Sustainability News

It was in middle school that Maximilian Christman first thought about how people impact the environment, when his mom showed him an article from People magazine about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. “While I wasn’t familiar with the term ‘sustainability’ at the time, I knew that I wanted my life and career to leave a positive mark on the world,” he said.

Fueled by this passion, Christman graduated from Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability in 2014 with a bachelor of science focusing on sustainable energy, materials and technology. He later received a master of environmental management from Duke University. Since wrapping up his studies, Christman worked for two years as the sustainability specialist for the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s health department (UW Health), and he recently accepted a new position as the sustainability manager for the California Institute of Technology.

“We can follow different paths, but each of us sustainability professionals is forging our way ahead towards progress in our field and our world,” he said.

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Between rising temperatures, melting glaciers and intense hurricanes, climate change not only has long-term effects but is also impacting our everyday lives.

According to NASA, sea levels will rise 1 to 4 feet by 2100. Sea rise combined with storm surges can cause flooding in many regions. A community’s economy and migration might be impacted by these environmental effects.

Arizona State University Assistant Professor Valerie Mueller, who's a senior sustainability scientist in ASU's Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, and Joyce Chen from Ohio State University look into this topic in a recently published paper in Nature Climate Change titled “Coastal climate change, soil salinity and human migration in Bangladesh.”

Mueller, who is part of the School of Politics and Global Studies, spoke to ASU Now about about how sea-level change affects farming communities in Bangladesh. Read her Q&A on ASU Now.

No, but the risk is exploding.

by Bob Litterman

I spent the better part of my career assessing risk for major financial institutions and often used mathematical modeling to understand potential outcomes. More recently I have applied the same risk assessment methodology to ask how serious is climate change, and I find that the rate at which climate change risk is growing is startling.

And, of course, I am not alone. For example, the IPCC recently released a report calling for emissions reductions of a scale requiring unprecedented systems change. In other words, according to a global scientific consensus, it is time to slam on the brakes.

The reason it is time to slam on the brakes now is that the risk created by not doing so is exploding.

View a PDF of this article with graphics.

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Natural disasters are an increasingly common reality for hundreds of thousands of Americans, and as climate change and urbanization amplify the frequency and intensity of these events, the response by communities, governments and private citizens is more important than ever before, according to Brian Gerber, co-director of Arizona State University's Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

But academics, government agencies and volunteers are rising to the challenge — developing critical disaster responses, participating in full-scale exercises and harboring cross-sector partnerships for the inevitable day a disaster strikes.

Those partners came together Thursday at a Sustainability Series event titled "How Will Arizona Respond to a Major Regional Disaster?" The event was presented by the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, the Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security, the Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation and the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center.

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Alex Slaymaker is only 26, but she has already received a master’s degree (the Master of Sustainability Solutions at Arizona State University) and has worked in several sustainability fields in the U.S. and Europe, including zero waste, urban agriculture, climate adaptation planning, health, urban design and green building.

"I first learned about the complex opportunities and challenges around smart cities in a class at the School of Sustainability, and now I’m on a talented team leading the world in smart city innovation," Slaymaker said.

Currently, Slaymaker is working for Smart Columbus, a 50 million dollar initiative to reinvent transportation in Columbus, Ohio for a more sustainable future. Read Slaymaker’s Q&A below for more about how she got inspired to work in urban sustainability and how the School of Sustainability prepared her to take on big challenges.

Question: What was your “aha” moment when you realized you wanted to study sustainability?

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The Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research program, a unit of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University, was recently featured in an episode of “Catalyst” by Arizona PBS. The episode, “Desert animals in urban centers,” discussed current research about how natural environments (including plant and animal life) are affected by urban development.

Sharon Hall, a senior sustainability scientist who works with the CAP LTER, said that some plant and animal life continues to flourish within or nearby Phoenix.

"There's all these hidden spots around the city that nature is thriving,” said Hall. “If we can think about finding those areas and protecting them — or at least understanding them a bit better, maybe then we can try to make our landscape a little bit more friendly to the types of animals that . . . are living among us all the time."

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Esteban Jobbágy, an Arizona State University Global Drylands Center affiliate, has been named a 2018 American Geophysical Union Ambassador Award recipient. Recipients are chosen and recognized for their achievements in space and Earth science and also their dedication to science that benefits humanity.

AGU President Eric Davidson stated in a press release that “this year’s awardees exemplify AGU’s ongoing commitment to recognizing and promoting the best scientific research, education, and communication in the Earth and space sciences.” Honorees will be recognized at the 2018 AGU Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C. this December.

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Alexia Bednarz graduated from Arizona State University in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree from the School of Sustainability and a minor in design studies from the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Shortly after graduating, she landed a job with U-Haul, where she still works today as a community advocate for corporate sustainability. Bednarz was recognized on October 6 as a “Sustainability Champion” by Arizona Forward during a ceremony in which she received an Award of Distinction.

Bednarz answered a few questions for us about how she ended up as a sustainability major and how the degree has propelled her career.

Question: What was your “aha” moment when you realized you wanted to study sustainability?

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Caroline Cloud graduated from the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University in 2017, and now she is working at Yellowstone National Park as a Risk and Sustainability Specialist for the park's concessions management company, Xanterra.

Cloud recently spoke with ASU Student Life about her position. "Don’t be afraid to take a job away from home or out of your comfort zone," she said. "If you’re qualified, apply."

Read Caroline Cloud's full Q&A from ASU Student Life.

Single-use plastics — such as cups with straws, takeout containers and water bottles — are so common in our culture of convenience that we often don’t give them a second thought.

But their momentary utility is misleading: These items stick around a really long time.

Because of the way plastic is designed, “its afterlife is much longer than its useful lifespan,” said Rolf Halden, director of the Biodesign Institute's Center for Environmental Health Engineering at Arizona State University. Plastic that we use for just a moment “has the potential to pollute for decades, centuries or millennia.”

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If conservation science is going to save the myriad species under threat in the world today, it’s going to have to go about it more efficiently, according to a paper published this week by an Arizona State University ecology professor.

If academia remains in an ivory tower and nongovernmental organizations working to save species lurch from problem to problem, headway won’t be made fast enough to stem the tide of biodiversity loss, said Leah Gerber, a professor in the School of Life Sciences. She is also founding director of the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes, where she leads a team of staff and scholars building capacity to solve the most pressing biodiversity environmental challenges.

Like many other fields, conservation science tends to rely on intuition — rather than evidence — about decision-making, resource allocation and spatial planning. Evidence would be the basis for an actionable principle, Gerber said.

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Awardees of the inaugural WE Empower UN SDG Challenge — a global business competition for female entrepreneurs who are advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals — recently spent several days in New York City for the U.N. Global Goals Week.

The WE Empower Challenge was initiated by Amanda Ellis, executive director of Hawaii and Asia Pacific for the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University. Ellis attended Global Goals Week with the five awardees, who represent each of the U.N. regions, as did ASU student Ember Van Vranken from the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, who helped screen the applicants and was randomly chosen to join the group in New York.

During their time in New York, the awardees were featured at a high-level session at the U.N. General Assembly with the U.N. secretary-general, the president of the World Bank, five female presidents and the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. They participated in leadership trainings including blockchain and a number of networking opportunities, and had their work highlighted by the U.N. Foundation. Among their activities was a meeting with Lauren Gula, the U.N.'s senior manager of gender equality, to sign the Women's Empowerment Principles.

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Experts predict that by 2050 we’re going to have global broadband internet satellite networks, in-orbit manufacturing, space tourism, asteroid mining and lunar and Mars bases.

More than a gigawatt of solar energy will be needed to power these activities, or the equivalent of 3.125 million photovoltaic panels. However, because it is currently the most expensive component on a satellite, scientists are looking for ways to make solar energy in space affordable — and to keep solar power systems from degrading so quickly in the extremely harsh environment of space.

Arizona State University postdoctoral researcher Stanislau “Stas” Herasimenka thinks he has the solution to provide cost-effective and efficient, next-generation solar power for space applications.

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The National Science Foundation has awarded a $1.5 million Smart and Connected Communities grant to a team of researchers at Arizona’s three public universities to develop a network that integrates existing technologies and crowdsourced data to improve real-time knowledge of flooding and enhance communication during flood events.

The Integrated Flood Stage Observation Network (IFSON) will capitalize on a number of communication technologies to bring together citizens and mobilize city planners, first responders and other local stakeholders to assess flood risks and effectively communicate within a shared, collaboratively constructive information space for flood emergencies.

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Sometimes something sweet requires serious smarts.

Arizona State University sustainability scientist Kristen Parrish’s work focuses on integrating energy-efficiency methods into the design, construction and operational processes of buildings.

Robert Wang’s expertise in thermal science includes the applications of thermoelectricity, thermal-energy storage and phase-change materials and processes.

Together they are a formidable force in the quest for … well-preserved, quality ice cream.

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PolarGlobe is a large-scale, web-based four-dimensional visualization tool allowing climate data access to anyone with an internet connection. It’s capable of illustrating changes in the atmosphere vividly in real time. This tool was developed by Wenwen Li, a senior sustainability scientist in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University.

Designed specifically for polar scientists seeking to understand the ice caps, the tool is also useful for high school science teachers and weather fanatics.

“It’s not just for research. Every day, weather watchers can see what’s going on,” said Li, who is also an associate professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. “We would love to inspire the next generation into science.”

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In 2015, world leaders agreed to establish 17 goals to achieve a better world by 2030. An end to poverty and hunger. Clean water and energy. Gender equality and decent work. Together, they are called the United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development.

And when they’re met, it's remarkable.

Arizona State University faculty members working on projects that fulfill the goals have seen it in places stretching from Pakistan to Pacific islands.

ASU Now profiled three projects advancing these UN Sustainable Development Goals that are led by sustainability scientists from the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability: Netra Chhetri, Clark Miller and Laura Hosman. Read the full story.

Arizona State University sustainability scientist Peter Buseck is part of a team that recently received a $1 million award from the Keck Foundation with additional ASU matching funds to lead an ASU effort to further explore carbon’s potential.

Chemists have more recently dreamed of harnessing the potential of carbon’s next frontier — an exotic yet elusive pure form called carbyne. Carbyne is a chainlike material proposed to be stronger than diamond, more conductive than copper, and even reportedly found in stardust and meteorites.

But for the past few decades, many scientists have staked various claims of making carbyne in the lab — only to be proven wrong in the waking light of day by the rigorous work of the scientific community, including contributions from Buseck, who has a joint appointment in the School of Molecular Sciences and the School of Earth and Space Exploration.

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Sustainability students are growing into the new semester — along with a new crop of vegetables in their revamped community garden.

Students of all grade levels gathered in the S-cluster community area of the Adelphi II dorms in Tempe on Friday to reclaim their community garden after being away while the Adelphi Complex was shut down for renovation.

The garden is about so much more than growing plants, according to Yaritza Hernandez, a sophomore double-majoring in sustainability and innovation in society.

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Sophomore Justice LeVecke originally wanted to be a nursing student — and only a nursing student. Now, she’s double majoring in sustainability and nursing at Arizona State University, all because of a high school program that made her realize she “could do more in [her] career and during [her] life with a background in sustainability.”

During her time at Mountain Pointe High School in Phoenix, LeVecke took an Advanced Placement Environmental Science course that was eligible for School of Sustainability college credit through a partnership with ASU. Read more in her Q&A about how she got inspired to continue with sustainability:

Question: What did you like about the ASU Sustainability School @ Mountain Pointe program?

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