Global Futures: Futurecast | Vol. 7, Winter 2024

Living in a World in transition

We live in the Anthropocene — a new geological era marked by humanity’s profound impact on the Earth’s systems. This era reflects the unprecedented pressures human activities have placed on the planet’s life-supporting systems. Climate change, for instance, is reshaping global weather patterns, manifesting as extreme temperatures, prolonged droughts and devastating storms and floods. At the same time, water scarcity is worsening, exacerbated by overuse, contamination and diminishing freshwater supplies due to changing atmospheric conditions. Ocean systems, too, are straining under the weight of rising temperatures, acidification, contamination and overfishing. Any of these conditions alone will impact lives, livelihoods, economies and global supply chains. Taken together, these pressures on our planetary systems put humanity on a dangerous course.

Guided by the best available knowledge, we have set ambitious goals to reverse this unsustainable trajectory. Yet, we are falling short of many critical targets due to insufficient commitments and action. This situation urgently demands increased efforts and innovative strategies to identify and pursue faster, more effective paths toward achieving the vital targets we are in danger of missing. The time to act decisively is now.

Moving from a climate crisis toward a climate emergency

In 2023, despite efforts to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, we moved close to surpassing this critical target. In 2024, we set yet another record for global summer temperatures, and we are on course to set another global temperature record averaged over the entire year. At least 6.3 billion people worldwide experienced 31 or more days of record-high heat.

At the same time, here in Phoenix, we endured a summer unlike anything in recent history, with temperatures at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) for 113 days in a row, beginning May 27 and stretching into October. Nationwide, extreme heat now accounts for more deaths than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined.

These extremes are no longer anomalies but the symptoms of a planet pushed to its limit.

Global warming affects all components of the Earth system. While we have experienced rapid atmospheric warming over the past 50 years, more than 90% of the excess heat from global warming has been stored in the oceans, creating conditions for faster, stronger, more destructive hurricanes. Hurricane Helene, for example, turned Asheville, North Carolina, into a post-apocalyptic landscape.

On the other end of the spectrum, wildfires, such as the Smokehouse Creek Fire in Texas and those in California and Oregon, displaced communities, destroyed ecosystems and caused significant economic and health impacts. The ecological toll is profound, with habitats obliterated, wildlife displaced and watersheds threatened by post-fire erosion.

As the planet continues to warm, these issues will only worsen, creating conditions that, if not addressed quickly enough, will render these and other climate-affected areas uninhabitable.

Impacts beyond climate

Climate change is one of many challenges we have imposed on the Earth’s life-supporting systems — and, by extension, humanity itself.

We are facing multiple interconnected issues in what is sometimes called a “polycrisis.” This polycrisis encompasses the ethical and sustainable transition to renewable energy, clean water access and food security; halting biodiversity loss; safeguarding ecosystem services; preserving and improving ocean health; and addressing numerous other interrelated issues.

Typically, we focus on the challenges posed by the degradation of our planet’s physical and biogeochemical systems. While such a focus is necessary to chart a pathway to a sustainable future, it is insufficient. If we are to solve these challenges, we must examine their root cause holistically. Our choice to overexploit the lifesupporting systems not only endangers the future of our planet but also the health and well-being of the life that resides in it at this moment in time.

Our growing reliance on fossil fuels has not only driven climate change but has disrupted economies and created deep social inequities, especially in areas embattled by conflict. The Russian invasion of Ukraine , for example, has upended natural gas supplies in Europe and forced many countries to rely on coal and costly imports, undermining climate targets. Meanwhile, sub-Saharan Africa faces persistent energy problems, with nearly 600 million people lacking reliable power. This has stalled economic development, as well as access to essential services in a continent considered the most energy-deficient in the world.

At the same time, habitat destruction, pollution and overexploitation of natural resources are driving species to extinction at an alarming rate, amplifying biodiversity and ecosystem services loss. The Amazon rainforest — often called the “lungs of the planet” — has lost nearly 17% of its forest cover

due to deforestation for agriculture and logging. In the oceans, coral reefs — home to a quarter of all marine life — are dying from warming waters and acidification, with the Great Barrier Reef losing over half of its coral cover in the last three decades.

Moving from observing and understanding to responding

We must take rapid, decisive action to prevent our planet from self-regulating. Such a scenario would limit our ability to respond and could result in significant loss of life. Growing societal instability worldwide is exacerbating this risk. Geopolitical shifts, rising neocolonialism, increasing migration and the growing rejection of migrants by many societies are all contributing to a volatile global landscape. At the same time, democratic structures are weakening and authoritarianism is rising. These factors divert attention away from urgent environmental issues and create a dangerous feedback loop that amplifies both societal and ecological pressures.

While awareness has increased and ambitious targets have been set, translating knowledge into action remains slow. This delay is compounded by insufficient coordination, despite attempts to reach a global consensus at international gatherings such as the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29). As a result, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Bridging the gap between knowledge and action requires not only advancing technological and policy solutions but also fostering the societal will needed to act on the information we already possess.

Addressing the crisis effectively also requires as

sciences as from the natural sciences. These disciplines allow societies to examine how cultural values, social behaviors and political structures influence human decision-making. Fields like anthropology and sociology help unpack the cultural and societal drivers of climate resilience, while political science identifies governance frameworks that foster collective action. At the same time, history and philosophy offer context for humanity’s understanding of being part of nature, while literature and art inspire public engagement and amplify marginalized voices, especially those most affected by global change. Without the critical insights these disciplines provide, solutions to combat the crisis might be technologically advanced but socially ineffective or unjust.

Ultimately, progress is as much a social challenge as it is a scientific one, requiring a transformation in human behavior, cultural norms and political systems to match the urgency of the crisis.

Building resilience and promoting cooperation

Despite these challenges, the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory remains steadfast in its mission to shape a future where all life can thrive on a healthy planet.

A central part of the Global Futures Laboratory is the Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine (SWSIE), a regional program funded by the National Science Foundation. Designed to equitably transform water security, renewable energy and net carbon emissions in the Southwest region, SWSIE combines the strength of university partners in Arizona, Nevada and Utah to advance

through sustainable job creation. A major goal of the NSF Regional Innovation Engines is to provide a platform on which new industries and technologies can be built and developed. SWSIE also focuses on training a workforce with new skill sets tailored to the new jobs benefitting the economic well-being of the Southwest.

We also established the Water Institute , a new international center of excellence for scholarship and action designed to predict and address water challenges from community to national scale. Among its many developing programs and events, the Water Institute established a collaborative initiative on U.S. wastewater access and conducted research on policy and management aspects of wastewater equity. It also kickstarted a monthly Climate and Water Futures Seminar Series and initiated the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) Workshop. The Water Institute is designed to understand water challenges on local and global levels and to provide scientifically based support needed to facilitate safe water access around the world.

The complexity of today’s energy challenges demands a community-centered approach. After more than a year of development, the Global Futures Laboratory introduced Energy Forward, a transdisciplinary ecosystem that unites energyfocused projects, ideas and working groups across ASU. Through collaborative funding and community partnership, Energy Forward aims to propel the world’s energy systems toward more equitable access to electrification and responsible, sustainable development for all of Earth’s citizens.

This year, ASU partnered with the city of Phoenix, Goodwill and the workforce development organization Hustle PHX to launch the Circular Plastics Microfactory. The microfactory is an applied research project dedicated to remanufacturing plastic waste to create functional, everyday items. By focusing production onsite, the facility is able to reduce global supply chain and transportation

logistics and ultimately curb greenhouse gas emissions. The facility is projected to prevent 550 tons of plastic waste from reaching landfills per year.

These initiatives are only a few examples of the many ways the Global Futures Laboratory is making a meaningful impact on the future of our planet and its inhabitants.

The path forward

Changing the trajectory of the global climate crisis requires bold, immediate action from every corner of society. Governments must implement ambitious policies and uphold commitments to reduce emissions and protect vulnerable ecosystems. Businesses and corporations must prioritize sustainability, innovation and accountability in their operations. Individuals must advocate, adapt and embrace new ways of living that prioritize the health of the planet.

Most importantly, collaboration must become our default approach — across borders, sectors and generations. The solutions exist. We know they do because we support their real-time development at our very own doorstep here within the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory. Humanity has more abilities to enact holistic and responsible change today than ever before. Future generations will look back at this decisive decade as a key moment in history. Whether they view this period of time as a source of inspiration or regret is up to us.

We must meet this moment and ensure that the story of the Anthropocene becomes one of renewal, resilience, action and hope.

Peter Schlosser Vice President

and Vice Provost, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, Arizona State University

ASU team’s research leads to new law protecting mobile-home residents

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs signed a law in 2024 that guarantees mobile-home owners’ right to install cooling measures, thanks in large part to the work of an Arizona State University team.

The Knowledge Exchange for Resilience at ASU (KER), an interdisciplinary center that works with communities to research and solve problems, worked for more than five years on the problem of extreme heat and mobile homes in the Valley.

Patricia Solís , executive director of KER, said that the team worked closely with mobile-home owners to pinpoint why so many people who live in mobile homes are vulnerable to extreme heat.

The data they collected led to the new law, which prevents landlords from denying tenants the right to install an air conditioner or other cooling measures. Hobbs signed it as an emergency action, so it went into effect immediately, on April 2.

“This is an inspiring example of what can happen when you work on the issues that come from

the community,” said Solís, who testified about ASU’s research on the topic at the Arizona Legislature in January 2024. “This is the reason I came to ASU — to do this kind of work. This is what KER was established for. This is what the ASU Charter was established for.”

The problem is critical because while mobile homes account for 5% of the housing in Maricopa County, about 30% to 40% of indoor heat deaths in any given year are people who live in mobile homes, according to the research by the center.

KER found that in Maricopa County, mobile-home dwellers who died from the heat were twice as likely to not have had air conditioning as victims who died in other kinds of homes. For mobilehome residents who did have air conditioning but died anyway, they were three times more likely to have had their electricity turned off compared with victims from other home types.

The project started when KER was formed in 2018, funded by a grant from the Virginia G.

Piper Trust. The team began working on the issue of extreme heat with a consortium of groups that provide assistance with utility bills.

The ASU team cross-referenced location data of where people received utility assistance with location data from Maricopa County of heatassociated deaths. There were many places that overlapped, but some spots showed a lot of deaths and little utility assistance.

Those turned out to be mobile-home communities.

“We did the math and, sure enough, there are many reasons that people who live in mobile-home parks are more vulnerable to extreme heat,” Solís said.

The research found that mobile-home dwellers were more likely to be older, live alone and have lower incomes. Many mobile homes are densely packed together on top of asphalt, increasing the heat.

Also, because while residents might own the home, they lease the land (often from the park owner), so they are not direct customers of utilities — the landlord is — and they cannot apply for utility assistance.

To drill down further on the risk factors, KER began working with the Arizona Association of Manufactured Home, RV & Park Model Owners, a residents’ advocacy group.

Solís reached out to several ASU students who were residents at a mobile-home park, and they were instrumental in getting their neighbors to participate in surveys about heat issues.

“We started out not knowing what the questions were, but in the process of discovery, we uncovered them step by step,” said Solís, who sat in sweltering homes while interviewing residents.

“We measured how hot it was and, in some homes, it was 105 degrees indoors during the summer,” she said. “I had people say things to me like, ‘I might not be here if you come back next year. I might not survive another summer.’”

The center put together a guide on how to mitigate heat in mobile-home communities by using methods such as shade sails and roof insulation. The Arizona Association of Manufactured Home, RV & Park Model Owners distributed the guide. Then that uncovered a deeper problem.

“We were hearing back, ‘I’d love to put a shade sail over my home but my landlord won’t let me,’ Solís said. “People were saying that their landlords were stopping them from putting in window air-conditioning units in the front of their houses because they could be seen from the street. It doesn’t make any sense to say, in Arizona, that you can’t put this in your home.”

The research needed to be transformed into policy that would allow residents the right to mitigate heat in their homes. KER shared its data with Wildfire AZ, a Phoenix-based antipoverty organization that started the first warmweather fuel fund in the country, in 2005.

“The lightbulb moment came out of ASU discovering the disproportionate number of heat-related deaths in mobile homes,” said Maxine Becker,

attorney advocate for Wildfire AZ. “At Wildfire, the leg of the race we ran was how can we take this important and wonderful information and tell this story to the Legislature?”

Wildfire shaped the language that became bill HB2146 and found a sponsor in Rep. David Cook.

“We found that no matter the party affiliation, every member we talked to was compassionate and wanted to make a difference,” Becker said. “They saw that this was something where the Legislature could intervene on behalf of people who are struggling in these mobile-home parks.”

In January, Solís testified about the research when the Commerce Committee of the House heard the bill.

“It was very important to have that expertise there so legislators could understand that this was grounded in science, data and real peoples’ experiences, and that element made it persuasive,” Becker said.

The committee voted unanimously to move the bill forward and it was approved unanimously by both the full House and the Senate. While the new law is a victory, the issue of vulnerability to extreme heat is ongoing.

“A third of indoor heat-associated deaths in the county are people who do have air conditioning and electricity and choose not to use it because they presume they can’t pay for it,” Solís said. “There are still a lot of problems to solve.”

KER has several resources on its website about extreme heat. One of them is a resource guide for mobile-home residents and mobile-home park owners in the event of a power outage during hot weather.

ASU graduate Britnie Britton was one of the authors of the guide. She learned about a previous power outage at a park in Mesa from one of the

board members of the Arizona Association of Manufactured Home, RV & Park Model Owners.

“We got insight and used that information for the guide on how a mobile-home community could be more prepared for a power outage,” she said.

Among the recommendations for mobile-home park owners are:

• Keep a list of nearby cooling centers.

• Arrange for wellness checks if an outage happens.

• Provide access to refrigerators and freezers powered by generators.

Recommendations for residents are:

• Prepare a package with flashlights, bottled water and medical records.

• Prepare an emergency plan for pets.

• Check on neighbors if an outage happens.

Britton, who received dual master’s degrees in public policy and sustainability solutions, also worked on research for the governor’s Extreme Heat Preparedness Plan, released in March.

Hobbs filed an executive order calling for the plan last year, after the hottest summer ever in Arizona, and tapped KER to lead the research.

“It was a highlight of the past year to see how different state agencies all have their own goals and all came together for a common goal to help support the executive order and how we can save lives in the summer to come,” Britton said.

Editor’s note: This story was written by Mary Beth Faller and was originally published in ASU News.

ASU retains No. 1 in US, top 10 globally in UN Sustainable Development Goals ranking

Times Higher Education also names ASU as No. 1 in US in 11 of 17 individual goals

With significant developments in ocean health, biodiversity, water security, food systems and sustainable economic development in the last year alone, Arizona State University has further established itself as a global leader in how a university can address the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Through its Impact Rankings , Times Higher Education once again has recognized ASU for its commitment to assuming fundamental responsibility for the communities it serves. For the fifth consecutive year, ASU retains its No. 1 spot in the United States and top-10 ranking globally for its work through education, research and practice in alignment with the SDGs. ASU also ranks No. 1 in the U.S. for 11 out of the 17 SDGs.

For its overall ranking, ASU came in ahead of Michigan State University, Penn State University and MIT domestically, and pulled ahead of Monash University, Université de Montréal and University of Edinburgh internationally.

These rankings demonstrate ASU’s efforts to address some of the greatest challenges of our time. The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings measure the effects made by universities across the globe as they address the SDGs, a set of 17 specific targets agreed upon by all U.N. member states in 2015 to achieve a more sustainable future by 2030.

“ASU’s repeated top ranking is more than a point of pride, it is proof of our unwavering commitment to creating the change we want to see in the world,” said ASU President Michael M. Crow. “As a 21st-century university dedicated to finding solutions to the world’s most pressing problems, our ranking reflects our priorities and progress in areas that demand urgent attention.”

The Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, an entity designed to explore sustainable futures of our world through discovery, learning, solutions and engagement, is uniquely positioned to address the SDGs and beyond. Peter Schlosser, vice president and vice provost of Global Futures at ASU, said the Global Futures Laboratory is designed to secure a future for all of Earth’s inhabitants on a healthy planet.

“We live in a decisive decade with respect to the decisions we make concerning a sustainable future of our world characterized by innovation, economic growth and opportunity,” said Schlosser. “These rankings are a confirmation of the course the Global Futures Laboratory and ASU as a whole have taken towards shaping a future in which all life can thrive on a healthy planet.”

For the fifth consecutive year, ASU retains its No. 1 spot in the United States and top10 spot globally for its work through education, research and practice in alignment with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Photo courtesy of ASU.

ASU has maintained its No. 1 spot in the U.S. and its place in the top 10 globally since 2020. ASU’s ranking was awarded in recognition of its leadership in these top three areas:

• No. 1 in the world for SDG 14, which addresses life below water; ahead of North Carolina State University, Penn State University and the University of Georgia.

• No. 2 in the world for SDG 11, focused on sustainable cities; ahead of Michigan State University, Penn State University and MIT.

• No. 3 in the world for SDG 15, which explores life on land; ahead of Penn State University, Michigan State University and the University of Maryland.

Scan this QR code to watch a video.

The reveal that ASU ranked No. 1 in the “Life Below Water” SDG comes after a busy year for ASU in the ocean space: The School of Ocean Futures, a school within the College of Global Futures, recently launched new undergraduate and graduate degrees that begin in fall 2024.

On June 7, ASU celebrated the past 120 years of ocean research with ASU Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, a long-running institution that merged with the Global Futures Laboratory in 2021. Meanwhile, in Hawai ‘ i, the reef restoration program ‘Āko‘ako‘a — led by ASU and local community partners — recently celebrated the official opening of its first state-of-the-art coral reef facility.

The other SDGs in which ASU ranked No. 1 in the U.S. are SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 4 (quality education), SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation),

SDG 7 (clean energy), SDG 10 (reduced inequalities), SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), SDG 13 (climate action) and SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions).

Times Higher Education also measures all universities on SDG 17, titled “Partnership for the Goals.” ASU rose significantly in its ranking this year compared with last year, supported by ASU’s implementation of a new general education curriculum. The General Studies Gold requirements now include sustainability as a core knowledge domain that all students must pursue as a general studies requirement.

“This updated ranking speaks to ASU’s unique ability to equip our large network of students with the skills needed in subjects like sustainability thinking, so that they can not only understand the challenges of our time, but feel informed and empowered to make an impact in their respective communities and future careers,” said Nancy Gonzales , executive vice president and university provost.

Learn more about ASU’s efforts in each of the 17 SDGs at sdgimpact.asu.edu.

Something in the water

ASU efforts unite water experts, drive real-world solutions for water security

Securing a thriving water supply remains at the forefront of climate discussions, and Arizona State University has demonstrated its commitment to a sustainable water future for all. The Arizona Water Innovation Initiative and the newly launched Water Institute combine the skills, efforts and insights of ASU’s water experts to tackle one of the most complex challenges of our time. Several members of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative and the director of the Water Institute participated in a roundtable discussion on their progress, the role of technology in solutionsmaking and the importance of collaboration.

Sarah Porter is the inaugural director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. She is also an attorney and has a broad understanding of both Arizona and regional water issues. She directed Audubon’s Western Rivers project, a multi-state initiative to raise awareness of the challenges to Colorado River sustainability, as well as protecting and restoring flows for critical habitats and communities. Porter is on the executive committee of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative at ASU.

Upmanu Lall is a professor in the School of Complex Adaptive Systems within ASU’s College of Global Futures. Prior to joining ASU in January 2024, Lall was the Alan and Carol Silberstein Professor of Engineering at Columbia University and served as director of the Columbia Water Center. Lall is the director of the Water Institute at ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory.

Paul Westerhoff is a Regents Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at ASU and the Fulton Chair of Environmental Engineering. He was elected into the National Academy of Engineering in 2023. He is the deputy director of a National Science Foundation Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment and deputy director of the NSF STC for Science and Technologies for Phosphorus Sustainability. Westerhoff is on the executive committee of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative.

Amber Wutich is an ASU President’s Professor, director of the Center for Global Health, and 2023 MacArthur Fellow. An expert on water insecurity, Wutich directs the Global Ethnohydrology Study, a cross-cultural study of water knowledge and management in more than 20 countries. Her two decades of community-based fieldwork explore how people respond, individually and collectively, to extremely waterscarce conditions. Wutich is on the executive committee of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative.

Susan Craig is a director in ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation. Previously, Craig worked for ASU’s Kyl Center for Water Policy at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy, driving projects on water resilience. One such project is the award-winning Arizona Water Blueprint, an interactive tool providing information to empower inclusive and informed decisionmaking. Before ASU, Craig worked for Arizona’s three primary state water agencies, where she led state water programs for 20 years. Craig is on the executive committee of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative.

Jay Famiglietti is a Global Futures Professor in ASU’s School of Sustainability and the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. He is professor emeritus from the University of Saskatchewan, where he was executive director of the Global Institute for Water Security, and where he held the Canada 150 Research Chair in Hydrology and Remote Sensing. Famiglietti is the director of science for the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative.

Editor’s note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

What is the driving purpose behind the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative?

Porter: Our southwestern region is at an inflection point with water. We see diminishing flows in the Colorado River. We have parts of the state that are reliant on groundwater, a nonredundant resource, and we’re seeing rapid or big increases in demand or depletion of groundwater resources. And yet, we still are importing a lot of new industries. Some of those new industries are high-water-use industries. Water managers are still trying to manage our water needs on a smaller supply, while enjoying our prosperity and quality of life. Water is one of the fundamental concerns for the state of Arizona.

We have people who never had access to clean, safe drinking water — and these are big populations. For example, the tribes in

northeastern Arizona. We have only two flowing rivers left in the state. So we have environmental issues; we have social and equity issues. More people are paying attention to these issues.

Arizona State University is a leading institution for water research. The Arizona Water Innovation Initiative pulls together a deep well of transdisciplinary experts to find and implement solutions to these challenges.

How do these solutions expand to a national and international level with the Water Institute?

Lall: A lot of the issues Arizona is facing can be easily applied to national and international scales. Many of the solutions developed here at ASU easily transcend the Southwest’s bubble. But that certainly isn’t the case everywhere. The communities that rely on the Mississippi River, for example, have a vastly different set of concerns than the ones we have here in Arizona. We must be thoughtful — “prescribing”

a solution in one place because it worked somewhere else is a losing strategy.

What we need to do is align policy, technology and financing so the overall design of our infrastructure systems allow us to be nimble to solve these problems anywhere. We talk about the need to update our infrastructure when it comes to energy, but water is no different. Water is stuck in the 20th century. Society has high aspirations for strong wastewater services, flood protection and stormwater control. The technology needs to catch up to those aspirations, and there is a lot of opportunity there.

How does technology play a role in taking advantage of this opportunity?

Westerhoff: We have a really interesting — and exciting — role in bringing together existing technology solutions and identifying what solutions need to exist but don’t yet. I think there has finally been a recognition that Arizona is an innovator in the water area. Previously, we’ve really focused on importing solutions from elsewhere and demonstrating them here. Things are shifting in Arizona. There are solutions from Arizona that we should start exporting to solve water problems. We are at a point where we are strong players. Arizona can and should help.

The other big recognition is that Arizona has a water problem, but it also has an evaporation problem. Evaporation is a really big challenge, and we need to innovate to control and reverse that evaporation. So in our Global Center for Water Technology, we’re funding about 25 different faculty teams looking at new technologies. We’re also addressing some of the state agencies’ priorities; How do we use technology — satellite imaging, artificial intelligence and more — to solve some of the problems that they don’t have the tools to solve?

Porter: I want to emphasize Paul’s point about importing versus exporting knowledge and

technology. Arizona is, in many ways, a really good testbed for these water solutions. When these solutions are emerging and being tested, we have that opportunity, as Paul said, to export them. While we’re solving our own problems, we’re able to help others who are in a similar situation. That is huge, and that’s part of our calling as a research institution and university.

There is more to addressing the water problems in our world than technological development. How does humanity play into the equation?

Wutich: Here at ASU, our commitment to the human side of water solutions is unique. Human water needs are often overlooked, especially in the most water-insecure households or communities. That’s a problem around the world. In the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative’s Arizona Water for All program, we build social infrastructure to help Arizona’s most water-insecure households and communities achieve short and long term water security.

There are two innovations that we’ve been working hard on. The first is with ASU’s Global Center for Water Technology: We’re building social infrastructure around the Modular, Adaptive, Decentralized (MAD) engineered technologies to optimally advance household water security. Our other initiative is building a cross-state Arizona Water for All Network, based in ASU with nodes at Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona, that coordinates community-based water research. This network is designed to serve the water needs of households and communities. We also have a third thrust, which is around measurement and monitoring to ensure our work has a positive impact on water security in the state of Arizona.

What’s especially exciting is that we’ve incorporated that human element across the board of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative. I’ll point to Susan Craig, who is really doing extraordinarily important work in that space.

Craig: Thanks, Amber. Impact WaterArizona is all about community engagement and translation of data. We provide funding for faculty and staff to come up with creative ideas for community engagement and have funded 18 projects since the initiative kicked off in 2022. The other piece of what we’re doing right now is a strategic initiative to address protection of rural groundwater. That includes putting together rural groundwater resilience workshops.

I think what’s really crucial is that when you’re engaging with communities like we do, you have to activate change. Simply talking to people isn’t enough; you have to hear their experiences, learn from their perspectives and do something about it. We want to make sure that there’s a real purpose to the work we do. If we are producing a product, it needs to be thoughtful. It needs to be useful.

What has the response been to your efforts so far? What does the future of the initiative look like?

Craig: I’ll give a recent example of the response, because it’s fresh in my mind. We just held a film screening in Willcox, Arizona, of a film we produced based on an agriculture exploratory scenario planning workshop we held there. The theater we held this event in was pretty small — around 60 people — but the theater was full and the energy was through the roof. We held a panel afterwards and the audience was just so engaged.

Through this workshop we held and then again through the film screening, the community just came together. The people understood that there needs to be some guardrail around protecting groundwater. And we just recently heard that one of the largest water users in the Willcox Basin has reduced their water use by 14%. That’s a realized, tangible result of some of the work that we’ve been doing. To see people starting to get on the same page and aligned in action, I think it’s huge.

Westerhoff: A kind of unexpected response we got is surprise. The state put a lot of faith in us to lead this project, and we’ve come forward with ideas that I don’t think they expected. We’ve really challenged the perspectives of a lot of state entities on how strong a university can be and how we can help them. Our faculty and students have taken even the most mundane ideas and challenged them by bringing in a new kind of scientific twist — the intellectual curiosity, creativity and strength of our knowledge base has been on full display throughout this initiative. It’s opened all kinds of doors and really emphasized the value of a university in the solutions space.

Famiglietti: One thing I have found incredibly rewarding is how willing agencies are to work with us. My work in modeling and remote sensing allows for a very highresolution picture of our water balance across the state. Through these images, I can see what’s going to happen to rainfall, snow. Then

we can see how that will impact groundwater recharge, groundwater supply, streamflow and our whole changing water supply.

Collaboration with agencies is absolutely essential to tackle these outcomes, and the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative came at a really good time. Something I’ll point out is that our resources and ability to really dive full-force into this work have grown through this initiative. We’ve been able to quickly build up capacity to really have a huge impact.

Coupling our strength in the solutions space and the willingness from other entities to work with us, the engagement opportunities are like none I’ve ever experienced before. I now have the support to really strengthen our modeling and forecasting and remote sensing tools — and the potential for these advancements to help guide policy and agency productivity is really, really high. I expect that collaboration to grow as the initiative continues.

On the topic of collaboration: How important is outreach to bring both the awareness to water challenges and solutions?

Famiglietti: I think talking about these things is critical. I just started teaching a class here at the School of Sustainability and as we were going around the room one of the first-year students said that the last thing we need is for more of our research to just sit in the refrigerator. And they’re right. Writing a paper isn’t enough.

We need that outreach from the community level to the highest level of government. As my student said in class, our work can’t live in the fridge. It needs to live with the people. We have to bring a lot of firepower to our outreach.

Westerhoff: Outreach is essential if we are going to see the kind of major evolution we need. We’ve built up this expertise in the solutions space here in Arizona, but we need to do the outreach to make that known so other people can take advantage of it. It’s very possible that future water experts who are looking for a robust industry to contribute to could find it here in Arizona.

Lall: To chime in on that theme of major evolution, Paul, I’ll say that the way that we talk about our work plays a huge role in how we accomplish that evolution. If we talk about the technology we currently have as the endall of progress, people will see it that way. If we effectively communicate the potential we have for growth, that will resonate.

I’ve worked on both a community level and with top leaders across the globe, and how you talk about your work matters. Outreach is key, but at the same time you need to be aware of what you’re putting out. I’ve had situations where I said something to a leading politician very conversationally, and then later learned that my kind of offhanded statement has made it into a speech of theirs. You have to make sure you’re being responsible with your words, especially when working with people who have that level of influence.

While that kind of collaboration and outreach has its own set of challenges, it is work that needs to be done. When I think about scaling water solutions to an international level, outreach and collaboration is necessary to expose us to a different set of problems than the ones we are used to.

When we hear about water, especially here in the Southwest, we often hear of “doomsday scenarios.” There are a lot of people out there who are feeling anxiety about their water futures. As the people leading regional and international water solutions at ASU, how do you feel?

Famiglietti: I think I definitely came into this space a pessimist. Working with my colleagues — especially here at ASU — has really helped me realize that we can do more than just kick the can down the road, so to speak. We can propose things that are going to help out the state for a long time.

Wutich: As an anthropologist, my expertise is in disasters and societal collapse. People ask me all the time how badly we’re doing, and there are a handful of things that societies have to do to get back on track when they are in danger. One thing that makes me so optimistic about Arizona is that we are doing all of the right things. The long-term planning and policymaking, the development of technologies that can help us use water more efficiently, and also building social infrastructure that helps societies become resilient and integrated. Those are really at the heart of any kind of disaster management. We’re doing those things, and that tells me that we’re still invested in working our way through water challenges.

Craig: I’ll offer that there is a mix of emotions. In one of the recent webinars we conducted, we did a word bubble for how the participants were feeling about their community and water situation. The main feeling people submitted

— the biggest one — was “hopeful.” But the second one was “uncertain.” I think it says a lot that people felt both strongly, but ultimately “hopeful” took that No. 1 spot.

Westerhoff: We have a lot of work to do, and it’ll be a challenge. But it is a challenge that will undoubtedly come with so much innovation and advancement, simply because that is the nature of the challenge. That is what we need, so that’s what we will produce.

Porter: To those who are really struggling with that anxiety, I want to offer the context that Arizona has done well in its water management and is capable of solving big water challenges. Agencies and water managers haven’t been waiting for ASU to get involved to tackle these issues. They’ve been fighting this fight for a long time.

What’s wonderful is how people recognize that ASU can add value. ASU is nonpartisan and neutral and credible. We produce research and new technologies. And my sense is that we are welcomed into the bigger discussion. We’re in a place where we need everyone’s great ideas. We need everyone’s important research. We need to put all kinds of ideas on the table. ASU is a generator of research and ideas, and is also really good at testing research and ideas. I’ll just say it: We are not in a doomsday scenario.

Warming temperatures, other climate change impacts may increase locust outbreaks

Global Locust Initiative connects insect management and research

Even when the Tempe campus is quiet and classes are out of session, there is something alive and buzzing deep within the Life Sciences building at Arizona State University. Locusts chew, crawl and stretch their wings in a laboratory managed by the Global Locust Initiative, part of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory. The initiative is dedicated to locust research and management and the improvement of human livelihoods. Arianne Cease and Rick Overson, directors of the Global Locust Initiative, discuss locust outcomes in the face of climate change, the challenges of effective pest management and the potential of a university to enact creative solutions.

Arianne Cease is an associate professor in the School of Sustainability and School of Life Sciences, and director of the Global Locust Initiative. She is a sustainability scientist with a focus on the ecology and physiology of organisms in coupled natural and human systems. Her research involves transdisciplinary approaches to understanding how humanplant-insect interactions affect the sustainability of agricultural systems, including lab and field studies.

Rick Overson is a research scientist with the School of Sustainability and co-director of ASU’s Global Locust Initiative. At the Global Locust Initiative, he coordinates with stakeholders around the world to more sustainably manage grasshopper and locust outbreaks. His research seeks to understand the mechanisms that produce and maintain variation both within and between species, and how this variation ultimately affects the evolution of natural populations.

Let’s start simple: What exactly is a locust and how is it different from a grasshopper?

Overson: I’m glad you asked. As a kid growing up in Chandler I thought cicadas were locusts, and that was incorrect. So I’m happy to set the record straight for that younger version of myself.

Locusts are a very small set of special grasshoppers. There are thousands of species of grasshoppers. Depending on who you ask, there are around 19 of them that are considered locusts. They have a crazy ability that’s hidden in their genomes to respond to their environment in this dramatic way that leads to management implications.

As they’re growing, if it’s dry and resources aren’t widely available, they look and act like a normal grasshopper. But when those “times of plenty” come, they sense one another’s presence, and then they transition to totally different phenotypes. They change color, they change behavior, they become attracted to one another and they march across the ground in coordinated formations. If these conditions persist, that’s when you start getting coordinated flights together. This is when you see swarming that can break out on continental scales.

So essentially, a locust is a special type of grasshopper with quirks and idiosyncrasies of its behavior and its brain and its evolutionary history. Under different circumstances, these things would just be kind of a fascinating, evolutionary curiosity. But when locusts are reacting to their environment this way, it leads to massive, meteorological-scale events that need to be managed by dozens of countries at a time.

Arizona, and the overall United States, doesn’t have a locust population. Why study locusts here at ASU?

Cease: A lot of people here in the U.S. may not have exposure to them. They may have read about them in the Bible or the Quran, they’re featured in many religious texts. And when you look at these texts, they’re portrayed in a horrifying manner — for good reason. Locusts can be hugely devastating to food security. They still pose a major problem to many places around the world.

I think it’s important to note that there is no “extant” species in the U.S. That doesn’t mean we’ve never had locusts here. We had the Rocky Mountain locust, and they mysteriously went extinct in the early 1900s. So this is an issue that we have seen here, we may see it again in the future.

How ASU comes into this: I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal, West Africa, and I arrived at the end of the last major desert locust upsurge. Seeing the long-term impacts that they have on livelihoods really compelled me to study them. Once I started trying to understand their biology and ecology, I quickly realized the strong connections between land use and cover change. I saw how locusts are governed and how that impacts development of locust outbreaks and impacts on food security. I thought that was a really important topic to study. Luckily, ASU President Michael Crow agreed.

As a university, we’re able to fill in a lot of gaps that other organizations may not have the flexibility to fill. We have the ability to grow our knowledge and apply that knowledge to make a real difference in communities. This kind of impact-driven work is a natural fit for ASU.

Overson: On the topic of seeing locusts here in Arizona, there is a climate change angle at play here too. There is the Central American locust that outbreaks regularly in Mexico. Our collaborators in Mexico have been modeling future outbreaks, and that species is getting closer and closer to the U.S. border. As climate change is driving hotter temperatures, the locusts are attracted to the heat. It may not be much longer that we can say we don’t have an extant species here in the U.S.

Cease: Insects are generally ectothermic, which means that they gain their heat from their environment. They don’t produce a lot of internal metabolic heat, and increasing temperatures generally means that they develop faster. For some insects, rising temperatures like we’ve seen are going to push them out of their thermal limit. But for a lot of insects, if they can change their behavior patterns, it can help them speed up their development. Sometimes that also leads to larger body size, sometimes smaller body size.

Primarily, heat allows them to go through their cycle faster. Generally, if they can do that, that means less predation when they’re young, and more opportunities to reproduce. And then, if they can have multiple generations in a year, that means they can generally get through those generations and have a faster population growth rate. Locusts tend to like it warm, and it’s certainly getting warmer.

What kind of damage can locusts cause?

Overson: When there isn’t an outbreak, the desert locust can cover an area of around 16 million square kilometers across roughly 30 countries. But during an outbreak, they can spread over 29 square kilometers and expand to parts of 60 countries. There are hundreds of millions of individuals in a swarm. Many swarms move across a continental scale, and they eat a ton.

Some of the estimates from the United Nations say that swarms can eat the same equivalent of food as 35,000 people. That can be absolutely devastating to food security.

Cease: I arrived in West Africa at the tail end of the desert locust upsurge in 2005. That upsurge caused about $2.5 billion in agricultural damage and cost about $450 million to control. That’s just putting the short-term devastation in terms of money. I think perhaps more poignant are the long-term impacts on livelihoods.

There have actually been relatively few studies looking at livelihood impacts, but there was one done in Mali studying the 1988 locust plague. They found that children born in plague years and villages impacted by locusts were much less likely to ever start school. The impact was worse for young women.

We think about these numbers in terms of food insecurity, and that is certainly a strong element that we have to consider. But locusts also have these long-term impacts, things we don’t always consider right away when we talk about locust outbreaks. A locust outbreak is truly life-altering in so many ways.

Locust management is incredibly multifaceted. What are some of the elements you have to consider?

Overson: I think in some ways, the actual insect part of locust outbreak management is kind of a red herring. People can fixate on the insect itself — how it moves, how it thinks, what it does — and then I think they don’t see it in the same way that they see

other problems like climate change or like wildfire management. I get it; My background is in insect behavioral ecology. It’s easy to focus on the bugs. But locust management requires the same social, ecological, technological approach as other problems to move the needle of improvement.

Cease: On the locust level, each species of locust is a little bit unique. They evolved independently of one another and have different ecologies. But to Rick’s point, it goes beyond the bugs. For example, desert locust plagues can expand into up to 60 countries. That means looking at completely different ecosystems, cultural and political contexts. If there is political conflict in a region, locust management and monitoring is going to struggle. Each region is dealing with a different set of struggles in between these locust outbreaks that influence locust management.

Even during the recession time period between outbreaks, you still need to have coordinated,

consistent efforts in place and ready to act when needed. That is really challenging for all of the same reasons it’s challenging to govern disease outbreaks.

There are a lot of similarities, actually, between disease outbreak efforts and locust management. When there’s an upsurge, it’s front of mind. It makes international news. People start research programs, international donors set up programs. But once the locust numbers wane, that problem is slowly forgotten.

It can be 20 or 60 years in between locust upsurges in a given region at any point in time. Sixty years might not feel like a lot of time, but in government time that is ages. Those programs that were established at the beginning of one upsurge to address the problem might be forgotten by the time the next locust upsurge comes around. The people who drove those solutions forward and saw the previous outbreak may be retired or no longer with us. The wisdom can be lost, both within the government and the communities affected.

That’s why it’s so critical to have a global network where we can exchange ideas and resources. We really have to work together, to stay connected. When the upsurge does happen in a given area, we have to do the work to make sure we aren’t starting from ground zero again.

The Global Locust Initiative is split into two primary pillars: a laboratory and a global network. How does this structure support the work you do?

Cease: The organization of the Global Locust Initiative allows us to have a space for advancing specific projects, but also for building and maintaining a broader network. You absolutely need to have both of those elements to succeed in tackling this issue. We have a variety of research projects, some of which are sponsored by entities like the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That allows us to push forward on these different elements like nutritional ecology of locusts, understanding how they migrate

sustainable land-use practices to limit outbreaks.

We have a lot of strong partners we work with on these projects, and the network is crucial to communicate with other people working in this space.

Overson: I spend about half my time working with graduate students and researchers here to facilitate locust research. In the Life Sciences building at ASU, we have large facilities with walkin environmental chambers. These chambers hold thousands of active locusts from around the world. That’s a lot of mouths to feed — I joke that it looks like a Jamba Juice with the amount of wheatgrass we grow for these locusts.

Through our work with locusts in the lab, we’re trying to understand their nutritional ecology and their physiology in ways that can translate to more sustainable management. The other piece to this work is that global network. I spend the other half of my time sharing information and research outcomes from not just our group, but the broad group of researchers who are also working on these themes. Mira Ries, who couldn’t join this conversation today, is our research project coordinator. She does a lot of the heavy lifting to engage our network through information sharing tools and online platforms.

One of our newer online platforms is HopperWiki, currently in beta mode. Through our work in the global network, it became apparent that there’s a lot of information needed to make decisions in this space. That information is either not available, hard to find or behind paywalls. The wiki is an effort to sort of democratize and aggregate and make that information more easily discoverable across our broad network.

students in your work?

Overson: I think we offer a unique experience because on one hand, we’re — I say proudly — very nerdy. We explore fundamental nutritional biology on locusts and experimentation on insects to try to understand their biology better. But on the other hand, we’re engaging in real time with the stakeholder network that we manage. We’re working on multiple aspects of the social, ecological, technological interface. We combine so many different elements and strategies of problem solving.

ASU allows for undergraduates and graduate students to come into this space where they get this exposure to really gnarly problems. But they also get to see what it takes to work toward solving these problems.

Cease: For many reasons, I think this is a great opportunity for both ourselves and the students. A lot of students that do get engaged really want to have that sustainability applied component. They want to have direct connections with stakeholders, which is really exciting, because we have all those connections. We’re actively working with stakeholders that are facing these challenges every day.

I think that’s really, really empowering for newer professionals in this space. We also strive to support students to develop their independent questions and projects within the umbrella in which we work. And it benefits the work greatly to have students as core members of the team. They have so many creative insights, they offer perspectives that we can sometimes lose after looking at the same problem for so long. It sets us apart in a really special way from institutions that aren’t based in academia.

Our work being set in a university is unique too because it allows us to really expand on that creativity. We aren’t bound to one specific mandate, we aren’t confined to one silo. Universities allow for freedom in how we tackle a problem, how we apply solutions. And then on top of all of that, we recruit these amazing students to work with. The primary reason I chose to work with a university is that I wanted the freedom to think about a more holistic response that’s going to offer solutions for multiple outcomes.

I have deep respect for our colleagues at plant protection organizations who have the mandate and challenging responsibility to manage plant pests and pathogens in real time. Working closely with these organizations allows us to support their efforts for developing more systems-oriented management approaches and decreasing reliance on reactive management with chemical pesticides.

Locust outbreaks pose a large threat to human health and wellness. As we face unprecedented times for our planet, what does the future of locust management look like?

Overson: The solution is not to kill all locusts. I’ll own it — I’m a bleeding heart entomologist. I love bugs. But looking beyond my personal fondness for these bugs, locusts are kind of analogous to wildfire. They can be devastating, but they play a role in ecological systems. We can’t and shouldn’t completely eliminate wildfire, and we can’t and shouldn’t completely eliminate locusts. They need to be responsibly managed.

The dials that we’re turning with climate change are going to make that management even more

challenging. Species ranges are going to move in unpredictable ways, and the frequency and duration of outbreaks are going to change in unpredictable ways.

One of the best things we can do is build these support and information sharing structures. Concurrently, we need to increase our capacity to make early predictions of where these outbreaks are going to happen. From there, we can use strategic strikes where we can use less pesticides while still decreasing the scale of the impact. In an ideal world, we could even use biopesticides, which are much safer for humans in the environment.

Something I’ve noticed in my work these last few years: I think there is a level of arrogance about the locust issue. “We put a man on the moon, but we’re still dealing with bugs in the sky?” We need to get past that hubris and engage in careful capacity building across borders to move to a better future for locusts management.

Cease: I’ve heard all kinds of “easy” solutions: lasers on planes, big nets. There is a reason we are still struggling to solve this problem. These swarms can be the size of Manhattan or larger. Try putting a living, breathing, moving Manhattan in a net. It’s a complex issue that requires a complex approach.

The direction we’re going is increased locust outbreaks, and certainly an increased unpredictability of them. But it’s not all doom and gloom. I think it’s important to take a step back and listen to each other. There may not be one perfect, flashy, onesize solution that will just solve the issue. For issues like this, there rarely is. Understanding the full view of the problem will lead to a more complete picture. Holistic understanding leads to holistic solutions.

120 years and counting

The long-running ASU Bermuda Institute of Ocean Science celebrated its past 120 years of marine research with a new scholarship announcement

The ASU Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (ASU BIOS), one of the world’s longest-running research and educational institutions, held a symposium and community reception in Bermuda using World Ocean Day to celebrate its more than 120 years of marine research.

The event showcased innovations and discoveries in marine science that aim to improve planetary health, economic growth and the lives of people around the world. The symposium focused on future opportunities made possible through ASU BIOS, ocean observations and trends, autonomous systems and robotics, and ocean services. ASU BIOS is home to some of the longest-running sets of ocean observations available in the world, including the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS), and has contributed greatly to climate and ocean research.

William B. Curry, president and CEO of ASU BIOS, said the presence of the institute — including the offshore Hydrostation-S that has been in operation since 1954 — and the work that is conducted in Bermuda has shaped a large deal of understanding of the ocean’s systems and impacts.

“As our world continues to encounter increasingly stressed natural and environmental systems due to human activity, we as ocean and climate researchers stand at the forefront of understanding what our world’s largest biome is experiencing, how it is reacting and what we as humans can do to help it return to a place of optimal well-being,” Curry said.

Speakers at the symposium represented a blend of climate and ocean scientists with diverse research interests, with insights and conversations from

experts such as Katja Matthes , Detlef Stammer, Douglas Wallace and Martin Visbeck . Other speakers included ASU scientists Victoria Keener, Amy Maas , Upmanu Lall and Susanne Neuer

ASU BIOS also announced a new scholarship program that will award five full-tuition undergraduate scholarships annually for Bermudian students interested in studying in person in Arizona under any available ASU program. Eligible students will be selected based on both high performance in previous academic work and financial need.

Additionally, ASU has created a scholarship fund for all other Bermudian students that will provide tuition awards to reduce the cost of attendance in person to half of the standard international student tuition rate (the full rate is $34,398 for the 2023–24 academic year), or reduce the academic year tuition rate for full-time students in undergraduate online programs (24 credits) to $11,500.

“Today’s announcement is a further testament to the collaborative effort to support Bermuda’s students and the power of international relationships,” said David Burt, premier of Bermuda. “As a small island, Bermuda must continue to develop and expand international partnerships like the one with Arizona State University, which will provide new opportunities for Bermudians. I am grateful to the Arizona State University Board of Trustees for the extension of this significant commitment of scholarships and look forward to this government further developing the relationship between ASU and the Bermuda College for the benefit of all Bermudians today and for many years to come.”

Students may enroll as either first-year students with no earlier higher education experience or can enter as transfer students from community college or other higher education institutions. ASU will continue to work with Bermuda College on appropriate pathway programs.

The scholarship awards signify the start of a new era for ASU BIOS, which was originally established in 1903 to better understand our ocean and its impact on planetary outcomes. Bermuda offers unique proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and a diverse marine environment, including the ocean’s northernmost coral reefs.

In addition to the research conducted at ASU BIOS, the institute offers a range of educational opportunities. Students in elementary school and beyond can take part in hands-on programs aimed at inspiring future generations of scientists. College students, including those at ASU’s School of Ocean Futures, can participate in both online and in-person summer and fall semester courses at ASU BIOS.

The research institute merged with Arizona State University’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory in 2021 and remains an internationally recognized center for educational opportunities, ocean science, atmospheric research and environmental monitoring and mapping.

“If we are exploring possible futures for our world, we have to take a holistic approach to understand the interlinkages between all components of the Earth system,” said Peter Schlosser, vice president and vice provost of Global Futures at ASU. “As the oceans play a major role in this system, the partnership between the Global Futures Laboratory and BIOS is critical to our endeavor of shaping a future in which all life can thrive.”

Schlosser said the next 120 years and beyond are full of opportunities, but humanity must move quickly to actualize a more sustainable future.

“Our world has changed immensely since 1903,” said Schlosser. “We have learned a great deal about the role of the ocean in our rapidly changing Earth system, but much work remains to be done to create the knowledge that ensures that our oceans remain healthy and can continue to provide the services that sustain life on our planet.”

Sustainable Cities Network and Project Cities working with communities to build a stronger future

A pillar of Arizona’s education system, economy and culture, ASU is a natural bridge between some of our state’s leading experts and changemakers across a wide variety of issues. Through the Sustainable Cities Network, partner communities and organizations work together to streamline green city operations, advance renewable energy, mitigate extreme heat and the urban heat island effect, design sustainable neighborhoods, accelerate transportation electrification and conserve water in a changing climate. Included in the network’s offerings is Project Cities. This awardwinning, university-community partnership allows faculty and students to pair with a city to co-create strategies for better environmental, economic and social balance.

As humanity continues to shape the world around us, it is clear that collaboration is key to secure a sustainable future. That collaboration starts in our communities: the places where we live, work and play. In this conversation, Anne Reichman and Julia Davis of ASU join city employees John Sefton and Danae Presler to discuss what it takes to build communities that support our present and future — and how the Sustainable Cities Network and Project Cities can help.

Danae Presler the climate program manager for the city of Flagstaff and previously worked for the City of Avondale and City of Chandler. Presler’s work focuses on mitigating climate change through local action. She specializes in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from energy and transportation systems in effective and equitable ways and advancing carbon dioxide removal strategies. She is also a member of the Sustainable Cities Network’s steering committee, composed of leading municipal and county representatives from around Arizona.

Anne Reichman is the director of the Sustainable Cities Network, a collaborative effort that fosters partnerships, identifies best practices, provides training and information, and connects Arizona State University’s researchers and local communities. She is also a Senior Global Futures Scholar within the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at ASU.

John Sefton is the community services director for the City of Chandler, where he has partnered on multiple occasions with Project Cities at ASU. He has more than 20 years of experience as a director of parks, recreation and library facilities across Arizona. He is also a faculty associate at ASU, where he teaches the “Recreation and Sport Planning and Facilities Development” course through the Watts College of Public Services and Community Solutions.

Julia Davis is the senior program manager for Project Cities, a signature program of the Sustainable Cities Network. Prior to joining Project Cities, Davis served as programs director for the Arizona Sustainability Alliance, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in the Phoenix Metro Area. Davis is also a member of the board of directors for the Arizona Association for Environmental Education.

Danae Presler: A sustainable city is one where both people and nature can thrive for generations to come. That means housing is affordable, it’s safe and convenient to get where you need to go without polluting the environment. Electricity is clean and renewable. There’s access to healthy food, abundant habitat for wildlife and green spaces for people. Clean air and water, sustainable consumption, minimal waste. Perhaps most importantly, a sustainable city is where community members are supported through social and cultural networks.

John Sefton: A sustainable city is one that’s ready for tomorrow. That means we’re doing all of the right things today to provide for a community that can thrive. It’s fostering a place people want to be and where they can grow in a healthy manner.

Anne Reichman: I prefer to think of “sustainable cities” more in line with the tribal nations’ definition, which considers that balance between people and the environment — but thinking much further ahead. It is easy to think in the short-term; however, we need to think in the longer term and shift to thinking in relation to generations to come. The needs of each community vary by state, county, city or town. It varies even within those cities and towns — it varies by department — so you have so many different perspectives. It’s incredibly interdisciplinary and can be quite complex.

Julia Davis: I definitely agree, and I think the theme across the board in these answers will be “present and future.” I think a sustainable city is one that is both responsive to the needs of its residents and businesses and community

a healthier and happier tomorrow for everyone that’s living there now and in the future.

Presler: I would also like to challenge readers to think about their city and who has access to these opportunities and who’s being left out? A truly sustainable city is providing these opportunities equitably for all of its community members.

How can universities support sustainability efforts outside of their own campus?

Reichman: On the surface, universities have a responsibility to educate the next generation and the upcoming workforce. That’s a large task. Beyond that, I think the role of universities is evolving when it comes to supporting sustainability and cities. It’s an exciting opportunity. There is a shift happening where universities are taking on both the role of providing an education while also being socially embedded and taking responsibility for community-driven research.

I think this transition might be kind of uncomfortable for more traditional academics — academia can be a bit theoretical at times — but adding real-life, local challenges to the academic experience provides more value and impact to students and to communities they engage with. Universities can and should be drivers of change.

Presler: Universities often act as their own little cities. They have their own transportation networks. They have their own governance structures and food and waste systems. But what’s really amazing is they have these populations of mostly young people who are

extremely curious and passionate. They are ready to make their mark on the world.

In addition to that, there are these amazing thought leaders and researchers who have literally dedicated their careers to understanding and advancing sustainability. They can be these amazing sources of innovation and talent to support cities. I think that universities and cities both stand to benefit from collaborating and supporting each other. Universities can help cities, unleash new ideas to challenges. In turn, cities can provide “real world” opportunities for these ideas to be implemented.

Davis: To add to that city-university connection, I’ll say that universities and cities have a really natural relationship. There is a lot of opportunity for short- and long-term collaboration, especially with students involved, to be able to create new solutions to continue to make cities better and better places to live.

Sefton: I see universities as places that can be almost exploratory without the constraints of politics, which is a really powerful tool in city-university partnerships. There ends up being a really beautiful trio of partners: You have professionals who represent industry, professionals from the university and the future leaders in the form of students.

Speaking from the city perspective, universities are a great resource because we can tap into a broad array of disciplines all in one place. There just feels to be this very broad and very deep opportunity for us to explore

whatever the challenge might be, whether it’s artificial intelligence, sustainable landscape architecture, or operations and management.

How does Project Cities and the overall Sustainable Cities Network strengthen sustainability efforts?

Davis: Project Cities is a unique universitycommunity partnership program within the Sustainable Cities Network. The program connects community partners, typically municipalities, who are facing sustainability challenges, to faculty experts who are teaching courses at the university. Then, we’ll work with the community partner and the faculty member to codesign a project for that class, so the students can then develop solutions through projectbased learning during their coursework. We have a lot of great connections and partnerships through the Sustainable Cities Network. The network is this dynamic, ongoing network that cities are part of. If they want to dig further into projects and research with faculty and students, they can tap into Project Cities very easily.

Reichman: The Sustainable Cities Network was founded in 2009 as an education and outreach program. It aligned with the newly minted School of Sustainability in 2006, the first in the nation. There was a lot of interest in what sustainability efforts were happening at the local level, and we noticed there wasn’t a lot of connectivity between universities and cities when it came to sustainability.

There were very few sustainability managers within cities at the time, so there was a unique opportunity but also a challenge. So this peerto-peer network, the Sustainable Cities Network, was created to bridge that gap. We work through a steering committee made up of Arizona’s most active communities in sustainability. From there we host work groups, essentially based on the interests and the needs of local communities.

We’ve taken our cues from communities. They’ll say “We want information on energy, green infrastructure, or climate and resilience,” and so we tend to create these monthly conversations and meetings focused around specific areas of interest. We want to share best practices. So this is a free, voluntary network with a low barrier of entry. We’re providing access to any practitioner within any department in a city, town, tribal community or county to engage with each other and the university on sustainability issues.

The network isn’t only open to cities and towns. We engage a lot with our nonprofit sector partners, community-based organizations and then some of our private sector partners who support sustainability actively in their course of business. It’s an interesting group, and it has helped jumpstart many initiatives within our region and our state.

Danae and John, what is it like working with Project Cities and the Sustainable Cities Network from the city perspective?

Presler: Working with the Sustainable Cities Network has been nothing but amazing and I cannot believe that this gem of a resource is free. I went to my first Sustainable Cities Network meeting eight years ago and I was hooked. At the time, I was working at the city of Chandler and they didn’t have a formal sustainability program. I was working in the neighborhood resources department, but I was really interested in sustainability so I started attending these

meetings. They opened my eyes to this whole network of peers across all different entities. It was really helpful to discover that there were other people that were working in this area.

Reichman: If I can jump in, I think it’s important to see that not only do you have support, but it isn’t a competition. The Sustainable Cities Network isn’t the place to be competitive. As we know, Phoenix is a very competitive region among cities. Sustainability is, interestingly enough, one area that I think brings communities together.

I think everyone who participates in the network understands the value of clean air, clean water, public transportation and access to affordable housing and food. So there are a lot of benefits, and I think it’s a rejuvenating group. We try to prop each other up. We’re not interested in reinventing the wheel. I think

everybody borrows each other’s ideas, and they’re totally comfortable with that concept.

Presler: Absolutely. I love it because ASU is really socially connected in the Phoenix metro area especially, but it’s also the largest public university in the state of Arizona. Everyone knows what ASU is. It’s also a neutral party. It’s not one city that is taking the reins and bringing everybody else in. It is a third party university that is also very committed to sustainability, that is being the convening voice.

Sefton: My experience with Project Cities has been really rewarding, especially because of how creative we can be. There are a few projects we’ve done that have been exploratory in nature, and the city might not have the capacity to assign city staff to a project. Project Cities gives us an opportunity to try something that will guide future decisions.

One recent project we did was exploring park access: How do people use public parks? Are they active or passive? Are people more likely to be of a certain gender or age group? The project looked at five parks across Chandler, and we can use the data we gathered as we move forward with park improvement projects in the future.

Many of the Project Cities efforts are projectbased. How is this approach beneficial for both the students and entities involved?

Davis: Through Project Cities, students are learning through community partnerships. I’ll use John’s park example: The students were gathering real data, seeing in real time what was happening and hearing actual feedback from real people. This is a very different experience from writing papers or reading textbooks.

It’s transforming how students learn by having them interfacing with the community on the ground while also advancing what they’re learning in their coursework. The other benefit of working with students is that projects have to have firm start and end dates to correspond with semesters. University-led projects can take years and can hit all kinds of delays. By sticking strictly to semester schedules, we are forced to operate on timeframes that have to be achievable in time for finals.

Importantly, these shorter projects don’t mean that the projects can’t build on each other across multiple semesters. John and I have worked really closely together, so we’re always able to meet and think of new projects and opportunities in Chandler. On the university faculty and staff side, it is a lot of work to put these types of partnerships together. You have to really foster and maintain long-term relationships with our communities across the state. This is, overwhelmingly, a good thing when you’re trying to keep universities and communities connected.

We’ve done more than 110 projects over the past seven years across all kinds of areas: energy,

water, housing, historic preservation, community surveying and strategic planning. To be able to do this work with different groups across the state is an incredible opportunity for everyone involved.

Looking to the future, especially in a state that has gone through tremendous growth, why might municipalities and other entities benefit from Project Cities and the Sustainable Cities Network?

Presler: We’re all trying to do better and we don’t need to do it alone. If anything, we really shouldn’t do it alone. I think where the Sustainable Cities Network has maybe the biggest benefit is for small and rural and tribal communities who are doing this work, perhaps with only one dedicated sustainability professional. I’ve been there. It was what brought me to the network in the first place. When it was just me, the scale of the challenges didn’t shrink to accommodate my schedule. As we face these growing challenges, it’s especially important for those of us who might be on our own to branch out.

If you’re in a community and maybe you are the only one that’s dedicated to sustainability work, or you have a passion for this and just don’t know where to start, Sustainable Cities Network has a strong network of practitioners and peers and just — frankly — friendly, wonderful people who you can learn from. You can also inspire them with what you’re working on.

Sefton: Being able to walk away with the tangible results that come out of the projects is reason enough to get involved with Project Cities or the network. As Julia mentioned earlier in this conversation, there have been more than 110 of these semester-long projects through Project Cities. At the end of each of these projects, there are valuable insights for cities and other partnering entities to utilize. These are projects that, most likely, never

would have happened otherwise. That’s a huge opportunity window for opportunity.

The collaboration is really impactful in a lot of different ways, from economic development to environmental knowledge and involvement to just thinking about workforce development. It’s an opportunity for businesses and cities and other entities to recognize their true social impact, and to work directly with the next generation of leaders toward solutions. We’re really focused on what’s going on in the real world, and being able to expose the students to some of the challenges and the opportunities that we have in those spaces.

In a bit more of a societal perspective, it is also incredibly rewarding to see those students walk away with this on their resume. The students who get involved come away with insights on real-life work; when they talk about the most impactful work they did as students, a lot of the time they’ll reference these experiences.

Reichman: I think something that might attract groups to the Sustainable Cities Network is that we have all the historical presentations online so that people don’t have to start from ground zero. Many of the communities we work with, both urban and rural, are dealing with very similar circumstances in slightly different contexts. So accessing questions and presentations that have been done in the past can certainly provide a good foundation.

There is also the access piece: Working with the Sustainable Cities Network doesn’t just open you up to a wealth of information, but also to collaboration opportunities through Project Cities or our general researcher base at ASU. I think data is critical when it comes to understanding your community’s needs and identifying viable options and innovative solutions.

Having that data is also crucial when applying for grants. We’ve mentioned all of the previous

projects done through Project Cities — oftentimes, it’s important data that may be missing. If you have that data in hand, you’re certainly in a better position to be able to state your case and get the funding that you need. So relying on a research institution to help collect that information can certainly be helpful as well.

What responsibility do municipalities and similar groups have in ensuring strong and cohesive sustainability efforts within their communities?

Presler: I think a huge part of our jobs needs to be learning from community-based organizations and community members themselves. They are the experts in the community. More and more, I think cities are realizing this. We need to establish strong relationships, which means building or rebuilding trust.

In some cases their cities have, intended or otherwise, enacted practices with inequitable impacts in their community. Trust takes time

to build, and longer to rebuild if it’s been broken. I think where municipalities can ensure cohesion in their sustainability efforts is by really and truly listening to their community.

Sefton: At the end of the day, people who work for cities and municipalities are there to create good places for people to live. I think that goal is also at the heart of sustainability, so they are naturally intertwined. We are acting now to create a better future. Nobody wants to live in a place with an expiration date.

That means we need to think about the longevity of places where people can both work and play. We need to ensure access to clean water and sanitation. We need equitable housing and access to housing. We need good work opportunities for people. Those needs won’t change, regardless of where we sit in time. So I think that those two things — the work it takes to maintain a good place to live and the work it takes to be sustainable — they should naturally be advancing forward together.

International negotiations, in addition to ASU efforts, point toward solutions to ‘wicked’ plastic problem

Plastic pollution threatens environmental, economic and human health. Ongoing efforts offer a more hopeful path forward.

As a year of climate extreme records comes to a close, it becomes more and more apparent that the future is ours to shape — and the actions we take matter.

One opportunity for action is an ongoing effort toward establishing a global treaty to end plastic pollution. In November, government representatives came together in Busan, in the Republic of Korea, for a fifth round of negotiations. These negotiations took place Nov. 25-Dec. 1, with continuing negotiations to occur in 2025. An established treaty could determine how we produce and dispose of plastics in the future.

Tyler Eglen , a portfolio manager at the Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service at Arizona State University, has been paying close attention to the progress of the treaty. Eglen helped create and now manages the Circular Living Lab, dedicated to sustainable solutions for an ethical circular economy. Eglen said a legally binding agreement would offer a novel approach to tackling the overwhelming plastic problem.

“We’re absolutely in a plastic crisis,” said Eglen. “Plastic production continues to increase year over year, and that’s one of the things the treaty is trying to solve.”

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, a “business-as-usual” plastic scenario with no interventions could nearly triple the amount of plastic waste entering

aquatic ecosystems. These numbers would increase from 9–14 million metric tons per year in 2016 to a projected 23–37 million metric tons per year by 2040. A metric ton is equivalent to 2,204.6 pounds.

Please change to “This fifth round of negotiations was originally slated to finalize an international, legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment. However, it was determined in Busan that continued conversations are required. The previous sessions have taken place across the past two years in Punta del Este, Uruguay; Paris, France; Nairobi, Kenya; and Ottawa, Canada.

Eglen said negotiations of this scale require consideration for practical implementation of solutions. Each negotiator comes to the table with their own unique set of priorities; each country has their own set of consumer habits and needs.

In the United States, there is no national policy for recycling. Efforts are typically disjointed from state to state, so meeting a set of goals posed by a global treaty will naturally present a series of unique challenges. However, the in-progress agreement is not the only way to get closer to a circular economy. Eglen said there is immense value in keeping plastic in use within local communities.

“We can’t solve the whole plastic crisis alone here at ASU, but we can strengthen our efforts on a local scale,” he said. “We’re trying to get people to think differently about the values of plastic. Repurposing

and reusing the plastics keeps the plastic local. That way, we’re not creating more greenhouse gas emissions by transporting plastic all over the world or giving it the opportunity to end up in the ocean.”

Earlier this year, ASU partnered with the city of Phoenix, Goodwill and a workforce development organization, Hustle PHX, to launch the ASU Circular Plastics Microfactory. The microfactory will take sorted local plastic waste and process it into pellets. These pellets can then be turned into a wide variety of products. The facility, a project based out of the Circular Living Lab, could save up to 550 tons of plastic from the landfill per year.

“What’s beautiful about this microfactory is that we’ve taken a wicked problem and made it local,” Eglen said. “We’ve defined and targeted the problem in a specific area where we know we can make a measurable impact. As soon as you do that, you get other people excited about it. When that excitement grows and you have more and more local projects attacking the overall wicked problem, you start really moving the needle.”

Calling ASU community members: Do you have excess laboratory plastics? Contact Tyler Eglen for more information on participating in a recycling pilot program.

tyler.eglen@asu.edu