The Sustainable Cities Network and ASU Project Cities attended the AZ Planning Association (AZ APA) State Conference from September 11 to 13, 2019. The conference is an annual gathering of planning professionals from both the public and private sectors to share best practices and celebrate successes. Several fascinating workshops were offered in four main areas: Nuts & Bolts, Environment, Transportation and Communities.

Former Project Cities student Maggie Dellow, PC Program Manager Steve Russell, Rudy Esquivias of Apache Junction, and Meagan Ehlenz from the School of Geographic Sciences and Urban Planning delivered a panel discussion on Friday morning to a packed house of over 100 attendees. The session highlighted a spring 2019 research project conducted by Dellow as her capstone project with the ASU Master in Urban and Environmental Planning Program. This was Dellow’s third public presentation of her research with Project Cities; past presentations were delivered to the Apache Junction City Council during a work session meeting (time 26:59 - 50:50), as well as to the ASU community via the Project Cities Spring 2019 End of Semester Showcase (time 1:05:36 -1:21:13).

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The new semester means new projects and partnerships for Arizona State University’s Project Cities. This August marks the inauguration of our newest partner, the City of Peoria. For their first year, we’ve matched five unique projects with a great multidisciplinary team of ASU students and faculty. Project Cities recently held a kickoff event with Peoria, as well as a site visit with another partner community, Glendale, to launch these new initiatives.

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The Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems focuses on innovative ideas and solutions to the many challenges of current food systems. 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 Mark Manfredo, director and professor at the Morrison School of Agribusiness  in the W. P. Carey School of Business.

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Founded by Paulo Shakarian, Cyber Reconnaissance, Inc. CYR3CON leverages a patented hybrid of artificial intelligence and darkweb mining to predict and prevent future cyberattacks before they occur. CYR3CON approaches cybersecurity from the hacker’s worldview, identifying real threats to client assets based on attacker behaviors. Rather than providing broad and non-specific risk management information, CYR3CON intelligently sources the necessary data that, when analyzed, predicts the likelihood of an actual attack.

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Arizona State University professor Heather Throop penned a new research article that advances our understanding of dryland litter cycles. Drylands are arid ecosystems characterized by a lack of water. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, drylands  "have been shaped by a combination of low precipitation, droughts and heat waves."

Litter in this case refers to parts of plants that have detached and fallen to the ground. A litter cycle is then the journey of litter from its location on the ground, its movement by horizontal or vertical vectors (such as water), and its eventual decomposition in the same or a secondary location. The litter decomposition rates in drylands are often underpredicted, resulting in a key knowledge gap that is important to address because litter decomposition has a significant influence on ecosystem properties. 

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Moved by the beautiful scenery she witnessed during a hike, Casey Rapacki decided then and there to dedicate her life to protecting the planet and its species.

“I love our planet, but I fight for social, economic and environmental health for my love of living beings,” Rapacki said. “The planet will continue on, and I want to make sure that we thrive along with it for years to come.”

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In this month's episode we sit down with Matt Smith, a PhD candidate at Florida International University, to talk about Hurricane Dorian and some of his research comparing urban wetlands in Portland, Oregon and Valdivia, Chile. He tells us about storm surges, sea level rise, and the comprehensive Miami-Dade County Hurricane Readiness Guide. Wetlands, as it turn out, are valuable infrastructure surrounding Miami for dealing with sea level rise and mitigating the effects of hurricanes. He also found through his research that urban wetlands in Valdivia and Portland had fairly similar nutrient dynamics. Matt contends that more cities ought to explicitly consider wetlands in their resiliency plans as key infrastructure solutions capable of improving water quality, mitigating floods, and more.

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.sustainability.asu.edu/urbanresilience.

Listen on iTunes, Stitcher or Buzzsprout.

Arizona Youth Climate Summit

Saturday, September 7, 2019

Agenda

8:30 – 9:00 a.m.

Attendee Check-in

Light breakfast courtesy of ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability

9:00 – 9:35 a.m.

Introduction and Keynote

Arizona Youth Climate Strike and GreenLight Solutions

Paul Hirt, Environmental Historian, ASU

9:40 – 10:10 a.m.

Workshop: Lobbying 101

Creosote Partners

10:20 – 11:20 a.m.

Elected Official and Candidate Fair

11:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Workshop: Press and Media Connections 101

Stacey Champion, Champion PR + Consulting

12:05 – 12:45 p.m.

Zero Waste Lunch and Volunteer Fair

Lunch courtesy of ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability

12:50 – 1:20 p.m.

Workshop: Incorporating Art in Activism

Sunrise Movement Phoenix

1:20 – 1:25 p.m.

Intermission

Kevin Goddard, Sustainability Officers Program

1:25 – 1:55 p.m.

Workshop: Local Policy Change

Braden Kay, Sustainability Director, City of Tempe

2:00 – 2:30 p.m.

Workshop: Everyday Activism

Ashley Weisman, Program Development Director, GreenLight Solutions

2:35 – 3:10 p.m.

Workshop: Civic Engagement

NextGen Arizona and Mi Familia Vota

3:10 – 3:35 p.m.

Workshop: Inclusive Conversations

CHISPA Arizona

3:35 – 3:45 p.m.

Closing Statements

3:45 – 4:15 p.m.

Photos + Cleanup + Networking

The Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems focuses on innovative ideas and solutions to the many challenges of current food systems. 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 Punam Ohri-Vachaspati, professor professor of Nutrition at the School of Nutrition and Health Promotion.

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2019 marks ten years since the launch of The Sustainability Consortium. The group has released its 2019 report, Reaching Sustainability Through Transparency. The report shows a 30 percent improvement in consumer goods supply chain transparency since 2016.

The data represented includes over $200 billion in annual consumer purchasing from Walmart, Amazon, Kroger, Walgreens, and Sprouts. TSC translates the best sustainability science into business tools that are used all over the world to create more sustainable consumer products. With over 100 members and partners, TSC brings together a wide range of companies, NGOs and sustainability experts to drive environmental and social sustainability impact at scale.

Once again, Arizona State University was named to Sierra Magazine's top 10 list of Coolest Schools. The annual list of the greenest colleges recognizes ASU for its wide-ranging sustainability efforts, from a fair trade pledge to climate-neutral construction to coral reef research.

A simple question propelled Dawson Morford into the field of sustainability.

“When picking a major I had a close friend say, ‘Don’t you like all that renewable energy stuff?’ He was right — I always liked learning about all of the cool ways that society was creating energy," Morford said. "This then brought me to the arena of sustainability and I have not looked back since."

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ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Faculty Affiliate David Manuel-Navarrete’s expertise on Amazonian biodiversity was featured in an Arizona PBS special of the television program Arizona Horizon.

During the interview, he answered pressing questions regarding the environmental impact of the current Amazon fires. He also explained why this year’s fires are more devastating than previous ones and how this crisis will affect us at national and global scales.

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Arizona State University professors Osvaldo Sala, a drylands researcher and Regents Professor in the School of Life Sciences, and Meenakshi Wadhwa, a cosmochemistry expert and the new director of ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration, have been elected to the 2019 class of the American Geophysical Union Fellows. The election is an honor just 0.1% of AGU members in any given year enjoy. To be elected is a recognition of “attaining scientific eminence through achievements in research, as demonstrated by a breakthrough or discovery, innovation in science or the development of methods and instruments, or sustained impact," according to the AGU.

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What is the future of coffee in a changing climate? How can we enhance the livelihoods of farmers while protecting the nature that surrounds them?

Conservation International and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research partnered with Arizona State University to help answer these questions.

“Farmers and government planners are making decisions today based on their past experience,” ASU-CI Professor of Practice and CI Peru's Director of Science and Development Percy Summers said. “This works in a [short-term, predictable] world, but increasingly change has become the new norm.”

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One of Arizona State University's newest faculty members, Sir Jonathan Bate, is an international leader in green thinking and applied humanities. Bate holds a joint appointment as a Foundation Professor of Environmental Humanities in the Global Futures Laboratory, the School of Sustainability and the Department of English.

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Although she grew up in Phoenix, Emma Goethe attended a small, private university in California until she decided Arizona State University was a better match. She transferred and hasn’t looked back since.

“I decided to transfer to ASU and it was the best decision I have ever made. Once I was admitted to [Barrett, the Honors College at] ASU, sustainability was really the only major that stood out to me,” Goethe said. “Truly, in the beginning, I didn’t know just how much sustainability covers. It’s not just about the environment, but it’s also about economics, policy and the social impacts that sustainability creates.”

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Arizona State University's first solar project in Puerto Rico promotes energy independence for the community of Barrio La Salud. Using flexible solar panels, a novel racking design and battery backup, community leaders can safely remove and replace panels before and after a major storm or hurricane. Doctoral students Jessica Otten and Tara Neitzold are part of a team of Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) students who worked with community leaders to design the system.

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Founded in 2007, Women Deliver is a global advocacy organization that “champions gender equality and the health and rights of girls and women” according to their website. Every three years, the organization hosts a conference to bring individuals and activists from around the world together to connect and work on revolutionary ways to address gender equality and women’s issues.

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Same faces, different mission. Formerly known as the GIOS proposal team, the GFL RDO team helps Sustainability Scientists & Scholars achieve sustainability research success. We now provide the infrastructure, leadership, training and resources to promote integrated scholarly activities and increase research competitiveness in the pursuit of external funding. Our activities include capacity building, strategic thinking, and fostering collaboration. Although our team no longer offers research advancement services, we are excited to still provide proposal editing to Sustainability Scientists and Scholars.

We aim to increase faculty competitiveness by increasing faculty readiness, catalyzing people and ideas, and developing faculty research skills. Ann Marie Hess continues to lead the team, but now as Capture Manager, Rena Saltzman is Research Development and Project Lead, and Dana Desonie continues as Science Editor.