there is another more horrifying threat that, like public speaking, shocks many of us into immobilization: climate change. however, despite the power of big oil money and corrupt politicians, and the current climate trends, there is something that gives me a surge of optimism and energy: younger generations.

i went on stage during cop26 to discuss a program that sparks hope in me, the youth environmental alliance in higher education, or yeah. this group connects students around the world to work together on small projects which focus on education, empowerment, and excitement. this year, i have been working in the module team, which is a group of students that creates modules, or google slides, that contain detailed lessons on each of the target goals within a single un sustainable development goal, or sdg. these lessons are free to download, making this education accessible to anyone. the yeah program also meets via an online, international class where students work together to create a project that will assist in one of the sdg goals, so we turn education into real world action. the work the students in this program do is a continuous reminder that there is hope.

on the panel alongside me were two other yeah fellows, alexis pascaris and jacob genuise, who explained optimism to the audience. as they spoke, i realized i was confronting my own pessimism there at the cop. for years, i had seen cop as an honest attempt at diplomats gathering to negotiate to fairly create a better future and hold each other accountable. speaking inside the blue zone, where only those equipped with special passes could be present as protests centering the excluded rightfully raged outside, i felt fully present in cop’s reality––a reality in which cop is essentially a greenwashing science fair where everyone knows the right words to say but very few have action to back it up. they may have small demonstrations, but are they willing to take the challenging steps to make change?

even at that moment, as i sat behind a giant definition of the word “optimism,” my expectations for a massive cop26 climate pact were at ground level. but i do not lack optimism. i lack faith in the present leaders of the world, not the next ones. the youth are paying attention, they want to act. what they need is mobilization and education, excitement and empowerment. this is why something so small, like creating sdg modules, gives me hope. i know that i am contributing to educating young people on what must be done to confront the greatest challenges of our time. participating in yeah means being connected to an international network of students from every career background who care deeply about making a difference, and that is enough inspiration to make me optimistic about our future. 

you’re standing on a beach, while gentle waves lap against the sand. if you look into the water, you can see hermit crabs munching away on algae. the smell of seawater wafts through your nose. warm sunlight streams down, filtering through the geometric glass walls and ceiling. outside, you can see the sonoran desert and the santa catalina mountains in the distance. 

you’re not standing at sea level but at an elevation of over 4,000 feet. you’re inside a former space colony experiment that’s now an earth systems research center.

welcome to the biosphere 2 ocean.

the university of arizona’s biosphere 2 is a unique facility where marine biologists, atmospheric scientists, biogeographers and other scientists conduct large-scale experiments. katie morgan, manager of marine systems at biosphere 2, is currently preparing the ocean for some new accessories. morgan points out the $3 million worth of lights to hang over the surface, which she explains will be critical for helping corals grow under glass that blocks out uva and uvb light. 

biosphere 2 has a long history of groundbreaking research in the public eye. the biosphere 2 ocean provides an opportunity for visitors to see marine science in action, no sea legs required. i was fortunate to have the opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes tour from morgan. here are 5 fascinating facts about the biosphere 2 ocean that are sure to amaze:

1. it’s the biggest research tank in the world, morgan said. filled with 2.6 million liters of saltwater, it’s just a tad bigger than an olympic swimming pool. unfortunately, morgan explained that visitors are not allowed to swim in the ocean, so michael phelps will need to find another place to practice. the biosphere 2 ocean mimics the shape of the ocean floor with a beach that drops off until a reef crest rises up to break the waves, followed by a drop down to a deeper ocean beyond. 

2. the deeper end of the ocean plunges 7 meters, or just over 21 feet—that’s deep enough to cliff-dive into. a tall cliff rises on the edge of the ocean, allowing a bird’s-eye view of the simulated sea. assistant research professor joost van haren, who has worked at biosphere 2 for decades, shared an anecdote about the lives of the original inhabitants of the facility. when biosphere 2 was created as a prototype habitat for humans on mars, the biospherians who lived inside the experiment between 1991 and 1993 didn’t just do research all day. they were able to cliff-dive safely into the water. talk about a fun lunch break! 

3. so where did those 700,000 gallons of water come from? the original researchers knew that to create a true ocean system, they needed all the features of ocean water. these include minerals and microorganisms that turn saltwater into seawater. rather than trying to replicate true ocean water, morgan explained that the creators of biosphere 2 decided to bring 100,000 gallons of seawater from san diego to the facility, carried in milk trucks across the desert.

4. in the late ’90s, columbia university conducted climate change experiments within biosphere 2. according to morgan, columbia scientists knew that with rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would come rising acidity in the oceans. they wondered how high acidity would affect a coral reef system, so they raised the acidity of the ocean to mimic a future atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration of 420 ppm. as a result, corals grew less and underwent a bleaching event, losing their colorful symbiotic algae and starving to death. with the data collected, the researchers predicted that future ocean acidification in the real ocean would cause a 40 percent decrease in coral growth between 1880 to 2065. this was one of the first studies on ocean acidification, a defining issue threatening oceans today.

5. morgan is well aware that ocean acidification is not the only threat facing corals. oceans absorb not only carbon dioxide, but also heat. this function is critical for the health of our planet: it is our oceans that keep air temperatures steady and livable. as global temperatures rise, oceans endure the brunt of it. high water temperatures are hard on corals. morgan likened long heat waves in the ocean to human illness: “if you have a 102-degree fever for two days, you recover. if you have a fever for two weeks, you die.” equipped with a heat exchange system, the ocean can simulate these heat waves. water run through the system is heated or cooled, and then returned to the research tank. according to morgan, the entirety of the 700,000-gallon ocean can be moved through the heat exchange system in 24 hours, enabling groundbreaking research on how heat waves affect corals and what humans can do to save them.

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with 50 international partners, the research team at the biosphere 2 ocean will continue doing critical work. keep an eye out in the news for the iconic glass structure because there’s no doubt that biosphere 2 is going to be making headlines again.

human activity affects our planet and this research confirmed that college sports are no exception. transportation, the energy and resources that go into maintaining athletic facilities, and the waste that is generated at sporting events are all contributors to this impact. 

however, it’s not all doom and gloom. some schools are viewing these categories as areas of opportunity for improvement. if we can get more to adopt sustainability initiatives that address these issues, colleges have the potential to lead the way toward green athletics and student-athletes like myself can play an integral role in springing schools into action.

this decision marks the culmination of seven years of organizing by gw students and aligns with the recommendations from the university’s environmental, social, and governance (esg) responsibility task force.

“for nearly a decade, gw students and students across the country have been demanding that our universities take moral leadership and end their support for the fossil fuel industry,” said jeremy liskar, member of the student organization sunrise gw and a student representative on the esg task force. “our victory (this week) clearly shows that student organizing has changed the consensus on this issue. gw’s commitment will help move the ball for other institutions to take similar action.”

the task force, established earlier in 2020, included students, faculty, trustees, and alumni. together they recommended seven commitments to be incorporated into gw’s existing sustainability plan. in addition to divesting from all public and private companies that focus on fossil fuel extraction, they also recommend that the university commits to halting any new direct or indirect investments to businesses that reap the majority of their revenue from fossil fuel, including coal, oil, and natural gas.

“the covid-19 crisis has served to highlight the enormous impact humans have on the environment and the need for equitable access to healthy natural resources,” the task force wrote in a statement released monday. “the reduced burning of fossil fuels over the last few months has, in a short time, had a dramatically positive impact on the quality of the air we breathe and our waterways. simultaneously, the pressures of the pandemic alongside existing environmental, health, and economic disparities have laid bare the need for more inclusive and equitable structures in our institutions and society as a whole.”

gw joins 37 other u.s. educational institutions that have committed to or achieved full divestment, according to fossil free, including planet forward 2022年世界杯亚洲预选赛结果 schools middlebury college, suny-esf and the university of hawaii. other d.c. area schools are also part of the movement, as georgetown university made a pledge to divest completely within 10 years in february and american university announced the completion of their full divestment in april. university of maryland, located just outside of d.c., agreed to a full divestment plan in 2016.

this announcement comes at the culmination of an academic year saturated with advocacy by gw students demanding the university divest its roughly $1.78 billion endowment from businesses that profit from fossil fuel. currently, less than 3% of the endowment — or around $50 million — comes from fossil fuel investment, according to estimates. however, meghan chapple, director of gw’s office of sustainability, says divestment is more significant than that number may suggest.

“it’s important because it’s part of a larger movement and it sends a message about climate change … there is significant consensus that climate change is the big, pressing issue of our time,” chapple said.

the “larger movement” to urge institutions of higher education to commit to fossil fuel divestment began when unity college became the first to do so in 2012. the same year, the fossil free campaign — a branch of 350.org — was founded on student-led action to demand divestment. fossil free gw was formed in 2013.

in november 2019, fossil free gw announced they were transitioning to sunrise gw, to become a campus hub for the sunrise movement. as a chapter of the national youth-led group, sunrise gw organized art builds, protests, and petitions on campus urging the university to divest over the course of the 2019-2020 academic year.

this april, a referendum to divest the university’s holding from fossil fuel was included in gw’s student association election. it received approval from 85.66% of voters.

“i would like to acknowledge our student leaders who have — as representatives of their generation, of the generation that will inhabit the planet over the next 50 to 100 years, the generation that is going to be the future of this planet — i’d like to acknowledge them for all the work they have done to raise awareness of the importance of climate change to the leadership of the university,” chapple said.

two current undergraduate students, liskar and jillian weber, who has been involved in gw sustainability initiatives, were members of the 14-person task force.

“i think the student community can be confident that they were well represented in the voices that jillian and jeremy brought to the table,” chapple said.

liskar said sunrise gw is “ecstatic” about the divestment announcement.

since releasing their recommendations for the university sustainability plan in late may, the esg task force held two digital town halls, allowing students, staff, faculty, and alumni to provide feedback, and additionally received more than 100 submissions of “overwhelmingly positive” feedback via the task force website.

divestment strategies have been used in the past to invoke societal change, perhaps most notably in opposition to south african apartheid. in the mid-1980s, campuses around the world divested from companies doing business in south africa, ultimately helping to weaken the apartheid government.

chapple also drew attention to the university’s pledge to become carbon neutral by offsetting two centuries worth of greenhouse gas emissions dating back to the university’s charter in 1821. while gw had previously aimed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040, the university this week committed to an accelerated plan, aiming to reach neutrality by 2030. gw also signed on to plans to go beyond carbon neutrality in honor of the university’s bicentennial next year, a pledge chapple finds equally significant to that of divestment.

other additions to the university’s updated sustainability plan include goals to eliminate single-use plastic on campus, increase the amount of greenspace for biodiversity, conserve stormwater, and convert campus transportation to zero-emissions vehicles.

sophie guthrie, 19, rallied alongside the other youth leaders who organized the madison, wisc., strike. guthrie is studying environmental studies and political science in her first year at the university of wisconsin-madison, but she has been involved in this movement long before coming to college.

guthrie’s introduction to the global climate change crisis was in her seventh grade science class. her teacher’s lessons on how extreme weather patterns are linked to climate change sparked her interest in the topic, but guthrie noticed these class discussions were often discouraging and rarely included good news. she felt the pain of the issues and decided it was up to her to do something about it. there was only so much she could learn in the classroom, so guthrie worked on educating herself and her peers. in seventh grade, guthrie was building momentum for what was to come.

the current environmental movement is unique because it has been erected by the voices and actions of youth. now more than ever before, youth in high school and middle school are standing up to support this movement. guthrie believes this change is less in the minds of the youth and more in the acceptance from society.

“there’s never been a youth who doesn’t care about what’s happening to them; it’s just that they’ve been told that they shouldn’t, so they don’t want to share their voice,” she said.

like others, guthrie is inspired by this momentum and power youth, like herself, have found. what starts with an individual, grassroots organizer can lead to rallying a community and initiating a national movement.

after organizing a city climate change march this past spring, guthrie and her peers realized they needed a team to maintain the momentum of this movement. guthrie helped found the youth climate action team (ycat), a non-profit organization with members in city hubs all across the state. having a formal non-profit status is important for this team of youth leaders because it gives members, many of whom are under the age of 18, the validation needed to sign forms such as permits. since its formation in march, the team has grown to about 80 active members. most members range from middle and high school to college-age, but recently, kids as young as fifth grade have reached out to join.

with such a variety in age and experience, collaboration has been key for this organization’s success. without official experience, most members had to rely on learning activism skills from one another. the team also provides a sense of support and a source of energy for each of the members. guthrie admits being a youth activist can be difficult at times.

one of the challenges is dealing with the emotions that this work can produce.

“a lot of us are always angry, and we’re always pissed that we’re doing this. because it’s why do i have to be doing this? why have i been worrying about this since the seventh grade? this shouldn’t be my job,” she said.

“it’s really just each other that keeps me going. if it was just me by myself, i would not still be working on this because burnout is real and people get burned out so fast. it’s allowing each other to take breaks but also helping each other back up after things happen.”

for the global climate strike, the team hoped to localize wisconsin’s events and initiate change at a local government level in order to most effectively tackle each community’s diverse set of problems. ycat leaders established the united goal to push wisconsin’s gov. tony evers to declare a statewide climate emergency, and various cities, including madison, were demanding their local officials to do the same.

in madison, there were activities from sunrise to sunset. guthrie explained this was intentional because they acknowledge that not everyone has the privilege to take the whole day off of work or school to strike. they wanted to make sure there was a way to get involved no matter what time or for how long people may be able to join.

organizing a strike is hard work. guthrie admits that most of the day was filled with stress and anxiety as she was pulled from one task to another, trying to make sure the day ran smoothly. there were moments, though, that stopped her in her tracks. 

“i saw everyone marching down the street, and it was this gigantic crowd…to see all these hundreds of people walking down, it was amazing,” guthrie said.

the crowd was heading to a gathering in the streets outside of madison gas & electric (mg&e), the city’s local utility company. organizers ran teach-ins, tabling from environmental organizations, art construction, and more. from mg&e, the crowd marched to the capitol where there was a rally led by the youth climate action team. following the rally, the crowd entered the capitol rotunda to continue voicing demands for climate change action until the building closed.

guthrie hopes the day’s events will build awareness about the power structures, such as the power of mg&e, at work in madison.

“this shouldn’t be about people going vegetarian or vegan or straws,” guthrie said. “this should be about looking at the companies that are causing the majority of this damage and focusing on taking them down rather than fighting each other. a lot of these things that are holding us back from progress are these companies that are profiting off of our extinction.”

the threat of extinction is one that guthrie takes very seriously. outside of this movement, guthrie explains that she doesn’t have many long-term plans.

“climate change is going to decide what future i have, so i can’t plan for a future if there isn’t one.”

we do this often; it’s our “couples thing.” it horrified many of our friends and family when we started about a year ago, but now our finds are a part of normal conversations. given our successes, other friends have given it a go as well. we always exercise caution by only going together and sticking to areas that are pretty well lit. (we’ve only day dove once, but are still not super comfortable with it. odd glances and all.)

it started out as a fun and thrifty hobby we could do after talking to a couple who had actually met in a dumpster. and while it is certainly fun, it also became heartbreaking very quickly to see how many perfectly good items — especially food — get thrown out on a daily basis.

according to the food and agriculture organization, if food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, just behind china and the united states. based on what i’ve seen in dumpsters — and to know that this is all in just one midwestern town — that’s not unfathomable: i’ve seen dumpsters full of spaghetti, still steaming from the hot bar it occupied only an hour before.

not all food found in a dumpster is edible, of course — at least not by humans. but there is quite a lot that is. i therefore encourage everyone to give it a shot. (i’m happy to report i’ve lost no friends by talking about it so much.) here is a list of ways that my and emily’s lives have changed thanks to this unusual practice:

we eat healthier

“healthier? no way!”

it’s true! produce expires pretty quickly. for example, the shelf life for brussels sprouts is about three to four days if properly refrigerated. that means that they start showing signs of wear in the supermarket in less time. so where is a grocer going to put them if they are technically fine, but no longer attractive enough to sell? the trash, of course! and with any luck, that grocer will dispose of them in a way that makes it safe for me to scoop‘em right out for dinner!

i’m not saying this to knock grocers; they provide an invaluable service to their communities. but we in the u.s. do have some issues with unattractive, yet healthy, food. thankfully, companies like imperfect produce exist, which combats food waste by “finding a home for ‘ugly’ produce,” as their website states. that is, they take produce from farms that is perfectly good, but won’t sell in grocery stores due to superficial damage, and they sell it for far less than you’d normally pay!

we eat more creatively

when you are suddenly in possession of 50 husks of corn, there are only so many times you can eat corn on the cob before you start to look for more creative ways to prepare it. the same goes for steak, bagels, strawberries, asparagus. (we’re still waiting to have this problem with chocolate.)

we’re saving money

in october of 2018, emily and i spent a whopping $84 on groceries, all thanks to dumpster diving. the only grocery shopping we’ve actually done is for essentials that we don’t usually find: milk, sugar, salt, flour.

we’re reducing waste

we may not be reducing it by a lot, but it feels like we are. it feels oddly satisfying, like a subversive civic duty, to come home from a 15 minute trek with two giant boxes of food. but it’s also very sad: the u.s. department of agriculture in 2014 estimated that 49.1 million americans were living in food insecure households.

thankfully, there are apps out there that work to curb such waste. apps like mealconnect act as liaisons among food donors, food pantries, and food insecure households. (emily and i have discussed starting a similar business.) but while they do exist and do amazing work, nearly half of all food produced still ends up in dumpsters.

we’re actually making money

as the saying goes: one person’s trash is another’s treasure.

in addition to scrounging for food in dumpsters, emily and i have been keeping our eyes peeled for what we call “roadside finds” — or large furniture items people leave on their curbs for garbage day. we take these items, spruce them up, and sell them. we’ve made over $1,000 doing this.

i’m writing this not to brag (ok, maybe a little), but to highlight that these items we’ve sold may also have ended up in a landfill otherwise. but for less than an hour of work for each sale, we’ve been able to clean them up and give them happy homes while making a small profit.

i’d like to challenge you to keep a look out for perfectly good discarded items in your community. they may not mean anything to the person throwing them away, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have new life elsewhere.

obviously, dumpster diving is not for everyone. it takes a lot of suspension of disbelief to shove your (hopefully gloved) hand into a pile of trash. or to not even question what that liquid that just spilled on your arm was. but there are definitely good things that come of it if you can. this hobby has changed my life in many ways, and i hope that after reading this, it might change yours, too.

lichtenstein recently sat down with us to talk about his work with esf and his thoughts on sustainability. our conversation was edited for clarity and space.

q: what does sustainability mean to you?

a: you know, when you ask that question, the first thing that came to mind are my grandkids. it is really about leaving this place better for them so that they have promise. that their future has promise. i believe it is our obligation to be stewards of this place, wise stewards of this place, but to leave it better than it was when we first came here… for me, sustainability is making sure that the environment is sound enough that life as we know it now can continue to prosper, and that includes human life. and sustainability is about being resilient and it’s about regenerating. so how can we regenerate communities? how can we make our communities even better than they are today? and that really is the human factor.

q: could you talk about the goals that the suny chancellor has for sustainability of all the suny campuses?

a: sure. those goals are not in place yet. we have a draft set of goals that… a group of us produced from a number of different suny institutions, and presented to the chancellor for potential adoption by the chancellor to all of suny, which is 64 campuses. this was only shared with her about 4 months ago and they have not (yet) been adopted. there still needs to be a lot of discussion around them to make sure that they’re really viable. we started with a document that was a menu-item list of things to choose from. they have to be phased; a lot of things in there are not going to happen overnight and really relate to major cultural and policy shifts that have to take place. it’s just like the challenges we face here at esf with sustainability: you try to tackle the low-hanging fruit first, those things that are easily achievable, start to show some results with those things, get people to buy into it. then start to take on the more difficult things. and that’s, i think, where suny is. having said that, that suny does not have formal sustainability goals, we do have a chancellor that is all about sustainability. how can we help suny with what we know, and how can they help us as we try to accelerate more on that sustainability paradigm?=

q: so what do you see as esf’s biggest sustainability goal right now?

a: well, the college operations need to be more sustainable. we need to get to 100% renewable energy… so operations, waste, waste management, recycling, there’s a lot to do. more sustainable grounds, and grounds-keeping. we still use quite a few chemicals, and we still use gasoline-powered lawn mowers; i’d like to see us move to plug-ins and things like that. so those are all obvious things. those are things we need to do on the operations side. but i would say we don’t spend enough time on the social equity piece of sustainability. we have accessibility issues for a lot of our facilities—those students and staff and faculty that are less than fully abled— if we have one of our elevators go down, which happens constantly.

gender inclusive spaces, such as bathrooms. we’re making progress, but there’s so much more that we can do. the whole social equity piece is really critical, and when people think about sustainability, they don’t think about that. but i’m working very close with our chief diversity officer, our title ix officer. i think there are gender inequality issues here still, big time across the board: student, staff, and faculty. that’s a huge focus for us. and that might not be something that we get credit for, and points in our sustainable tracking rating system. but that’s not what you do this for. sustainability is about people. that’s when you asked me about my vision of sustainability, it’s really about people and creating a more equitable space for people.

q: while i do think esf has a long way to go in terms of sustainability, i think about universities across the country that don’t even think about sustainability at all. i was wondering if you had any advice for those types of universities.

a: we have an obligation, i think, to do exactly what you’re implying here. and that is to help others come along, particularly schools that may not have any kind of environmental focus at all. we need to take christina johnson, our chancellor, and we need to figure out how to spread her message and engage with others on her message from other academic institutions. because here’s a person who has undeniable qualifications that nobody can contend. and if somebody from that stature is out there talking about this, that’s critically important. so that’s why i think if we can get these sustainability goals in place for suny, and start in new york state. start to impact the rest of the institutions in new york state that aren’t doing much in this area. then start to position suny, the largest public institution of its kind in the country as an example. and it can influence everything. so yes, we need to do work to help others. and that’s what i’m excited about.

flagstaff – universities in arizona are stepping up how they handle food waste and single-use plastic. all three of the state’s universities have robust composting programs to reduce what ends up in landfills. but northern arizona university has expanded its efforts to include reusable food containers, and it banned plastic straws this year. now, flagstaff businesses are taking similar steps.

“i see all of the plastic in the ocean and i really want to make sure nau isn’t contributing to that at all,” said senior emerald mccormick, chair of the student run organization nau green fund, which provides funding for projects that reduce the university’s environmental impact. the funds come from a fee nau students pay for sustainability.

in january, mccormick implemented a system at all the campus dining halls that allows students to use “green” food containers that resemble takeout containers. students pay a one time $5 fee for a token, which allows them to check out a container. when they’re finished eating, students return the containers to a machine that stores them until they can be washed, and they get their token back.

“a lot of students are really excited for it. that’s why we expanded it all across campus because they kept asking for it,” mccormick said.

not much of the waste from the food containers goes into the trash. at least 90 percent of nau’s dining hall food waste is composted. after four stages of processing, the waste ends up in piles of compost hidden behind campus.

“all that soil just goes back to nau,” said nau campus-dining sustainability coordinator gaby galvan. “we use it on landscaping. we use it in community gardens. we use it in our greenhouses. it goes to the community members. so it’s just all recycled back into our community.”

composting saves the university on garbage disposal costs. last year, more than 300,000 pounds of food waste made it into the compost piles. that number could be more this year, as campus dining now uses straws that are 100% compostable.

galvan said it was “pretty easy” to get rid of small, disposable plastic on campus, “and also at the same time create a behavior change, and get students to start thinking if they really need all of the plastic disposables that they use throughout the day.”

the behavior change is spreading to flagstaff businesses. laura diez is the nau student who wants to get half of flagstaff businesses straw-free by 2020. she also leads the straw free flag campaign, which is an effort to eliminate single-use plastics.

“i really just am looking for some sort of mindfulness around straws. … obviously i hope to see those eradicated pretty soon,” diez said.

one local business, single speed coffee cafe, no longer uses plastic straws. instead, patrons can get a paper straw and pay extra for a plastic cup.

“nau is always going to be a really big influence on all of us and their ban kind of makes it more known to the students as well,” said zachary shouse, manager of single speed. “it kind of starts to be a normal thing as people go around.”

at least 10 businesses have signed the straw free flag pledge, and about 30 businesses now provide straws by request only, diez said.

arizona state university has similar programs in place. food is composted and plastic straws are not available in dining halls.

the university of arizona is exploring alternative straw options, according to trevor ledbetter, who directs the office of sustainability. the university also has a composting program in partnership with tucson.

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this story is part of elemental: covering sustainability, a new multimedia collaboration between cronkite news, arizona pbs, kjzz, kpcc, rocky mountain pbs and pbs socal.

republished with permission. see the original piece at cronkite news. for more stories from cronkite news, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.