In September, the Department of Energy released the Solar Futures Study, outlining the Biden administration’s efforts to tackle climate change and significantly increase the use of renewable energy throughout the United States. One of the main takeaways of the study is the administration’s vision of decarbonizing the nation’s power grid by ramping up solar energy to power 40% of the nation by 2035.
At first glance, gardening may seem like just a bunch of plants, but upon further inspection, it has enormous impacts on people and their well-being. The recently published article, Gardening for Food Well-Being in the COVID-19 Era, was based on a study done by Estève Giraud, Sara El-Sayed, and Adenike Opejin. The trio looked into the impacts of gardening on well-being in schools, related to COVID-19 and food justice. To assess the relationship between gardening and these variables, they conducted three studies that built on each other. These studies took place between 2018-2021 with the pandemic becoming an added factor. The group concluded that gardening has significant impacts on a child’s hedonic well-being which is associated with a sense of pleasure and positive emotions. Children in the study enjoyed the pleasures of being outdoors, tasting fresh produce, and interacting with their peers and teachers. Additionally, gardening had an impact on the eudemonic well-being of teachers which is associated with a sense of fulfillment and purpose in life. Gardening with their students gave them a sense of purpose.
In this series, we’re sitting down with the Swette Center affiliated faculty to catch up on food systems, innovation, and what makes a good meal. See the rest of the series on our Food Systems Profiles page.
Read on for an interview withDaniel Fischer, Senior Global Futures Scientist, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory & Associate Professor for Consumer Communication and Sustainability, Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands.
Global Drylands Center’s Osvaldo Sala and Celina Osuna collaborated with Ed Finn, Director of ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination (CSI), and co-authored a piece for Scientific American to celebrate the premiere of Dennis Villeneuve’s epic adaptation of Dune and take the opportunity to shed light on the beauty and biodiversity of the earth’s deserts in the face of common misrepresentations.
October's SCN Info of Interest was sent out via email. Includes info on: AZ Heat Resilience Workgroup Meeting, 2021 Arizona Energy Future Conference, webinars, news, and more.
In this series, we’re meeting with Swette Center team members to explore their background in food systems, what they are currently working on, and their vision of food systems transformation.
Read on for an interview with Colleen Hanley, Senior Food Systems Specialist.
By Surabhi Vinodkeerthi, ASU master’s student & media lead with ASU LightWorks
Can clean energy be a contributor to benefit economic growth? In our recent webinar LightWorks poses this important question to local community and utility leaders and learned of two main factors that contribute to desirable economic growth;
1. They create more jobs per-dollar invested than traditional technologies and
2. They primarily use local resources; most of the energy dollars circulate in the local economy
Clean energy makes economic sense to both communities and businesses. Not only are they cheaper than coal and other fossil fuels but these technologies are also not subject to global price changes that can create volatile energy prices
This topic sparked some interesting thoughts, collectively discussed with a talented panel consisting of Kelly Barr, Chief Strategy, Corporate Services & Sustainability Executive, Salt River Project; Mayor Kate Gallego, Mayor, Phoenix, AZ and Chris Camacho, President & CEO, Greater Phoenix Economic Council. Kelly spoke about the utility perspective of the renewable energy market while Chris pointed out the regional perspective and Mayor Gallego, the city perspective.
The Salt River Project has pledged to achieve two main goals - carbon reduction and electrification. SRP, according to Kelly, is very aware of the need for green energy’s growing call and is partnering with companies with the same clean energy policies to make it affordable and renewable, thereby helping SRP meet sustainability goals and helping their customers reach their energy emission goals. SRP has set a goal to reduce carbon emissions by 65% by 2035 and down to 90% by 2050. There has been significant progress in partnering with companies and SRP to create charging station networks around libraries, parks and universities within Phoenix. A good charging network is key to on-boarding customers who may be concerned about the vehicle range.
Mayor Gallego noted that Phoenix is the 5th largest and fastest growing city in the US and has been experiencing harsh heat and record breaking temperatures of above 100 degree Fahrenheit over days - See report here. She indicated that this makes it all the more important for Phoenix to encourage investment in innovative technologies on heat resilience. According to Mayor Gallego, Phoenix will continue to innovate examples like solar installation on public housing. Mayor Gallego is optimistic on green financing to build opportunities for universities, investors and individuals to make additional clean energy investments and reduce carbon emissions.
Clean energy is significant for job growth in the Phoenix area according to Chris Comacho. He also. Noted that every business development deal he is working with have an appetite to include clean energy in their milestones. Chris also noted that Arizona utilities have an opportunity to use low cost solar and make the power reliable energy for customers. This creates great opertunity for collaboration.
Clair Cooper, PhD Candidate at Durham University, is joined by Gillian Dick, Strategic Planning Manager with Glasgow City Council, and Donagh Horgan from the Institute of Social Innovation at the University of Strathclyde to talk about Every Tree Tells a Story. Every Tree Tells a Story is an innovative new nature-based solution that aims to help communities reconnect with urban nature, particularly urban trees, and understand what are nature-based solutions by sharing and mapping their favourite stories about trees. Gillian and Donagh talk about their inspiration for the project, how it relates to the concept of nature-based solutions, and explain our deep connection with trees. Gillian and Donagh then talk about why it's so important that we educate people about the role of trees in the fight against climate change and how they plan to help people reconnect with trees through community participation and mapping of stories about our favourite trees.
If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.URExSRN.net.
A truly sustainable food system is a food system that provides healthy food for all communities. In my food systems career in Flint, MI, I have observed that adequate nutrition is especially important in a community that has been subject to environmental injustice and social inequality. The Flint Water Crisis and COVID-19 pandemic have both highlighted that in order to support community-wide health in Flint, a sustainable local food system that provides equitable access to healthy options must be cultivated.
Our October newsletter features an invitation to join the Future of Farming webinar, inspiring articles about sustainability in business, and relevant upcoming vents. Read how bacteria can help solve the plastic pollution crisis and how Google Flights will now show the environmental impact of air travel.
The second phase of Phoenix’s Cool Pavement Program in south
Phoenix has kicked off. The Office of Heat Response and Mitigation is part of this effort, with $2.8 million allocated for its creation. The city also plans to continue to budget for its Tree and Shade Master Plan, which will bring 30 “cool corridors” to underserved communities by 2050. Cool corridors are mile-long stretches of up to 200 trees or shade structures.
Image: A truck prepares to coat the asphalt near Roesley Park in south Phoenix with a water-based reflective coating as part of Phoenix's Cool Pavement Program. Early findings show the treated asphalt is 10 to 12 degrees cooler than traditional asphalt. Photo credit: Megan Taros/The Republic
Partnership will help researchers better understand ocean health; ASU now has two research centers devoted to monitoring Atlantic, Pacific
In a major development in the bid to deepen the understanding of the role that the ocean plays in climate science, Arizona State University President Michael Crow announced today that ASU, a leading research university, has established a partnership with the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), one of the longest-serving research institutes dedicated to studying ocean processes in the Western Hemisphere.
In this series, we’re sitting down with the Swette Center affiliated faculty to catch up on food systems, innovation, and what makes a good meal. See the rest of the series on our Food Systems Profiles page.
Read on for an interview with Dr. Joni Adamson, President's Professor, Environmental Humanities, Department of English, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, & Distinguished Global Futures Scholar, GFL.
By Surabhi Vinodkeerthi, ASU master’s student & media lead with ASU LightWorks
The world runs on data. On an average, every second of the day, each person produces 1.7MB of data. This implies nothing else but that data centers are the fastest growing and a very important component of our global economy. The numbers are only going to increase further with the recent emergence of technologies like AI, Self-driving cars, cryptocurrencies, ML, etc.
There has been significant improvement in the handling of data centers in the past decade but the energy consumption is accelerating at an alarming rate. Generating energy through fossil fuels is definitely not a foreseeable solution in the future and ramping up efforts towards decarbonizing data centers will need to be addressed.
How can we start addressing this problem? There are 3 key factors we need to consider - heat, usage and supply. 1)Data center facilities consume 40% of the energy supplied just to cool their systems. The ongoing advancement in sustainability has introduced AI into cooling the facility based on heat readings; 2)Usage of energy by data centers is 80% mainly from coal/fossil fuel - however, companies are looking to consume clean energy and move to ‘zero carbon’ by moving to grid electricity and powering wind and solar power. Research has notably shown that using tidal power (energy produced by surge of ocean water by rise and fall of tides) will become a completely reliable and predictable form of source; 3)Uninterrupted supply of power is also a way to store and backup clean energy. Usage of flow batteries and lithium-ion batteries that can hold charge indefinitely are yet to become commercialized.
Image Credit: IEA, Global data centre energy demand by data centre type, IEA https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/global-data-centre-energy-demand-by-data-centre-type
In an effort to decarbonize data centers, Microsoft and Iron Mountain indicated in a recent ASU Lightworks webinar series (Watch here) that they have made significant impact in tiny steps towards that goal. We understood from the webinar that Microsoft has pledged to power their data centers and all its offices 100% through clean energy by 2030, creating a complete rethink over the world’s electric grids. With the claim of purchasing renewable energy, we also learnt that they are working on a ‘temporal matching‘ innovation - tracking energy demand in a specific location and supplying an equal amount of carbon-free energy to it. This 24/7 dynamic renewable energy matching will see a reduction in carbon emissions. They believe that their actions alone might not decarbonize the grid but Microsoft is committed to doing their part for decarbonizing the grid - as explained in the series.
We all are aware that Iron mountain is the first one to track hourly renewable energy for its data centers. Kevin Hagen, VP ESG Strategy, Iron Mountain explained in the series that Iron mountain provides data about the carbon impact of their infrastructures tracking the hourly content of energy used. (Watch here) This approach is believed to demonstrate a future vision of how companies can transition to a complete carbon free supply of energy.
Transitions like these will demonstrate the capability of the sustainability of the data centers market to meet the aggressive demands of 24/7 truly clean power. There are agreements made between several countries and various other measures taken to reduce the CO2 emissions - the Paris agreement to address climate change by reducing carbon emissions has 196 countries signed and aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Companies with huge data centers plan to achieve it faster but nevertheless, we are on the way to a carbon neutral future.
The stakes to address climate change have never been higher. The wellbeing of the planet, its ecosystems and people hang in the balance and their fate will be determined by the climate targets, policies and action taken this decade. All actors, including cities, need to do their part to ensure that the 1.5° target laid out in the Paris Agreement is met.
The Cities Race to Zero is a global campaign that aims to rally cities from around the world to commit to near term climate action to ensure we maintain on a 1.5° trajectory of global warming. It is a bold, ambitious global movement of cities who are committed to putting the goals of the Paris Agreement into action.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego and the City Council have adopted a Climate Action Plan roadmap to cut emissions and build a more resilient city by approving the City’s comprehensive action plan to reach its net-zero goal a decade or earlier. HUE celebrates this milestone and is excited to continue collaborating with the City of Phoenix to implement specific actions.
In the mid-20th century, Arizona was one of the most productive agricultural states. Warm temperatures contributed to plentiful harvests of crops such as cotton, alfalfa, and citrus. Arizona’s central cities and rural towns identified with agricultural production. This agricultural tradition is reflected in the Arizona state flag, and occupies 3 of 5 coveted C’s of Arizona (cotton, citrus, cattle, copper, and climate).
In July 2021, Osvaldo Sala, founding director of the Global Drylands Center and Julie A. Wrigley Chair, Regents and Foundation Professor, was nominated by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to serve a three-year term on the Committee to Advise the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP).
Global Drylands Center’s Osvaldo Sala and Celina Osuna collaborated with Ed Finn, Director of ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination (CSI), and co-authored a piece for Scientific American to celebrate the premiere of Dennis Villeneuve’s epic adaptation of Dune and take the opportunity to shed light on the beauty and biodiversity of the earth’s deserts in the face of common misrepresentations.
