Our new home: A space to gather
By Peter Schlosser
“Time pours into us and then pours out again. In between the two pourings we live our destiny.” Louise Erdrich, from her novel “Four Souls”
The new home for the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, ISTB7, is situated at a crossroads of history. It is the site of an Indigenous canal that dates to at least 1,500-years ago and continues to flow through its atrium, a 130-year-old rail line that carried products from the local dairy processor to the United Rail line, and the nation’s first coast-to-coast roadway constructed 91 years ago. Whereas these innovations are no longer used for their intended purpose, the site now is the home of ISTB7, a building in which discovery, learning, problem solving, networking and engagement take place with the goal of shaping tomorrow today through discovery and new innovation.
The goal of ISTB7, along with the work of the many students, faculty and staff who join me in calling the new space home, is to ensure that humankind makes the right choices for a future in which life can thrive on a healthy planet. Action for a sustainable future is needed with great urgency. Civilization is at a crossroads. In 2021, there were 20 billion-dollar climate and weather disasters in the United States alone. In 2020, 40.5 million people across the globe lost their homes, some temporarily and others permanently, as a result of disasters and conflict that–as science shows–are made worse by the rapidly accelerating climate crisis. Science also reveals options for solutions to challenges such as those posed by climate change. But we have to act now–we face a decisive decade. We must bring the demands of humankind back into balance with the resources our planet has to offer. Our environmental and societal planetary boundaries are stretched and some of them are close to crossing the red line.
While human activities led to these crises, humans alone have the ability to alter their destiny to create a positive future for all. People have demonstrated through time that we can adapt, mitigate and make change in a way no other species on Earth can.
Our new building is a physical expression of the Global Futures Laboratory’s purpose. This signature structure demonstrates that it is possible to develop functional, yet exciting structures with the lowest possible impact. The building incorporates both passive techniques and established technologies to minimize its environmental footprint.
However, the true value of our new home is its capacity to bring people together. It is designed to allow members of the academic community, policymakers, the private sector, and the public to engage on future-oriented outcomes. The building houses a satellite of the Decision Theater to provide knowledge to those making decisions with impact on the future state of our planet, frequently in situations where there is uncertainty. It will further integrate the Global Futures Laboratory Five Core Spaces — Discovery, Learning, Solutions, Networks and Engagement — by creating proximity for those with different backgrounds and varied areas of expertise.
ISTB7 represents a new chapter in gathering experts, policymakers and thought leaders to engage in the world and anticipate how the world can and will look. As a species, we must seize this critical moment. Many solutions to the challenges we face exist or are in late stages of development. For example, in just a few weeks, we will install a prototype MechanicalTreeTM, in partnership with our collaborators at Carbon Collect, that will remove carbon from the air to help mitigate global warming more rapidly than any other innovation before. The MechanicalTreeTM will be located just to the south of ISTB7 and its laboratory home that now sits on the ground floor of this new structure.
The activities taking place in ISTB7 reach across all of ASU and help us anticipate what challenges and opportunities lie ahead. They span a space of hope because humans can do extraordinary things. This new structure is simply the latest example.
Peter Schlosser is the vice president and vice provost of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University. This article appeared in the Global Futures: Now newsletter on Jan. 20, 2022. Sign up for the newsletter at globalfutures.asu.edu/gfl-newsletters.
