After the United Nations IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land was released in August 2019, several Arizona State University scientists associated with Global Futures Laboratory wrote a response: “Recognizing the urgency of our climate crisis.” This response briefly summarizes the report and the strategies it describes to mitigate climate change and increase global food security. In addition, the response stresses the importance of acting with urgency, removing CO2 from the air and point sources, and engaging people who are most vulnerable to climate change.

You can read the response 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.

Osvaldo Sala, a Regents and Foundation Professor at Arizona State University and a Distinguished Sustainability Scientist in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, was elected on August 16 as president of the Ecological Society of America. Elected by ESA members during the society’s annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, Sala will be president for a one-year term that ends in 2020. He is the first Hispanic person to serve as president in the organization's century-long history.

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Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) were recipients of an award from the Ecological Society of America.

Winners of the award are recognized for their “outstanding contributions to ecology in new discoveries, teaching, sustainability, diversity, and lifelong commitment to the profession,” according to an ESA announcement.

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Paul Westerhoff, the Fulton Chair of Environmental Engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and a senior sustainability scientist in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, was recently named the 2019 Clarke Prize Laureate by the National Water Research Institute. According to their website, the NWRI presents the annual 50,000 dollar prize and a medal to recognize researchers that solve real-world water problems and have made outstanding achievements in water science and technology.

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In case you missed it, we recently published an op-ed on Medium called “Why we are launching the ASU Global Futures Laboratory,” co-written by our Vice President and Vice Provost Peter Schlosser and Arizona State University President Michael Crow. In this piece, Schlosser and Crow outline why ASU established the Global Futures Laboratory and what our initiative aims to do.

The op-ed is the first post on our new Medium channel, which we will use as a platform to share short op-eds from not only our leadership, but also the scientists and scholars within our network who are pioneering solutions to global sustainability.

To ensure you don’t miss any posts, follow our Medium channel directly, or follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn where we will announce all new posts.

Hashtags are great, aren't they? They allow you to find people who are posting about a similar topic. You might use a hashtag to post questions or comments during a conference. You might use a hashtag to join a social media movement. You might use them to find cute pictures of puppies.

The ASU Wrigley Institute has established hashtags for our sustainability scientists and scholars -- you can find them on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Search and use the hashtags #SustyScientist and #SustyScholar to join the conversation.

The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) announced today that Arianne Cease, director of the Global Locust Initiative in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, is one of nine recipients of its 2018 New Innovator in Food and Agriculture Research Award.

The purpose of the award is to invest in budding scientists in the food and agriculture field. According to FFAR, “The award recipients were selected on a number of criteria including scientific merit, innovation and a demonstrated commitment to mentoring other young scientists.”

The nine scientists win a total of $2.3 million over three years, and Arizona State University will match the funds given to Cease as a stipulation of the grant. Cease’s work explores the connections between land-use practices and locust outbreaks, and identifies and addresses barriers to sustainable locust management. The Global Locust Initiative also recently won a major grant from the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.

“Locust plagues are a global challenge that requires a team effort to address, and I’m excited to see FFAR support our cross-sectoral, interdisciplinary and transboundary approach,” Cease said. Cease is the only scientist from Arizona to win a New Innovator Award this year.