Peter Schlosser, vice president and vice provost of Arizona State University's Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, likens the planetary limits of Earth to that of a rubber band. Its boundaries are flexible and adaptable to change, but excess pressure can force even the strongest of bands to snap.

The idea that humanity is pushing the boundaries of what the planet can accommodate is at the core of the “10 Must Haves” initiative, a draft of which will be presented at the 2022 U.N. Climate Change Conference, or COP27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.  Peter Schlosser will present the "10 Must Haves" initiative at the Pathways to 1.5 Pavilion at COP27 on Nov. 12. Download Full Image

The Must Haves initiative is the product from the 2022 Global Futures Conference in September, which brought a broad group of global stakeholders together to collaborate on actionable items in support of a more sustainable future. 

The initiative was created jointly between the Global Futures Laboratory and the Earth League. It provides guidelines for 10 “must-have” outcomes, which are accompanied by “must-do” actions, to ensure a thriving tomorrow on a currently overworked planet. 

Schlosser, together with Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, will present the initiative at the Pathways to 1.5 Pavilion at COP27 on Nov. 12.  

Question: How did the 10 Must Haves come to be and why was COP27 selected as the launching point for the initiative?

Answer: Both COP27 and the 10 Must Haves share the same goal of getting humankind and our global society more informed about what the global situation is right now, which made it an appropriate setting. 

At the center of the discussion at COP27 is the question of how nations can live up to the nationally determined commitments, because we are lagging behind them. What we are seeing is nations making these commitments and then making decisions that put them on a trajectory to miss the targets.

What we are asking with the 10 Must Haves is: What now? Is there room for another approach that would get us to the same or similar targets that would avoid severe problems for all life on the planet and its life supporting systems in an accelerated mode? 

The 10 Must Haves were conceived broadly to allow a holistic view of the present state of our planet and possible pathways into a future of opportunity. We created a set of 10 targets that we believe can actually lead us to where we have to be, and then we ask what we have to do in order to reach that goal. 

Q: The 10 Must Haves include climate, but climate is not the only challenge addressed. Why is it important to confront concerns beyond global warming?

A: I see climate as part of a larger picture. We do not just have a climate problem, and climate is not the root cause of our problems. Climate is one of the outcomes of our overuse of the planet’s resources to the point where we are crossing thresholds. In essence, we are asking for more than what the planet has to offer. 

The 10 Must Haves were not designed as a specific contribution to climate negotiations, but as goals and targets that have to be reached to prevent us from transitioning from a crisis to a catastrophe. 

Q: One of the “Must Haves” discusses the need for a global society ready to respond to planetary crises. How might policy makers go about uniting a global society, especially when we have seen political clashes in our own country and beyond regarding climate issues? 

A: Right now we are on a trajectory where policy makers polarize many critical issues such as, for example, climate solutions. One of the key questions we are asking is how we can get the message across to decision makers that polarizing these issues will be at a detriment to everybody. The response of our planet to pressure does not distinguish between parties. It will affect everyone — young, old, left, right, middle — although not equally distributed as the consequences of negative responses of our planet to our pressure will affect already disadvantaged communities to a significantly higher degree. 

We have seen here and there, under the right political conditions, movement in terms of legislation that would help these causes. However, all too often the political landscape is so polarized that between one government and the next the course of action can change very radically. The continuity of efforts is in danger. 

We have to find the thread that keeps going while different administrations are running a country. We have to think about the fact that what really drives everything is societal dynamics: the decisions we make, why we make them and to what extent we are thinking about the impact of these decisions for us and our life-supporting systems for the future. 

Q: The Must Haves initiative is targeted more at large-scale policy makers in government and business than it is at individuals. How do establishments of power impact individual decision making when it comes to acting on climate issues and beyond? 

A: That is the key question: What drives decision making on the individual level? Usually, there are incentives and value systems that drive that decision making, so we hope we can actually reach those in positions to offer incentives. 

For the initial launch at COP27, we are aiming the 10 Must Haves at larger segments of the stakeholder community: private sector, governments, regulatory agencies, governments, etc. This is something that we want a diverse group of stakeholder communities to pick up, think about and hopefully find appealing enough that they will act on them, and the initiative will trickle down and appeal to a much broader audience. 

We want the 10 Must Haves to show that there is a set of actions that can be envisioned to get us into a better place but, in order to do that, we need to make different choices. 

For one undergraduate student, major life decisions serendipitously happen around the dinner table. 

Kieran Andrew, a student at Arizona State University’s Barrett, The Honors College double majoring in psychology and neuroscience, began his research journey as a high school junior who happened to be sitting with his future mentor, President’s Professor Heather Bimonte-Nelson, at a graduation dinner gathering with mutual family friends. Kieran Andrew, a Barrett, The Honors College student double majoring in psychology and neuroscience. Photo by Robert Ewing Download Full Image

He began to talk with her about the research in her lab, Behavioral Neuroscience of Memory & Aging lab, and was offered a chance to participate as a volunteer researcher as a senior in high school. Four years later, while Andrew was once again seated at Bimonte-Nelson’s dinner table during a laboratory gathering, he completed an application for a travel scholarship right before the deadline. His mentor and peers from the lab pushed him to finish and offered support while celebrating.

He recently was announced as the recipient of one of the travel awards for the Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference in Washington, D.C. The ERN Conference in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics is hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Inclusive STEM Ecosystems for Equity & Diversity Programs and the National Science Foundation Division of Human Resource Development within the Directorate for Education and Human Resources.

At this conference, Andrew will present research that he has been working on since high school in the Bimonte-Nelson lab on sex differences in Alzheimer's disease in a transgenic animal model. 

“Being hands-on with the projects in the lab has been incredibly helpful, as well as the large breadth of experience I've been able to get from not just people in my life, but the people I've been able to meet through lab connections,” Andrew said.

The Bimonte-Nelson lab aims to characterize the cognitive and brain changes that occur during aging, as well as develop behavioral and pharmacological strategies to attenuate mnemonic and neurobiological age-related alterations. Andrew assists with conducting the memory tests in the lab, as well as performs complex data processing, scoring and analyses.

“I first met Kieran when he was a high school student, in a casual environment — even in this atmosphere, just from chatting with him informally about what our lab does, he showed an innate curiosity and asked insightful questions,” Bimonte-Nelson said. “Over the years working with him on a weekly basis, it has become clear to me that he has a deeply critical and intellectual mind — he is a born scientist. He has had valued contributions in the lab spanning performing experimental physiological procedures to cognitive testing, and he has also done an excellent job teaching other lab students, mentoring with both knowledge and patience. He especially excels at deciphering and analyzing complex data patterns.”

“I cannot wait to see what the future holds for Kieran. He has worked so hard. This is just the beginning of a wonderful journey for him,” Bimonte-Nelson said. “Whichever of his dreams he pursues — becoming a neurosurgeon or continuing his research in a doctoral program — he will excel and make the world a better place.”

Bimonte-Nelson also hosts brain fairs for the community and aims to expand access to neuroscience for all levels of learners.

“For me, it has been super helpful to have a mentor like Heather. I don’t think I would be able to receive awards without her — I'm generally the guy who's just quiet and gets the work done and then just waits until the next thing is ready to pop up. But with Heather, she’s a very proactive mentor and she definitely wants the best for her students, and that is more than I could ask for,” said Andrew.

Through a project with Bimonte-Nelson, he is also part of ASU’s NSF-funded Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation – Western Alliance to Expand Student Opportunities program, which aims to support undergraduate researchers that have been historically underrepresented in STEM. Andrew recently presented research at the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium as well, where he was an author on three posters, including one in collaboration with the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute.

“I was able to create a regression tree from the MRI data to see how well people performed in our tasks and what brain areas were associated with performance. This project analyzed the executive function of the brain. While it was an introductory study, I presented data on possible ways we can analyze this type of research,” Andrew said.

In addition to his presentations at AAC and in Washington, D.C., for ERN, Andrew is conducting an honors thesis.

“I’m leaning toward experimentally testing learning and memory interference as we age,” Andrew said. “A related study was done in our lab before I was in it, but there are many questions left. I am interested in revisiting that topic.”

In the future, he is deciding between pursuing an MD in neurosurgery or a PhD in computational neuroscience. 

Wastewater epidemiology isn’t a profession a scriptwriter would likely give to a lead character in an action-adventure film.

In real life, however, experts in the emerging field may someday help protect and save more lives than a typical movie hero. What’s in wastewater can point the way to better protecting public health, say environmental engineers and scientists who have been advancing the field of wastewater epidemiology. Photo from Pixabay Download Full Image

The Rockefeller Foundation, a supporter of ambitious efforts to promote “the well-being of humanity throughout the world,” is already convinced of the potential for wastewater research, monitoring and analysis to make our future healthier and safer.

The philanthropic organization has kicked off a major advocacy campaign to help trumpet a recent call from top researchers to bring the growing benefits of wastewater surveillance to all of the planet’s population.

In a recently published commentary in the research journal Nature Medicine, the researchers explain how wastewater surveillance can aid the cause of public health. They describe how it can reveal the presence and track the accumulation and spread of pathogens — microorganisms like bacteria and viruses that can cause disease.

Among the authors are three Arizona State University researchers — Professor Rolf Halden and Assistant Professor Otakuye Conroy-Ben, both members of the faculty at the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, a part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU, and Assistant Research Scientist Erin Driver with the Center for Environmental Heath Engineering, directed by Halden, in ASU’s Biodesign Institute. Driver earned a doctoral degree in civil, environmental and sustainable engineering from the Fulton Schools.

Events leading up to the commentary and the advocacy push are reported in a news release from the Rockefeller Foundation emphasizing how wastewater surveillance has advanced as a science and can “provide a powerful early warning system for outbreaks” of diseases by detecting a range of viral and bacterial threats. That information can then enable public health officials to formulate effective responses to help quell those outbreaks.

City of Tempe public service workers are pictured collecting wastewater samples from the municipal sewer system. The city has been sharing samples with Arizona State University researchers in recent years for wastewater surveillance that has helped to track the spread of COVID-19 and other public health threats in local communities. Photo by Erin Driver/ASU

Putting emphasis on preventative health care

In the release, a co-lead author of the Nature Medicine commentary, along with the director of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Institute, says wastewater surveillance has proven its value during the COVID-19 pandemic and needs to be elevated to “a fully effective part of our public health arsenal.”

"If we can implement this more robustly and in more places around the world, we can do much better at protecting public health and avoiding the worst possible impacts of pandemics,” says Halden, who has been recognized for pioneering contributions to detecting the early warning signs of disease outbreaks and other dangers to the health of local communities in wastewater.

“By making wastewater monitoring a priority, we could discover the emergence of disease outbreaks faster than they become evident through the diagnosis of new patients going into hospitals and clinics,” Halden says. “This has been demonstrated recently in the outbreaks of the COVID-19 Omicron variant.”

Beyond early disease detection, Halden and his colleagues see the possibility of broadening our approach to health care by promoting a stronger focus on prevention — in other words, taking steps to make the public aware of what to do to prevent sickness and disease, rather than relying heavily on treating people after they become ill or contract diseases.

“Much of what we do in health care now is to play catch up, trying to heal people who are already in advanced stages of health problems,” Halden says.

He sees hope for reversing that trend as researchers continue to add to the hundreds of already discovered biomarkers — indicators of the condition of the body’s various biological functions.

“This is allowing us to detect and measure more kinds of potential and existing chemical, biological and physical threats to people’s health,” Halden says. “So this presents significant opportunities for the ability of wastewater analysis to reveal problems in the very early stages.”

Accuracy in assessing health challenges

Driver’s work in Halden’s research center includes exploring applications of new tools and methodologies in health care and health science.

“One thing we are looking at doing even more is moving water monitoring beyond only wastewater treatment plants and into other places in communities,” Driver says. “That way we can make visible and track the success of interventions geared to particular health challenges among more specific and localized segments of a city’s population.”