WHAT DO Buffalo Wing Sauce, Cheesy Ranch and Hickory Smoked Bacon have in common? They’re all flavors of roasted crickets developed by Charles Wilson ’11 as part of Cricket Flours, which sells sustainable sources of protein. Since 2014, Cricket Flours has expanded to also offer baking mixes and additional insects like mealworms and black soldier fly larvae. Not many know how versatile insects can be, Wilson notes, and how efficient they are as a protein source. “It takes about 2,000 gallons of water to produce just 1 pound of beef, whereas crickets need just 1 gallon—and they create 100 times less greenhouse gases at the same time,” he says. —KATY SWORDFISK CHARLES WILSON Founder and CEO of Cricket Flours (cricketflours.com) AFTER WORKING for companies consulting on and creating solar and wind projects, Nicole Hughes MA ’04 transitioned to the non-profit sector to foster a connection between her community and the renewable energy market. As Executive Director of Renewable Northwest, she works toward better clean energy laws in Oregon and Washington, while advocating for a regional energy market that’s carbon free. “It’s a great feeling to know that you live in a state with one of the most aggressive clean energy standards and even more wonderful to have been a part of the development of that standard,” she says. NICOLE HUGHES Executive Director of Renewable Northwest (renewablenw.org), a non-profit focused on advocating for renewable energy policy REP. KHANH PHAM MUS ’18 did some of her first organizing in Los Angeles with transit-dependent people often at the intersection of racism and environmental injustice. It’s often said now isn’t the right time to push policy that responds to the climate crisis, she says, “but the truth is for the people most directly affected by climate change, we aren’t moving fast enough.” Pham was a driving force behind the Oregon Clean Energy Opportunity bills passed in 2021. With a new seat on the Joint Transportation Committee, she hopes to tackle greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector—which account for more than 40% of state emissions—transparency in the fossil fuel industry and restrictions on fossil fuel storage along the Willamette River. KHANH PHAM Oregon State Rep. for House District 46 (Jade District) ALEX GAMBOA GRAND MBA ’16 has a passion for conscious consumerism. She co-founded Way of Being, an online store selling sustainable, low-waste products. At the College of Business, Gamboa Grand participated in the social innovation and entrepreneurship graduate certificate program, which instilled a conviction that business is a powerful medium that can influence culture, community and our environment. “It might feel like those things are miniscule and won’t make a dent when we’re talking about huge global issues like the climate crisis, but it all adds up, especially if more and more of us are trying,” she says. ALEX GAMBOA GRAND Co-founder of Way of Being (wayofbeing.co) an online store for low- waste, socially conscious products Making a Difference the promise and pitfalls of e-bikes. Botanists collect the seeds of native plants before they are lost, as ecologists examine how to build trust between residents and the governments that are charged with preparing them for life-altering changes, like increased flooding due to sea level rise. Faculty are also coalescing around new themes like urban heat—what Rosenstiel describes as “the clear and present danger of extreme temperatures”—and how PSU can prepare the region to live with them. Another new theme is climate migration, which brings together researchers in geography, global studies, urban studies and planning, philosophy, population research and environmental sciences. Ajibade is part of this group, with her research into how climate migration—an often haphazard phenomenon—differs from managed retreat, or planned movements of individuals, communities, businesses and infrastructure threatened by climate change. “Sometimes you’re not aware that your colleague in a different department is working on the same issue, just from a different perspective,” she says. “What PSU is trying to do is to bring different faculty together to look at areas where we already have in-house strengths.” Even within global themes like climate migration, PSU must deliver scholarship that directly helps local communities, Rosenstiel says. PSU students become the Portland community with some 62% of alumni (110,000 and counting) living here.They, and all Portland-area residents, he says, should be able to learn from PSU how to live in a place that’s likely to be transformed by climate change and by climate refugees—people who will arrive here from other states or countries that become inhospitable, or unlivable, due to the impacts of climate change. “You could easily study climate migration in the abstract and talk about, you know, massive numbers of refugees coming out of the river deltas of Asia. But I think our role is to really focus on: What are the climate change impacts here in the metro region?” Rosenstiel says. “What role do we as an institution play in ensuring our local communities have a basic understanding of what we already know, and are prepared to make smart decisions for themselves and their families as it relates to the climate futures of the Pacific Northwest?” CONNECTING IDEAS WITH ACTION Students deserve credit for PSU’s climate urgency and emphasis on equitable solutions, says Jenny McNamara, campus sustainability director. As a result of their demands for swifter, systemic change, “We’ve begun to ask ourselves different questions around climate planning and climate action…about who’s 24 // PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE
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