Anna Bettis, a student in the School of Sustainability's Master of Sustainable Solutions program, recorded a question for Democratic presidential candidates via a CNN video booth at ASU's Tempe campus.
“As a young person, I’m very concerned about climate change and how it will affect my future. As a presidential candidate, what will you do to address climate change?” she asked.
Bettis says she did not expect her question to be aired during the Democratic presidential debate several weeks later, and was thrilled when she saw her face appear on the big screen of downtown's Desoto Market where she was watching.
Bettis credits a high school marine biology lesson, which exposed her to the natural resource challenges we face, for her sustainability passion. She received her bachelor's from the School of Sustainability in 2014.
For many of us living in the Southwest, the sprawl of desert combined with a growing number of people serves as a constant reminder of water security and how we will sustain it in the future. With neighboring California experiencing a record drought, at nearly half of the state hitting driest levels, whether or not Arizona is close to follow has become a serious possibility. This then, begs the question—what would happen if Phoenix lost access to water?
In recognition of his fundamental research on urban heat islands and desert environments, Senior Sustainability Scientist Tony Brazel has been named the 2015 winner of the International Association for Urban Climate’s Luke Howard Award.
Brazel, who retired in 2011 after 37 years at ASU, is an expert on urban climatology, specializing in arid environments like the greater Phoenix area. He was awarded the American Meteorological Society’s Helmut E. Landsberg Award in 2013, and his research has an enduring influence on his field.
"From the very beginning, Tony Brazel had a tremendous impact on CAP LTER and DCDC, two of our largest urban sustainability research grants of the past two decades,” says Charles Redman, founding director of ASU’s School of Sustainability. “He rightly pointed to the recent and huge impact humans were having on local climate. He introduced us all to the concept of an urban heat island, which has been a central focus of both projects from that day forward."
Light pollution is a critical ecological issue in the city, which has gotten little attention. CAP is co-sponsoring the International Dark Sky Association’s (IDA) annual meeting in Scottsdale, November 14-15, which is focusing on "Impacts of Artificial Night Lighting on Fish and Wildlife Resources and the Mitigating Role of Emerging Lighting Technologies.” IDA advocates for the reduction of light pollution and promotes the use of lighting products that have lesser impacts on biota and the environment.
A recent ASU News article on the role of trees and lawns in urban heat island featured CAP scientists Ben Ruddell, Ariane Middel, and Nancy Selover. Shade provided by trees has been long acknowledged as providing some relief from high daytime temperatures in the Valley of the Sun. The team of ASU scientists has worked to quantify the effects of different types of shade on urban microclimates and how much shade is needed to reduce daytime temperatures. This is very useful information for homeowners, designers, architects and others wanting to know just how much shade they need.
Attention all Post-docs! Looking for a LTER fellowship? Apply for a two year postdoctoral fellowship today with The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) in collaboration with the National Science Foundation's Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program beginning August 1st, 2016.
-Prescreening application deadline is October 26, 2015, 5 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).
-Collaborating Mentor application deadline: October 26, 2015, 5 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).
-Collaborating Mentor selection and commitment deadline: November 16, 2015, 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST).
-Fellowship application deadline: December 7, 2015, 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST).
Click here to find more information on SESYNC-LTER and the fellowship criteria.
Carbon Roots International - a company co-founded by School of Sustainability graduate and Founders’ Day Award recipient, Ryan Delaney - was highlighted in the October issue of National Geographic magazine with the headline "Bright Ideas can Change the World."
Launched in 2010, CRI uses sustainability principles to help rural farmers in Haiti develop more efficient agricultural practices. It trains farmers on the production of a renewable fuel known as “green charcoal,” which allows them to convert crop waste into a fuel source that can be used in cooking and to improve soil fertility.
CRI is one of 29 projects to receive a grant from the "Great Energy Challenge," an initiative of National Geographic in partnership with Shell that recognizes innovative energy solutions.
Leah Sunna is a Tempe native, School of Sustainability alum and a true advocate for helping people find connections to the environment and world around them.
Sunna recalls, at a young age, opening Sierra Magazines on her mother’s coffee table and being interested in the environment. From then on, she always identified as a “nature-lover” with a passion for community involvement.
Though interested in the environment, the “feel-good” aspect of sustainability also appealed to Sunna. At the end of the day, she wanted to do something that mattered – something that made her feel like she was making a difference.
Martin “Mike” Pasqualetti — an ASU sustainability scientist, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning professor and energy expert — will be awarded the 2015 Alexander and Ilse Melamid Memorial Medal by the American Geographical Society at its annual fall symposium. The medal is conferred on scholars who have done outstanding work on the dynamic relationship between human culture and natural resources.
Pasqualetti has conducted research concerned with energy education, the nexus of energy and society, energy security, the social acceptance of renewable energy, and the recognition and remediation of energy landscapes for more than 40 years. According to AGS Honors and Awards Committee Chairperson Douglas Sherman, Pasqualetti was cited for substantial and sustained contributions to our understanding of the geography of energy.
"While the medal may be in recognition of my individual contributions to the geographical study of energy," says Pasqualetti, "much of my work would have been impossible — and certainly not as pleasant — without the enthusiasm of my students, the camaraderie of my colleagues or the leadership of Gary Dirks, director of GIOS®, and ASU President Michael Crow. I am therefore particularly pleased to be able to say that I am associated with ASU, my academic home since 1977.”
Today's online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences featured the findings of a six-year study conducted by ASU researchers. The study, which measured the effects of climatic variability like droughts and floods on desert grassland, revealed that overall ecosystem productivity declines. This is because grasses - an important component of the human food system - tend to diminish while shrubs flourish.
“We found that not all species could respond effectively to extreme weather events including both dry and wet conditions,” said Osvaldo Sala, a distinguished sustainability scientist and professor in ASU's School of Life Sciences. “Grasses don’t fare as well as shrubs, which is really important to know because cattle ranchers depend on grasslands to graze their herds. Humans could see a reduction in the production of food — mostly cattle for meat — as the provision of ecosystem services like this one change.”
As uncertainty about water access in the West increases, the Decision Center for a Desert City at Arizona State University is connecting policymakers with research to make better resource management decisions for the future.
The DCDC has been conducting climate and water research in the Phoenix metropolitan area since 2004. Now, thanks to a $4.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation — the third made to DCDC by the NSF since its founding — the DCDC will expand its work beyond Arizona to other cities dependent on the Colorado River Basin in Colorado, Nevada and California.
The funding comes from the NSF’s Decision Making Under Uncertainty program. The DCDC and other groups receiving this funding aim to increase information available to decision-makers by developing analytic tools, facilitating interaction with researchers and bringing decision-makers together.
“We’re a boundary organization,” says Ray Quay, director of stakeholder relations at DCDC. “We try to bring science into public policy.” In Phoenix, the DCDC does this in part through collaborative research. Using satellite imagery, DCDC helped the city better understand how changes in water demand over time are related to changes in land use. The DCDC will now work to identify similar opportunities in Las Vegas and Denver, the first cities that will benefit from the expansion.
The DCDC also hosts “neutral convenings” in the Phoenix area where policymakers come together to discuss environmental concerns and solutions — topics that can ignite heated arguments in some places — and learn from one another in an uncharged space. For one such meeting, the DCDC brought together water managers from across the region with different viewpoints to discuss research and decision-making strategies about a potentially divisive issue: How should cities respond if an extended drought requires them to shift from using surface water to groundwater, what DCDC calls the “All Straws Sucking Scenario”?
“Arizona water is highly regulated, and water utilities are uncomfortable being open in discussion when an agency that regulates them is part of the discussion,” says Quay. DCDC was perceived to be an unbiased host.
Expanding into Denver and Las Vegas, the DCDC will conduct surveys of the general public and water managers to identify problems, areas where agencies feel they have answers to share and topics requiring regional discussion.
One of the organization’s primary research and education tools is WaterSim 5.0, which estimates water supply and demand for Phoenix and the 32 cities in its metropolitan area. Users can control as many as 53 inputs, including river runoff, percentage of wastewater reclaimed, population growth, and per capita water use, and then see the impacts of these decisions on water supply, water demand, and a variety of sustainability indicators.
David Sampson, WaterSim’s lead developer, says the tool was originally intended to help water providers with planning, but that the program isn’t yet perfectly suited for their needs. “The nice thing about WaterSim is that it’s an aggregate of all the cities,” says Sampson, “but the cities of course only work within their own [boundaries].” One goal with this round of NSF funding is to allow finer spatial parsing of WaterSim’s region, allowing water providers and managers to make finer-grain decisions. Sampson is also working to integrate a groundwater model that is based on supply rather than credits.
At present, WaterSim is primarily a tool for education and outreach, and the DCDC has also created a less complex educational model, an online version that has just five inputs. WaterSim can be used “to tell stories,” says Quay, by leading members of the public and elected officials in a guided discussion using the interface. “One story might be that there is no silver bullet.” As people better understand the complexity of the system, supplies and management, they see that “there really is no one solution under the uncertainty of climate change and drought,” says Quay.
Another story is that “it’s not just the system that’s complicated, but how people use the system and benefit from the system that’s complicated as well,” says Quay. Farmers value water differently than manufacturers, who value water differently than homeowners or environmentalists. “They all have different perspectives on what sustainability means,” says Quay. “Using this tool we can show how to maximize sustainability from all of these viewpoints, but that there’s no way to maximize sustainability for all of these viewpoints.”
Quay says it’s unclear how the DCDC will extend its modeling capacity to include other Colorado River Basin cities. It will depend on whether different regions will see a benefit, he says, and what types of modeling systems they already use.
The DCDC is working to create more educational modeling tools, though. Sampson is developing a scaled-down water supply and demand simulation for a traveling Smithsonian exhibition that will visit all 50 states in the next five years. Sampson and the DCDC will create a model for every state, with elements that look at climate change and human use.
“People can learn a little more about water decisions and water use and how that relates to climate change,” says Sampson. “Every state has a different challenge.”
Each year, Popular Science accepts nominations for the brightest young minds in science and engineering, then identifies what it refers to as the "Brilliant 10." Among those in its just-released 2015 cohort is Arianne Cease, a sustainability scientist and assistant professor in ASU’s School of Sustainability.
Cease is cited for her investigations into what transforms individual locusts into ravenous swarms that devastate crops and threaten livelihoods, and her work identifying strategies to stop the insects from swarming.
“We are working to address the age-old challenge of locusts and locust plagues, which are a problem around the world for food security,” said Cease. “We are working to understand what causes plagues so that we can address the problem in a new way, by incorporating local farmers and human communities into the equation.”
Last fall, ASU’s School of Sustainability teamed up with Verizon to offer a groundbreaking new course — the Smart City and Technology Innovation Challenge. Students spent the semester learning about the latest in smart technologies, and brainstorming how they could be applied to cities for the benefit of urbanites. They molded their ideas into business propositions, which were carefully considered for generous grants from Verizon.
Now, the challenge’s three winners have been announced. First-place winner Alex Slaymaker's waste-reducing proposition, PHXflow, is a vibrant online waste networking platform created for small- and medium-sized businesses interested in selling, donating, purchasing or exchanging unwanted materials with other businesses in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Christopher Frettoloso, the second-place recipient of $2,000, conceived BetR-block, LLC — a manufacturer of sustainable, low-cost building materials from recycled paper and other cellulosic materials. Alex Cano is the challenge’s third-place recipient of $1,000 and the innovative mind behind BISTEG-USA. His proposition tackles the aesthetic concerns associated with current solar technologies, which are often relegated to out-of-sight places like rooftops.
The Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative at Arizona State University, in partnership with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean’s Council, invites writers to submit short stories that explore climate change, science and human futures in its first Climate Fiction Short Story Contest.
Speculative fiction stories have the power to take policy debates and obscure scientific jargon and turn them into gripping, visceral tales. The emerging subgenre of climate fiction helps us to imagine futures shaped by climate change - a gradual process that can be difficult for people to comprehend.
"Merging climate science and deeply human storytelling, climate fiction can be a powerful learning tool,” said Manjana Milkoreit, a postdoctoral research fellow with the Walton Initiatives. “Taking the reader into a possible future, a story can turn modeling scenarios and temperature graphs into meaning and emotion. It can help us make sense of and respond to this incredibly complex problem."
The submission deadline is Jan. 15, 2016, and contest entry is free.
At Arizona Forward's 35th Environmental Excellence Awards gala, ASU was recognized for projects focused on improving sustainability in Arizona. This year’s gala featured eight awards categories that included more than 120 entries from across the state. ASU took home two of the 17 first-place Crescordia awards and one of the 31 Awards of Merit.
ASU’s redevelopment of College Avenue on the Tempe campus took top honors in the site-development category, while ASU Facilities Management Grounds/Recycling received the SRP Award for Environmental Stewardship. The Downtown Phoenix Sun Devil Fitness Complex also received an award of merit in the buildings and structures category.
The past 30 years of the International Whaling Commission’s conversation has been stalled by disagreement on the ethics of killing whales, according to sustainability scientist Leah Gerber. Gerber, who is founding director of ASU’s Center for Biodiversity Outcomes, floated the idea of a compromise with whaling nations in the September issue of scientific journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
Changing course and allowing Iceland, Japan and Norway to legally hunt under regulations and monitoring might break the current stalemate. Currently, Japan whales under a loophole allowing for scientific research. The other two countries hunt whales commercially in protest of the ban.
“If our common goal is a healthy and sustainable population of whales, let’s find a way to develop strategies that achieve that,” Gerber said. “That may involve agreeing to a small level of take. That would certainly be a reduced take to what’s happening now.”
The International Society for History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology has given its top award, the David L. Hull Prize, to ASU Regents' Professor and Distinguished Sustainability Scientist Jane Maienschein. The prize honors an extraordinary contribution to scholarship and service, and promotes interdisciplinary connections between history, philosophy, social studies and biology.
Maienschein’s contributions to the fields of history and philosophy of science include serving as the founding president of the International Society for History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology; on the governing board of the Philosophy of Science Association; and as vice president and president of the History of Science Society. Maienschein is the current director of ASU’s Center for Biology and Society.
With the aim of transforming Ethiopia into a carbon-neutral middle-income country by 2025, ASU LightWorks, Addis Ababa Science and Technology University, and Adama Science and Technology University have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with AORA Solar - a leading developer of solar-biogas hybrid power technology.
The memorandum seeks to expand the three academic institutions’ common interest in promoting mutual cooperation in the area of education and research. In this instance, the goal is to promote academic cooperation for the development and advancement of renewable energy technologies to support the implementation of Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy Strategy.
Collaboration will include joint activities for research park development, in addition to the development and strengthening of renewable energy curricula for solar electric, solar thermal, photovoltaics, wind and sustainable fuel technologies.
Note:M. Sanjayan is a leading ecologist, speaker, writer and Emmy-nominated news contributor focused on the role of conservation in improving human well-being, wildlife and the environment. He serves on Conservation International’s senior leadership team as executive vice president and senior scientist, and is the host of the 2015 PBS TV series, Earth – A New Wild.
When asked to visualize nature, we tend to picture a rain forest, coral reef or African savannah – a place busy with countless plant and animal species. But there’s something missing from that picture, something that profoundly influences every one of those scenes. The missing piece is people.
What does the real picture of nature look like? In my recent PBS project EARTH: A New Wild, we took what was essentially a natural history series and deliberately brought people into the frame. The point was to help show the essential connections between nature and the people who live with it.
Anna Bettis, a student in the School of Sustainability's Master of Sustainable Solutions program, recorded a question for Democratic presidential candidates via a CNN video booth at ASU's Tempe campus.
