By Daniel Riley and Jacob Park
When President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union Address (1) last month, he made the case that U.S. economic revival is tied to a healthy manufacturing sector. Of course, he is not the first to triumph the importance of manufacturing to the economy. The key question, however, is what type of manufacturing the U.S. should have in the future. … Continue Reading
By Tara Haelle
If your food sources vanished tomorrow, how long would it take you to starve to death?
Artists have long appreciated the desert for its otherworldly landscape. Painter Georgia O’Keefe devoted much of her late career to capturing the distinct elements of the American Southwest, and architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright felt a strong connection to the desert – a place, he said, which inspired its own singular style of architecture.
Environmental artist Joan Baron is no different in her appreciation of the desert’s unique attributes and the creative opportunities they present. Such opportunities are the subject of Baron’s ongoing urban landscape installation, The Edible Landscape Project – a unique rental property for those who crave the hands-on approach to their food source.
Collaboration, urgent optimism, committed focus—these are the skills and qualities needed in humans to solve sustainability’s biggest challenges and, as it turns out, also the most minor of missions belonging to Azeroth in the online video game “World of Warcraft.”
By Britt Lewis
Recent concerns about phosphorous sustainability are fueled by the persistent overuse of phosphorous in fertilizers to increase crop yields. On the one hand, the United States has increased food production to both feed a growing population and produce biofuels. On the other hand, using phosphorus-laden fertilizers has imbalanced crop cycles and polluted surface water, even killing off an area the size of New Jersey in the Gulf of Mexico.
Phosphorus mine reserves are quickly diminishing, which has led to scarcity predictions worldwide. With phosphorus as vital to agriculture as water, food security hangs in the balance.
The following is a Q&A conversation with Dr. Roberto Gaxiola, an assistant professor at Arizona State University, whose research explores the role that transgenic crops might play in sustaining agriculture under limited phosphorus conditions.
By Martin A. Gromulat
Superstition Vistas is a nearly 175,000-acre plot of land managed by the Arizona State Land Department (Department). Named for the mountain range that dominates the area, Superstition Vistas is located in the Sun Corridor, an area that stretches from Phoenix to Tucson and is predicted to grow to 15 million inhabitants by 2060. The Department’s stated goal is to develop Superstition Vistas as a sustainable community – one that can be the model for future sustainable desert development.