Science and Research 2023

Flagstaff

It’s called the City of Innovation for a reason

CITY OF FLAGSTAFF

Innovation happens here and it keeps happening again and again. Flagstaff businesses use science at work every day to incorporate stewardship into their business practices The Pioneer Pitch and Innovate Waste: The Carbon Neutrality Challenge (IW:TCNC) provide a platform for ideas to compete. You will see science is at the root of these two topics and you may even begin to feel a new sense of pride in this innovative community we call home, and we call Flagstaff

The Pioneer Pitch and Innovate Waste: The Carbon Neutrality Challenge (IW:TCNC) occurred over the first weekend in May this year marking four years in a row of next-level entrepreneurship Hosted by the dynamic team known as Moonshot@NACET,this broad effort to“grow your own”businesses,has morphed into growing business incubators and businesses and innovation at the same time.

Over 20 years ago the Flagstaff community created a collaborative team from local, regional, state, and federal partners to deliver the first business incubator in northern Arizona. Whereas pioneering and collaboration have been the hallmarks of northern Arizona since people first roamed red rocks shaded by ponderosa and juniper,recent efforts have continued to demonstrate the same willingness to work together to do big things The City of Flagstaff Economic Development and Sustainability Offices have done just that as they partnered with Moonshot@NACET to deliver the Pioneer Pitch and Innovate Waste: The Carbon Neutrality Challenge which complements the Pioneer Pitch.

Before getting into the details, it is important to acknowledge the courageous people and their ventures as participants in both events:

 BizFit, delivering unique fitness programming for residents and visitors

 HWY 89A, inviting visitors to commemorate their connection to red rock country and the Colorado Plateau

 Starter Video, video and image production outfit focused on sustainability

 Blockchain Unmasked,a fraud recovery unit focused on cryptocrime and more.

 NAZ Local helping visitors to access unique local offerings in the marketplace.

 Missions and Madness teaching collaboration and leadership through outdoor activities

 Pitch, delivering entrepreneurship curriculum to youth from kindergarten through high school.

 WelcomedHere,helpingthosewithnon-apparent disabilities navigate communities

 Whole Heartedly Nuts, delicious nut bars that are 100% healthy

 Ponderosa Trees & Bumble Bees Preschool, a forest preschool fostering total health.

 Convergent Dynamics, optimizing the energy grid for fiscal savings and robust analytic power

 Silvaflux, creating financial feasibility in reforestation efforts

 4 Corners Carbon Coalition, producing ultra-low carbon concrete blocks to build afford-

able housing units in Flagstaff

The Pioneer Pitch is a series of statewide events held in the spirit of the television show Shark Tank in which entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of judges The best and most ready to advance all come together in the summer to compete among the best of the best The Pioneer Pitch is open to all types of of business ideas and serves as a solid complement to IW:TCNC To learn more about the Pioneer Pitch,visit the team known as Moonshot@NACET online at https:// www.moonshotaz.com/ or go visit them in person at the NACET Campus on McMillan Mesa in Flagstaff

Now to focus on the four ideas pitched at Innovate Waste: The Carbon Neutrality Challenge has the potential to marry stewardship and industry for the betterment of the planet and for us, the people who make the earth our home.

4 Corners Carbon Coalition pitched a collaborative project in which Block-Lite will use environmentally friendly manufacturing to produce ultra-low carbon concrete block that will be donated to Habitat for Humanity of Northern Arizona as they build quality,sustainable affordable housing in Flagstaff This project is checking all the boxes Block-Lite is a third generation, Flagstaff owned and operated business powered completely by solar For this project, they are working with CarbonBuilt and Aircapture to implement an innovation that allows for carbon to be harvested from the atmosphere and used in the manufacturing process to ultimately create stronger concrete blocks The process known as direct air capture (DAC-to Concrete) is not new It is a known technology that enhances production, lowers costs, and adds strength.

What is new, is co-locating the direct air capture mechanism on the same property where the blocks are manufactured Proximity matters as the closer processes and materials are to production and the consumer, the lower the costs for production and transport. All material going into the blocks is locally sourced from locations no more than 80 miles away

This winning project when successfully completed with new, affordable, ultra-low carbon homes in Flagstaff, will serve as an example of innovation meeting the current and future needs of Flagstaff while enhancing the environment and creating jobs; Block-Lite may double their production capabilities which means more jobs

Silvaflux and Convergent Dynamics tied for the runner up position and are poised to have an enormous impact on the climate.

Silvaflux is commercializing a newly discovered climate cooling service by forests that will bring greater profitability to reforestation efforts This is a tall order,and Silvaflux is doing this right now in Flagstaff Their technologies and discoveries have the potential to facilitate reforestation projects around the world where it is needed most. Silvaflux will provide the data necessary for reforestation projects to issue 30% more credits on top of what they already produce. As a result, reforestation projects will become more profitable, and hence more common across the globe.

Convergent Dynamics is using computational power/demand analysis to help regulate (load balance) the energy grid. As renewable energy sources increase, so does fluctuation and uncertainty between supply and demand. By partnering with the growing renewable grid in Arizona,we can get cheap power for a computational warehouse that will respond to grid demand (decrease when power is scarce, cost and contract driven) and can help provide constant load when power is in high supply Computing would primarily be short time slot cloud computing, with gap filling Crypto mining when energy is cheap, and reward is high.

Ponderosa Pines and Bumblebees Preschool is another project that was pitched at the Innovate Waste: Carbon Neutrality Challenge. The preschool will provide an outdoor curriculum to children between the ages of 3 and 5 years old The preschool will be housed in a forest environment and will build a yurt that will be used for a variety of things including protection from the elements as needed The unique science to the forest school concept falls heavily on the brain development of a child. Outdoors, hands-on-play provides the types of interactions to set children up for better overall health in their adolescent and adult lives While this idea appears to be less scientific than the others, it is a catalyst in early development producing potential innovators of the future. This marks the fourth year of the Innovate Waste: The Carbon Neutrality Challenge, and while the name has changed over the years, the innovationscontinuetoimpress Thesciencethat isatworkinalloftheseisindeedimpressive Learn more at https://www chooseflagstaff com/innovate-waste-the-carbon-neutrality-challenge/

construction on a massive flood mitigation project at the Schultz Y has created a 16-acre retention basin big enough to hold 27 Olympic swimming pools of flood

Concrete made with trapped carbon dioxide can keep carbon out of the atmosphere and contribute to housing in Flagstaff

El Ninos far costlier than once thought

SETH BORENSTEIN Associated Press

WASHINGTON The natural burst of El Nino warming that changes weather worldwide is far costlier with longer-lasting expenses than experts had thought, averaging trillions of dollars in damage, a new study found.

An El Nino is brewing now and it might be a big and therefore costly one, scientists said El Nino is a temporary and natural warming of parts of the equatorial Pacific that causes droughts,floods and heat waves in different parts of the world. It also adds a boost to human-caused warming

The study in Thursday’s journal Science totals global damage with an emphasis on lasting economic scars It runs counter to previous research that found, at least in the United States, that El Ninos overall aren’t too costly and can even be beneficial.

Some but not all outside economists have issues with the new research out of Dartmouth College, saying its damage estimates are too big.

Study authors said the average El Nino costs the global economy about $3 4 trillion. The strong 1997-1998 one cost $5 7 trillion The World Bank estimated the 1997-1998 El Nino cost governments $45 billion, which is more than 100 times smaller than the Dartmouth estimate.

But the Dartmouth team said they are looking at more than the traditional costs and for longer time periods

“We have this sense that El Nino is a really big hammer that hits the Earth system every few years But we didn’t have as much of a handle on its sort of macroeconomic implications both what that means just on a yearto-year basis and what that might mean with future global warming”said study lead author

Christopher Callahan, a climate impacts researcher at Dartmouth.

“Economies bear the scars of El Nino for a decade or more and potentially forever,” said study co-author Justin Mankin, a Dartmouth climate scientist.

The economic scars are the diversion of spending away from technology and innovation toward recovery and rebuilding efforts, Callahan said. It’s about opportunities lost while digging out of the El Nino hole.

The way Callahan and Mankin did this was to simulate a world without an El Nino event and look at the global difference in costs,compared to the global GDP, Mankin said.

El Nino’s biggest impacts generally hit in the northern winter, but in the summer it reduces hurricane activity in the Atlantic, studies show

Science and Discovery in the World’s Best Destination for Astrotourism

DISCOVER FLAGSTAFF

Flagstaff’s commitment to stargazing is supported with light restrictions making it the ideal destination to explore the night skies In 1958, the Flagstaff City Council passed the world’s first lighting ordinance banning advertising search lights that were making it difficult for professional astronomers to complete their night sky research Flagstaff is home to Lowell Observatory, the U.S Naval Observatory’s Flagstaff Station, United States Astrogeology Science Center or USGS, the National Undergraduate Research Observatory,Braeside Observatory and the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer (NPOI). In 2001, the City of Flagstaff became the World’s First International Dark Sky City a designation awarded by the International Dark Sky Association. Flagstaff’s low light pollution and commitment to enforcing stargazing-friendly lighting restrictions make it

the ideal destination to explore the night skies for science discovery and a dark sky refuge for hundreds of amateur astronomers

For more than 125 years Lowell Observatory has connected people to the universe,through education, exploration and discovery Low-

ell Observatory carved out a niche for many discoveries including Pluto History is made every day by their brilliant team of researchers Flagstaff has become one of the premier deep space research sites in the world and an ideal location for locals and visitors to view and learn more about the night sky Yale University entered an agreement with Lowell for the 100 Earths Project using the EXPRES high-precision spectrograph on the Lowell Discovery Telescope (LDT) in Flagstaff, Arizona to search for exoplanets with greater precision than ever before.

Lowell Observatory is open daily, offering tours and educational programs with night sky viewing. Experience the ever impressive and historic Clark Refractor and the Giovale Open Deck Observatory, a public observing plaza with high powered advanced telescopes

Please see ASTROTOURISM, Page 4

BILL STAFFORD NASA

Astronaut training in Flagstaff at Sunset Crater for the 2024 moon mission

It makes it wetter across much of the U.S South and West, Peru, Uruguay and Argentina, some of Southeast Asia, and a bit of east central Africa. It makes it drier in southeast Africa,southern Asia,northern Australia and the Amazon and often leads to increased wildfires in those areas

It’s warmer in much of Asia,the American Pacific Northwest and Australia.

El Ninos occur on average about every three to five years and vary in strength, according to the U.S National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The last strong El Nino was in 2016

Because “the impacts of El Nino look a lot like the impacts of global warming,” studying the El Nino economic damage “is pretty essential” to understanding the bigger damage from human-caused climate change, Mankin said. It shows a world unprepared for the hurt that’s coming, he said.

“Our economies are poorly adjusted and poorly adapted to the climate variability that we have right now,” Mankin said. Neither Mankin nor Callahan are fulltime economists Economists who looked at their study were not impressed, but other climate scientists were.

It s not the case that all countries suffer from an El Nino In fact in some cases it’s just the opposite,” said University of Cambridge macro-economist Kaimar Mohaddes His 2017 study in the Journal of International Economics looked at 21 national economies mostly developed, during past El Ninos and found in the United States and Europe an El Nino “has a growth-enhancing effect” while it harmed Australia Chile Indonesia India Japan, New Zealand and South Africa. Mankin and Callahan said their study looked at the globe as a whole, not individual countries

Marshall Burke, an economist and environmental policy professor at Stanford University, said the Dartmouth scientists “make a compelling case that this has really slowed growth in severely affected

From page 3

Science discovery continues at Lowell Observatory as construction continues on the new Astronomy Discovery Center set to open in the fall of 2024

Another interesting fact is all the astronauts that have walked on the moon trained in Flagstaff and you can walk in their footsteps In 2019, the world celebrated the 50th anniversary of one of humankind’s grandest achievements with Neil Armstrong’s first step onto the Moon on July 20, 1969 Over the ensuing three years 11 other people walked on and explored the Moon. This was possible only with years of preparation, in which many milestones occurred in the Flagstaff area including astronaut science training, instrument development and lunar mapping. Experience Flagstaff’s Lunar Legacy at multiple landmarks in and around Flagstaff with the Lunar Legacy Passport available at discoverflagstaff com and the Flagstaff Visitor Center (1 E Route 66)

The passport is will guide your astronomical journey to Lowell Observatory, Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Grand Canyon National Park and Meteor Crater VisitMeteorCraterandBarringerSpace Museum, about 37 miles east of Flagstaff off I-40 The amazing, 50,000 year-old meteor crater is a can’t-miss destinations for science,discovery and space enthusiasts in northern Arizona. The crater was left as the result of a meteorite (estimated to be about 150 feet across and weighing several hundred thousand tons) striking the Earth with a force 150 times greater than an atomic bomb explosion Get an up-close look at the crater from the indoor viewing area of the visitor center, outside on one of the observation decks and self-guided trails,or on a guided tour along the rim Explore the Barringer Museum, experience immersive multimedia presentations,4D theater and fascinating hands-on exhibits like the Moon module replica that was used to train the Apollo 11 astronauts

A short drive down Highway 89 is a spectacular 900-year-old volcanic landscape Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument is not only stunning, it’s a frequent astronaut training and equipment testing site In April 2023, Sunset Crater Volcano received an official designation as an Apollo mission training site and training historic district A plaque and informational sign have been added to the Bonita Vista Trail Did you know astronaut training continues for the next moon mission in and around Flagstaff?

Located next to Buffalo Park at 2255 N Gemini Rd., you will find early moon mapping and lunar science but first make an appointment at the US Geological Survey Astrogeology Science Center In the USGS Gene Shoemaker building six, you will be amazed to find one of the remaining Lunar Rover Vehicle (LVR) simulators on exhibit in the lobby

Thanks to Flagstaff’s dedication to preserving and protecting dark skies, as the world’s first International Dark Sky place, the world can enjoy more dark skies, especially in Arizona. Arizona is home to more certified IDA Dark-Sky communities than any other U S state Areas in and around Flagstaff with IDA Dark-Sky certification include Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Wupatki National Monument, Walnut Canyon National

NATACHA PISARENKO, ASSOCIATED PRESS Roads

countries like Peru, and resulted in trillions of (dollars) of lost economic output around the world.

“This paper has certainly made me much more worried about the upcoming and likely large El Nino,” Burke said in an email Michael McPhaden, a NOAA oceanographer who studies El Ninos, said he has long thought damage estimates of El Nino were way too low and more important the “big loser during El Nino is the global south,” which are poorer nations that are hit the hardest.

“The economic impacts of the El Nino that is predicted for later this year will depend on how strong it is” McPhaden said in an email. Big “monster El Ninos” like those in 1997-98 “can be hugely damaging with lingering effects that carry over into following years On the other hand,if it turns out to be a garden variety El Nino, the consequences may be more muted and the recovery time shortened.”

Entre Rios, Argentina

Monument and Grand Canyon National Park. Starry skies are abundant and you can even see the Milky Way in downtown Flagstaff!

Enjoy star parties with the Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition during the Festival of Science or visit flagstaffdarkskies org for more information and star party events Dark skies are not just for astronomers but benefits all of us from human health

ALTAF QADRI, ASSOCIATED PRESS

the ocean reflecting the moon and stars And, the IDA, estimates that at least 30% of all outdoor lighting in the U S is wasted from light that is not shielded. Lastly, astronomers and stargazers rely on dark skies to discover and enjoy the night sky Flagstaff, truly is the world’s best destination for astrotourism, learn more at discoverflagstaff com. Please stay and play responsibly

El Nino From page 2 SCIENCE&RESEARCH

KERRICK JAMES

The Clark telescope at Lowell Observatory Flagstaff Arizona

Astrotourism

are flooded April 28, 2016, in Villa Paranacito,