolution of business by offering a Professional Certificate in Sustainability Strategy. 

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In April, Arizona State University’s Narrative Storytelling Initiative invited people worldwide to write a short story on what they think the future holds, based on our current world. No science fiction, no fantasy, but an imagined future reality.

The results are in, and they’re illuminating. Enjoy the top five in a new magazine displayed on Issuu: Envisioning the Future, Volume 1.

The initiative received 43 submissions from around the world — with 20 from the ASU community — for its story contest in partnership with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory. Adaptation to a changed reality was one of the recurring themes among most of the stories, which ranged from 400 to 700 words, said Steven Beschloss, director of the Narrative Storytelling Initiative.

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The latest issue of Metaleptea (Vol. 40, Issue 3), the Newsletter of the Orthopterists’ Society, is published and available to read! It features upcoming events, announcements, regional reports, and recent research. Locusts are a key feature, including the announcement of the Behavioral Plasticity Research Institute (BPRI) — a newly funded NSF Biology Integration Institute, updates on outbreaking locusts species from South Asia to Brazil, and a new paper in the works about how spatiotemporal hierarchy improves locust outbreak models.

Read the whole issue.

ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Associate Center Director of Biodiversity Valuation and Assessments Beth Polidoro will be delivering a webinar Thursday, September 24, 2020, 9:00-10:00 a.m. MT (12:00-1:00 p.m. EST) titled “A Risk Assessment of Microplastics and Associated Contaminants in Coastal Environments and Seafood in American Samoa.”

Abstract:

Solid waste disposal is a massive concern among Pacific Island nations. With severe limitations in land area, in combination with the lack of reuse or recycling options, many near-shore marine ecosystems across Oceania are severely impacted by locally derived marine debris, including plastics, microplastics and associated chemical contaminants.

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“Let’s network with each other. Let’s build a very strong network of us in communities we can transform.”

Mavis Nduchwa - Founder and CEO, Chabana Farms, Botswana

2020 WE Empower Awardee, Sub-Saharan Africa

Food security and conflict with wildlife are salient issues in Sub-Saharan Africa but Mavis Nduchwa takes community care and conservation to the next level in Botswana. As the owner of Chabana Farms, trading as Kalahari Honey, Nduchwa has taken matters into her hands through mitigating wildlife conflict with elephants, providing stable work for women, preserving the food supply of her community, and empowering women to lead abuse-free lives. WE Empower intern, Sidney McKee, interviewed Nduchwa and expands upon how Chabana Farms is paving the way for community-based changemakers in Botswana and across the globe.

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In our latest piece on Medium, co-authors Peter Schlosser and Steven Beschloss examine the wildfire outbreak across the western US and if this is finally the climate-oriented moment that will move people to take that next step towards impact and change. "In short, are these fires, is this deadly pandemic, is another round of pounding from hurricanes, capable of awakening a reluctant, distracted public? Has the alarm bell grown so loud that it can’t be ignored any longer? Have we reached a tipping point when Americans and others walk to their proverbial window and shout: 'I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore'?"

You can read the piece on Medium. To ensure you don’t miss any Global Futures Laboratory Medium posts, follow our Medium channel directly, or follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn where we announce all new posts.

On Monday, September 21, 2020, 5:00-6:30 p.m. MST (8:00-9:30 p.m. ET), ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber will lead a group of panelists in a talk titled “Industry Partnerships for Biodiversity Outcomes: Measuring private sector contributions toward mitigating biodiversity loss.”

This talk is part of the United Nations Global Compact’s Uniting Business LIVE (September 21-23).

Global biodiversity loss is occurring at an unprecedented rate. The recent global assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services reports that approximately 1 million species are threatened with extinction.

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Today, ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber and Associate Center Director of Biodiversity Valuation and Assessments Beth Polidoro published a Science article titled “Predicted growth in plastic waste exceeds efforts to mitigate plastic pollution.”

In addition, 18 researchers from other universities and NGOs co-authored this publication including ASU Conservation Innovation Lab graduate students Erin Murphy and Miranda Bernard.

This work emerged from the center’s Plastic Emissions Working Group supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center.

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As harmful atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to increase, understanding the planetary carbon balance has become the single most important scientific question.

A new report by two leading ecological scientists at Arizona State University quantified the global soil carbon sequestered by roots plus the amount leached into the soil. They revealed that climate and land-use are major influencers of belowground carbon sequestration. The study, “Global patterns and climatic controls of belowground net carbon fixation,” also found that the amount of carbon sequestered belowground changes with precipitation but its effect varies among large vegetation types.

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The Princeton Review has named Arizona State University one of the Best 386 Colleges in its 2021 rankings, which were compiled by surveying 143,000 students across the country.

On sustainability, The Princeton Review ranked ASU nearly perfect. On a scale of 60-99, ASU’s green rating is 98, and has been for four years straight. ASU’s most recent commitment to sustainability involved the launch of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, which is dedicated to keeping our planet habitable and future generations thriving. For this ranking, university and colleges are graded on whether students’ campus quality of life are both healthy and sustainable, how well the institution prepares students for clean-energy jobs and how environmentally responsible school policies are.

On September 15, 2020, ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Graduate Research Assistant Katie Surrey-Bergman and Assistant Research Professor Gwen Iacona, both from the School of Life Sciences, presented a panel facilitated a workshop titled “Collecting and Reporting on the Costs of Compliance with the Endangered Species Act” in partnership with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).

This panel, presented alongside EPRI’s Senior Technical Leader Becca Madsen and Technical Executive Christian Newman, was part of the 110th Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Virtual Annual Meeting.

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The Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University are co-hosting an informal panel debate for International Day of Democracy. Can parliaments learn from the past six months to become stronger and more effective institutions that impose checks and balances on executive powers to better serve the people?

Featuring experts from around the world, the panel will be moderated by Foreign Policy managing editor Ravi Aggarwal. Read the flyer for more information and register online to attend and receive the recording.

This year has changed the way we move about our cities and communities, and what that movement means. As cities roll out and begin to implement their reopening plans, we find ourselves at a crucial moment to examine and rethink the inequality blueprinted into the roads, tunnels, sidewalks and bus stops of urban areas like Mexico City and Phoenix.

Panelists include sustainability scientists Diana Bowman, professor in the School for the Future of Innovation and Society and associate dean for international engagement in the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, and Ram Pendyala, director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, as well as Fátima Masse, project coordinator, Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad.

Join a Sept. 22 binational discussion to consider the future of mobility in a pandemic- and climate change-battered world. The event will be held in English. More information and registration.

Join the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory Tuesday, September 15, 10:00 - 11:30 am AZ time, for a panel discussion with members of the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative team working on advancement and implementation of the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). This team has worked with countries around the world in designing and computing National MPIs.

Learn about the MPI and gain insights into the personal perspective of key figures working around the world to address the missing dimensions of poverty in global development policy and practice. This event will consider links to the informal economy / human economy, inequality and justice challenges, and explore implications for addressing compounding global crises related to COVID-19 and the "new and differently poor" in terms of future development processes. More information and registration.

This event is being hosted by the Human Economies Focal Area of the Global Futures Laboratory. All are welcome to attend.