Chief Sustainability Officer Amy Wildermuth has accepted a position as dean at University of Pittsburgh School of Law, beginning in Fall 2018. “I have been incredibly fortunate to work with an outstanding team of people in the Sustainability Office and terrific partners across the university,” said Wildermuth. “We have achieved amazing things, such as the […]
Read MoreOriginally posted on March 19, 2018. In Utah, the second driest state in the country, water is a critical issue. Our water systems are interconnected with human systems, and as our population expands and the climate changes, protecting and sharing this resource equitably will require collaboration between researchers, practitioners and decision makers. When it comes to collaborative water […]
Read MoreBy Bianca Greeff, Graduate Assistant. Reaching temperatures as low as -89°C, Antarctica is the coldest, windiest and driest continent on the planet. The Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica doesn’t offer much relief for species. In the winter, the ocean surface freezes solid, doubling the continent’s size. In the summer, temperatures rise just above freezing and […]
Read MoreUniversity honors nine campus leaders with Alta Sustainability Leadership Awards at the Environment and Sustainability Research Symposium. The union ballroom was abuzz on February 15 with the sounds of 104 graduate and undergraduate students from 18 departments presenting research posters. Each spring, the Global Change & Sustainability Center’s Environment and Sustainability Research Symposium provides an […]
Read MoreBianca Greeff, Graduate Assistant. Growing up in Los Angeles, Sarah Kanouse was aware of the ways Los Angeles transformed from a desert community to a bustling city by building water and power structure. Later, when Kanouse found herself in “small college communities surrounded by cornfields,” she began to realize that rural landscapes are not as […]
Read MoreBianca Greeff, Graduate Assistant. River basins are complex systems—especially when they cross state boundaries. There are some general institutional arrangements over the Western United States that allow for some commonalities in management. But the social, economic, and physical characteristics of these systems makes each basin unique. The complexity of these systems and diverse interests of […]
Read MoreBy Bianca Greeff, Graduate Assistant. Both urban and rural areas around the world rely heavily on groundwater to support agriculture, energy, residential, and industrial use. This demand for groundwater—from a global population of over seven and a half billion—combined with impacts of climate change places more stress on these systems. In order to sustainably manage […]
Read MoreBianca Greeff, Graduate Assistant. Climate change threatens everything about our social organization. But that shouldn’t immobilize us. Instead, Kari Norgaard, associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oregon, encourages us to view climate change as an opportunity to re-envision our social, political, and economic systems. Norgaard will show how climate change […]
Read MoreBianca Greeff, Graduate Assistant. Ecologists seek to answer the big questions about how the world is changing, and how species and ecosystems are responding to those changes. To answer these questions, a new network of analysis is needed. Community-curated data sources can provide new insight on how systems are have changed in the past and […]
Read MoreBianca Greeff, Graduate Assistant. Designers are agents of change. They research how our everyday actions and behaviors are conceived, planned, and acted on. By making these intangible aspects of society tangible, designers have the ability to communicate about or change these societal features. In the past, design has been leveraged as a way to create […]
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