ROOTBALL: Vote early and often at the Pandos, Oct. 5. Help award a cash prize!

Rootball is the newsletter of Pando Populus.

Pando’s success is producing two things: A generation of capable young people who take on real issues with the courage, knowledge, and stick-to-itiveness needed to invent and develop real projects that make an actual difference. And their successful projects that are quietly changing the world.

With good composting comes lots of worms, which is good news for the soil. Carlos Marin’s Pando Days composting project is designed not only to capture waste but retain water, promising healing for large tracts of land.

But first, before we talk about the Awards: Pando Projects rock the United Nations and France

Astounding projects from the 2024/25 Pando Days season are being celebrated ahead of the Pando Sustainability Awards next month – with acclaim from the world stage.

On Monday September 15, the Science Summit in New York City hosted Pando Days team lead Carlos Marin (CSUN) to speak about his Pando project showcasing a revolutionary approach to composting.

The Science Summit is a yearly event closely affiliated with the United Nations and takes place alongside the UN General Assembly. It focuses on the use of science to achieve the UN’s sustainable development goals.

Carlos’s project was born in a science lab then prototyped at a local middle school to see if it were really as groundbreaking as his team thought. Now it’s on its way to being replicated in key Southland sites bankrolled by strong funding support.

Want to learn more? Come to the Pando Awards on Oct. 5 to find out – but suffice to say that Carlos had UN environmentalists last week understanding the potential for composting in a way they had never understood it before. Seriously.

Speaking of the UN, over the summer CalArts was seeing its project exhibit, Blue Echo, make a big contribution to the World Resources Institute’s (WRI) Oceans Program exhibit at the UN Oceans Conference in Nice, France.

A delegation of CalArts student artists were invited to meet with policymakers, scientists, activists, and early-career ocean professionals, and spent time with leaders from the member nations of the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy.

All this comes in advance of their project premiere with WRI at the AltaSea exhibition and education space at the Port of Los Angeles. (Hot tip: the AltaSea exhibition is open during business hours and free, through Oct. 15.).

Yes, you can! Choose a Pando Awards winner. Cast your vote to award the Pando People’s Prize – and prize money. REGISTER now!

Crowds network at last year’s Pando Sustainability Awards held on the campus of Caltech. This year, Caltech is hosting us at their brand new Resnick Sustainability Institute.

You’ve heard the rumors – they’re true!

There’s a Pando People’s Award being given out this year – with a big cash prize – that you can help your favorite project win.

At this year’s Pando Awards, all attendees are eligible to vote for their favorite projects from the 2024/25 Pando Days season.

Each person will be given three ballots which they may cast as they choose – for their own or others’ projects, or both. Ballots will be counted before the day’s end and the project with the most votes wins.

It’s old fashioned democracy at work at the sustainability event of the year – with direct opportunity to help award a cash prize to the project you feel is best-positioned for real impact.

The Pando Sustainability Awards happens Sunday, Oct. 5 from 2:00-5:00 p.m. at the new Resnick Sustainability Institute at Caltech. Come see all 21 of the Pando Days 2024/25 pr ojects. See how they’re actually moving forward in the real world. And get behind the ones you love.

Ed Bacon, Pando’s chair, returns as event moderator.

Best-selling author Dr. Dan Siegel, UCLA School of Medicine psychiatrist known for his Pando-like approach to mental health, is being honored for lifetime achievement.

The County’s Chief Sustainability Officer Rita Kampalath teams up with our own Andy Shrader and Matthew Manos to help make award decisions.

Mary Elizabeth Moore, dean emerita of the School of Theology at Boston University, remembers the late, great John Cobb, Pando’s founding chair.

And more! With honors, cash prizes, food, drinks, and networking opportunities galore!

The Pando Sustainability Awards

Resnick Sustainability Institute

Caltech, Pasadena

Sunday, Oct. 5 from 2:00-5:00 p.m.

Climate, Vulnerability and Health: An interview with Sheila Steinberg, Director for the Institute of Sustainability at CSUN

Dr. Sheila Steinberg holding a copy of her latest book.

Pando sat down with Dr. Sheila Laksmi Steinberg to discuss her new book, Climate, Vulnerability and Health.

PANDO: Tell us about your book. What’s at the heart of it?

PROFESSOR STEINBERG: It’s a volume I co-edited with William Sprigg as part of a larger series, Extreme Weather and Society, with Springer Nature Link as series editor. It highlights how both climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic have exposed and intensified environmental inequalities and social disparities.

We pulled together voices from geography, climate science, public health, sociology, and engineering to ask one big question: How does climate change shape people’s daily lives?

It’s not just about rising temperatures or stronger storms—it’s about who breathes the smoke, who loses their home, who has resources to recover and who doesn’t. So it’s part scholarship, part lived testimony.

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