David Hondula, a senior sustainability scientist in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, was interviewed by the Washington Post about the Heat Ready initiative, a project funded by Healthy Urban Environments.
“We talk about climate … as something mysterious and ambiguous that comes from the sky. But it is also something we are driving with the way we are paving our streets,” Hondula said in the article. “Urbanization is a critical part of the story.”
The IUCN Red List categorizes species worldwide by their level of threat to extinction. Critically Endangered is the last level before the species becomes extinct.
The currently revised list contains more than 120,000 species assessed, with at least 32,000 of these species threatened with extinction. The updated list reveals the true scale of threat the primate and whale species are facing.
This blog post was written by Arizona State University graduate student Annalise VanVranken. In addition to studying Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership at ASU, Annalise is a Strategy and Partnerships project manager for FoodCorps, where she works to connect kids to healthy food in schools all across the US.
As temperatures rise this summer in Arizona, three heat experts — including two Healthy Urban Environments grantees — talked heat in the latest Vitalyst Health Foundation podcast, Vitalyst Spark. Catch grantees David Hondula, an assistant professor at the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, and Vjollca Berisha, a senior epidemiologist with Maricopa County Department of Public Health, on episode 35: "Heat, Health and COVID-19."
Hondula and Berisha strive to meet the needs of vulnerable populations and educate communities about available resources. In the podcast, they talk about heat and COVID-related challenges and opportunities that are shaping our lives in Maricopa County.
Arizona State University Library’s first Indigenous land acknowledgement is a five-sentence, 116-word statement about the place that the library and the university have inhabited for more than a century.
Under the direction of Lorrie McAllister, associate university librarian for collections and strategy, the statement was crafted by graduate students Alex Soto and Brave Heart Sanchez, with input from Jacob Moore, associate vice president of tribal relations at ASU; Joyce Martin, associate librarian and head of the library’s social sciences division who led the Labriola Center for more than 12 years; and other key faculty and staff stakeholders.
Soto, an operations supervisor who manages the Labriola Center on the West campus, says the land statement does a good job of recognizing where we are as a university library, both figuratively and literally, and can serve as a launch pad for deeper conversations about how the ASU Library might integrate and prioritize Indigenous knowledge systems.
As the coronavirus continues to surge across the United States, there is little doubt that the pandemic has upended American life as we know it. From disrupting the way people move in the world, to exposing racial inequalities, to introducing new questions about surveillance and personal privacy in tracking the disease, the nation has been changed by this experience.
Arizona State University researchers in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning are studying these changes in the American public and the future impacts COVID-19 can have on individual lives.
On Tuesday, Arizona State University’s Global Futures Laboratory, in partnership with Foreign Policy, convened a panel of leading global thinkers to discuss the surprising but powerful links among the coronavirus, climate change and inclusive governance.
“Scientists warn, COVID-19 is not a black swan event. Rather, as astrophysicist Adam Frank has pointed out, it’s a ‘fire drill’ for climate change,” explained Amanda Ellis, director of global partnerships at ASU Global Futures Laboratory. “We need to build back better and create a new normal to keep our planet habitable. To do that, we must call out the failures of global governance and the inconsistencies of national governments.”
Recent tragedies have brought increased awareness to issues of systemic racism in our nation today. But racism is not new --which calls for greater understanding of history and identifying approaches to tackle racism.
The ASU Committee for Campus Inclusion hosts the first of a series of important dialogues on systemic racism. Through a moderated panel discussion, we highlight the history of racism in America, what it looks like today, the role of anti-racism, and what we can do as members of the ASU community to tackle systemic racism.
Panelists include sustainability scientist Bryan Brayboy, President’s Professor and Director, Center for Indian Education; Stanlie James, Vice Provost, Inclusion and Community Engagement; Mako Ward, Clinical Assistant Professor and Faculty Head, African and African American Studies, School of Social Transformation. The moderator is Cassandra Aska, Deputy Vice President and Dean of Students and University Chair of Committee for Campus Inclusion.
It’s a far cry from the '60s, when engineers fought scientists. Now they are in the same building, unseparated by distance or bureaucratic walls.
This is the story of how ASU's tiny geology program grew to become one of only seven U.S. institutions that can build interplanetary spacecraft. It's a story sure to instill Sun Devil pride.
It begins with the purchase of a meteorite collection, shoots to the moon with some Navy pilots who learned geology basics from an ASU professor, then turns to the hiring of sustainability scientist Phil Christensen, a self-described "accidental engineer."
The story includes interdisciplinary research and student experiences, investments in research facilities, years of hard work, hundreds of students, and an exceptional group of scientists including Christensen, Jim Bell, Craig Hardgrove, and sustainability scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton, among many others.
This blog post was written by Arizona State University graduate student Paige Mollen. In addition to studying Food Policy and Sustainability Leadership at ASU, Paige is the Co-founder and President of the Mollen Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the prevention of childhood obesity.
“Don’t give up” and “never take no for an answer” were words that resonated throughout the office of the Honorable Rosa DeLauro, Democratic Congresswoman representing the 3rd District of the great state of Connecticut. These words of wisdom from her mother were passed down to ASU Food Systems and Sustainability Leadership cohort during our week-long immersion in Washington D.C. They have served her well.
Dr. Elsa Anderson stops by the show to talk with us about vacant lots and urban biodiversity, or how urban areas can provide spaces for many species of plants and animals. Dr. Anderson has worked on plant diversity in cities as diverse as Chicago, Illinois and Berlin, Germany. Her recent publications explore how different management strategies of vacant lots in cities, actions as simple as mowing or installing fences, or as complex as erecting a wall to divide two political philosophies, can impact plant communities for years to come. Find her on Twitter at @ElsaAnderson16 and Instagram @elsaa1016.
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.
In November 2019, Arizona State University responded to a request for information from the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, submitting a comprehensive, 70+ page response. The response incorporated input from nearly 50 faculty from across the university, drawn from our network of Sustainability Scientists, Scholars and Fellows, thus representing a truly transdisciplinary approach. This demonstrates ASU’s commitment to use-inspired science.
Peter Schlosser, Vice President and Vice Provost for Global Futures says: "This comprehensive and bold new report, Solving the Climate Crisis, provides a detailed roadmap for the transformational change necessary to guide a transition to a more sustainable, resilient, just, and equitable society. The plan includes ambitious, and detailed, but achievable goals, based in sound science, along with specific policy recommendations for climate action. The plan is based on transdisciplinary, collaborative, and solutions-focused research produced by Arizona State University through its Global Futures Laboratory, which is committed to designing implementable options to sustain global habitability and improve well-being for all humankind. We applaud Representative Castor and members of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis for their efforts to assert American leadership on the international stage and stand ready to support the federal government and its partners to implement the plan."
Overcoming social distance limitations, we successfully convened our grantees this summer. The first convening, on June 17th, focused on the progress of HUE’s first cohort: the 2019 grantees. In a virtual meeting the 2019 cohort presented their projects to 26 participants. Presentations were followed by a vivid discussion including questions from the 2020 cohort as well as from the HUE team.
On July 1, School of Sustainability master's student Hailey Campbell will be speaking in a virtual dialogue on the Role of Youth in Climate Action. The event is hosted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC. Register online for this event, which takes place at 6:00 a.m. Arizona time.
Campbell, a 2020 Barrett, the Honors College graduate who majored in sustainability, represented Arizona State University during the 2019 U.N. Climate Convention (COP25) held in Madrid, Spain. It was there she became involved with YOUNGO, the Children and Youth constituency to the UNFCCC.
"I started contributing to official YOUNGO submissions to the UNFCCC, hosting meetings with the Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) Work Group, and working with my peers to make ACE the focal point of COP26," said Campbell.
"When the time came for this webinar, the UNFCCC Youth focal points invited me to be a participant for our region to share my climate action story," she said.
In fall 2019, 29,842 (35%) of ASU undergraduate and graduate students were the first in their family to attend college. Thanks to the efforts of many, the number of first-generation students attending ASU has tripled since 2002.
The First-Year Success Center, in partnership with Access ASU, American Indian Student Support Services, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Office of Applied Innovation, Student and Cultural Engagement, TRIO Student Support Services, and Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions, is excited to announce the second annual First-Gen Zone conference for ASU faculty and staff.
Children playing outside during Arizona summers can face 100 days or more of temperatures north of 100°F. Too often playgrounds use heat-retaining, unnatural surfaces in the middle of parks with no shade, especially in Phoenix. These unshaded playgrounds can act as mini heat islands, which can disincentivize physically active play or even lead to burns.
ASU urban climate researchers Jennifer Vanos and Ariane Middel believe proper shading of playgrounds may be a solution.
Two new world records of lightning — the horizontal distance a bolt travels and the time duration of the flash — have been recorded by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The new records for "megaflashes," verified with new satellite lightning imagery technology, more than double the previous records measured in the U.S. and France, according to the WMO.
“This will provide valuable information for establishing limits to the scale of lightning — including megaflashes — for engineering, safety and scientific concerns,” said Randy Cerveny, an Arizona State University professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and the “chief rapporteur” of weather and climate extremes for WMO.
“It is likely that even greater extremes exist, and that we will be able to observe them as lightning-detection technology improves,” Cerveny said.
David Hondula, a senior sustainability scientist in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, was interviewed by the Washington Post about the Heat Ready initiative, a project funded by Healthy Urban Environments.
