For 20 years, Arizona State University’s Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Program has been studying the Phoenix urban ecosystem from a holistic, interdisciplinary and social-ecological perspective. The National Science Foundation has funded CAP through grants since 1997 as part of its national network of 28 LTER sites. Recently, news broke that the fourth phase of CAP research will be fully funded through 2022.

“I was at a remote field camp in South Africa teaching my study abroad program when word came from the NSF that a decision had been made,” said Dan Childers, CAP’s director and School of Sustainability professor. “We didn’t even have cell service where we were, so I called our NSF program officer on a satellite phone. It was wonderful to get this very good news while in such a beautiful place!”

Much of the current CAP research is focused on urban ecological infrastructure, which is effectively everything except the built environment. The overarching goal of the program is to foster social-ecological research aimed at understanding complex urban ecosystems, using a holistic perspective while enhancing urban sustainability and resilience. The CAP research enterprise is organized around eight interdisciplinary research questions and includes nearly 60 ASU faculty from all four campuses, scientists from several other universities, and dozens of students and postdoctoral scholars.

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There is a Great Transition underway, a colossal shift from fossil fuels to wind, plants, natural processes and our sun. It’s born from technological innovation and necessity. If humanity continues to dispel the dark entirely with carbon fuels, we will eventually wipe ourselves out.

Renewable energy sources are no longer the sole province of Northern California hippies and hard-core Alaskan survivalists.

Are we skipping blithely toward a clean-air future, with solar panels on every roof and an electric car in every garage? Not at all. Experts agree your energy future will involve a mix of sources. It will also involve solving a massive problem that is composed of thousands of problems itself.

Read the full story on ASU Now to learn what Arizona State University researchers are doing to develop scalable, renewable energy solutions for the "wicked problem" of fossil fuel consumption.

During a four month internship, Ethan McCloskey, a Bachelor of Science student at the School of Sustainability, used his drive and work ethic to participate in the Stardust Affordable Housing Internship with the City of Phoenix. The department was so impressed with his work that now, after graduation, he is employed with his former supervisor expanding on the projects he worked on as an undergrad.

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Julie Ann Wrigley isn’t one just to talk about what needs to happen in society. She takes action. At Arizona State University alone, Wrigley has invested more than $50 million dollars in something she believes deeply in: sustainability.

Without Wrigley’s investments in ASU, the university wouldn’t be the leader in sustainability that it is today. Her philanthropy at the university started in 2004, when she joined ASU President Michael M. Crow at a pivotal retreat where many of the world’s sustainability leaders discussed challenges facing our planet and what a university could do to address them. At this retreat, the vision for an interdisciplinary sustainability institute was born.

Wrigley helped make this vision a reality with an initial gift of $15 million dollars. In doing so, she became the co-founder of ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability, a dynamic hub of research, education and solutions. After Wrigley invested another $25 million in the institute, it was renamed after her in 2014.

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A new collaboration established between ExxonMobil Foundation, Conservation International and the University of Guyana promises to advance sustainable employment and conservation in the region, as announced yesterday in a Houston Business Journal article.

As part of the ASU-Conservation International partnership, CI will work with Arizona State University and other key international universities to develop training on environmental innovation and sustainability and on entrepreneurship in nature-based sectors to advance this initiative.

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Arizona State University School of Sustainability alumna Genevieve Pearthree knew what she wanted to do in a career and forged her own educational path to get there. After creating her own bachelor’s degree in California, as she explained in the interview below, Pearthree graduated with concurrent ASU master’s degrees: a Master of Science in Sustainability in 2018 and a Master of Urban and Environmental Planning in 2017.

In April 2018, Pearthree attended the American Planning Association’s national conference in New Orleans and was awarded the American Institute of Certified Planners Student Project Award for Applied Research. She received this award for her grant-funded work discussing affordable housing in Ketchum, Idaho — a small city that relies heavily on tourism. Pearthree also serves on the School of Sustainability Alumni Board and is involved with the American Planning Association and the Arizona Planning Association.

Pearthree is now an Associate Planner with the City of Flagstaff’s Current Planning department, working with planners and developers to shape Flagstaff's urban form and meet long-term city goals around sustainability, walkability, public transit, open space preservation, affordable housing, historic preservation and more. She took a break from her busy schedule to talk sustainability and offer advice for current and future School of Sustainability students.

Question: What was your “aha” moment when you realized you wanted to study the field you majored in?

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In this episode, Stephen Elser sits down with Drs. Lauren McPhillips and Marissa Matsler to talk about their recent paper published in Frontiers in Built Environment entitled "Temporal Evolution of Green Stormwater Infrastructure Strategies in Three US Cities." We discuss the history of stormwater management in the U.S. and the rise of "green stormwater infrastructure" as a popular solution in cities across the country. The three cities compared here (Baltimore, Phoenix, and Portland) are vastly different from each other in terms of their history, culture, climate, and many other factors, which has led to unique patterns in their implementation of green stormwater infrastructure. Understanding these patterns of implementation allows us to better understand the suite of benefits that these features provide. We also hear haiku summaries of the paper!

If you have any questions about what you heard or have suggestions for future episodes, please e-mail us or find us on Twitter.

Listen on iTunes, Stitcher or Buzzsprout.

ASU undergraduate students who have a love for nature and the environment can join Nature at ASU.  This student-led organization helps connect students with education and career opportunities in a variety of related fields.

Their mission is to build, unite and empower an inclusive community of students to study and protect Earth’s biodiversity and its wild habitats.

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Douglas Lawton, Global Locust Initiative member and Arizona State University doctoral student, is spending the summer in Australia. Douglas studies landscape variables that affect the behavior of Australian plague locusts, and is co-advised by Arianne Cease, GLI Founding Director and ASU Assistant Professor, and Cathy Waters, a Rangelands Research Officer at the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries.

Lawton sent us the following update, along with preliminary maps he developed this summer:

"The Australian plague locust (Chortoicetes terminifera) is the most important Orthopteran pest in Australia. However, our knowledge on the types of habitat and corresponding environmental variables that lead to their swarms remains limited. Using a 30-year data set of Australian plague locust abundances throughout eastern Australia, I am building a heat map of favorable Australian plague locust habitats.

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To Arizona State University alumnus John Martinson, “range anxiety” — the fear of becoming stranded in an electric vehicle after the battery dies — is a state of mind, not an actual concern.

With a bit of planning, a cross-country road trip in an electric vehicle is possible. And Martinson should know: On July 1, he’s embarking on a monthlong father-son road trip from Arizona to Canada and back in his new Tesla, which advertises up to 310 miles of range.

Completing an ambitious road trip in an electric vehicle may worry some people, but for Martinson, it’s another way to live his values. Martinson is a recent graduate of the ASU School of Sustainability’s Executive Master of Sustainability Leadership program, and he’s also the school’s alumni board president. Before he graduated from the school, Martinson co-owned the successful China Mist Tea Company for 34 years. He believes in natural capitalism, which is a business model that takes into account the value of earth’s natural resources and ecosystems.

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Devon Rood completed her Solar Duck Curve and Sustainable Storage Options project in April 2018 as the culminating project for her Master of Sustainability Solutions (MSUS) degree.

Working with Arizona Public Services (APS), Rood’s goal was to evaluate the most sustainable energy storage option out of the three potential options APS was considering. These included pumped hydro energy storage, compressed air energy storage, and Lithium-ion batteries.

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As a professor, it can be hard to implement real-world projects and activities into lesson plans. That’s why a team of Arizona State University sustainability researchers, staff and students created a website, “Real-World Learning Experiences for Sustainability,” to help instructors design different kinds of applied projects and implement them into coursework.

“We wanted this to be an open access tool to help facilitate real-world learning — not just at ASU, but anywhere in the world,” said Sydney Lines, Project Coordinator for Sustainability Connect, a platform for applied projects in sustainability problem solving at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability. Lines designed the RWLE website using content developed by Katja Brundiers, a School of Sustainability Assistant Research Professor; Aaron Redman, a School of Sustainability doctoral student; and Dorothy Trippel Broomall, a School of Sustainability alumnus and adjunct faculty member.

The RWLE are divided into four levels: beginner to advanced, or freshman to senior. Each level revolves around a different concept: bringing the world into the classroom, visiting the world, simulating the world and engaging the world. The website provides a toolkit for each level of learning, including activities connected to the School of Sustainability’s core competencies, downloadable resources, links to videos and other assets, and featured real-world examples.

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Earlier this June, Amanda Ellis, Director of Strategic Partnerships for Arizona State University’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, attended the annual Women Political Leaders Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. This event brought together approximately 400 female politicians, including heads of state, parliamentarians, ministers and mayors. Ellis was invited to attend as the moderator of a panel called “A Woman’s Place is in Politics” and also as the Master of Ceremonies to present the 2018 awardees.

The Women Political Leaders Summit started in 2013 and is designed to address global challenges, create action, and help female politicians exchange knowledge and best practices of political decision making. In addition, the summit works toward the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal Five: to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. According to the United Nations, “Providing women and girls with equal access to education, health care, decent work, and representation in political and economic decision-making processes will fuel sustainable economies and benefit societies and humanity at large.”

“The number of women in politics remains disappointing,” Ellis said. In 2017, less than six percent of the world’s heads of government were women, according to a United Nations report. “Yet research bears out the point made by [summit] panel member Esther Mcheka Chilenje, Malawi’s Deputy Speaker of Parliament: ‘When women are in power, we can lift up our colleagues and use our influence to help others and advocate for the legislative rights of women and children.’”

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On June 27 and 28, 2018, the Galapagos National Park and the Galapagos Science Center will be hosting the Third Annual Symposium on Research and Conservation in San Cristobal Island, Galapagos, Ecuador.

The two-day symposium will take place from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. (7 a.m. to 5 p.m. AZ Time) at the Charles Darwin International Convention Center. Live coverage will be available via the Galapagos Science Center’s Facebook page.

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