Find Your Sustain Ability

Nicole Hagerman Miller is the Managing Director at Biomimicry 3.8, a Missoula, Montana based company that draws it's design inspiration and functional instruction from nature and natural systems and tailors those ancient and refined principals to modern day businesses and organizations the world over.

Join App State Chief Sustainability Officer Lee Ball and guest U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, of New Mexico, as they discuss issues around the climate crisis — what Heinrich calls "the challenge of our time" — on this new episode of Find Your Sustain Ability. Topics range from the new generation of environmentalists and the parallels between COVID-19 and climate, to the landmark passage of the Great American Outdoors Act, which will permanently fund infrastructure and facilities repairs and upgrades on national parks and other federal lands.

Appalachian's own Dr. Baker Perry has ascended to great heights for climate change research. On this Find Your Sustain Ability, Perry provides insights from his 2019 National Geographic and Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Extreme Expedition to Mount Everest, in which he and the expedition team climbed more than 27,000 feet to install the world's highest weather station.

Host Dr. Lee F. Ball, Appalachian's chief sustainability officer, interviews one of the founders of the sustainability education movement — Dr. David Orr, the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics Emeritus at Oberlin College and special assistant to the college's president. "Can you make a sustainable, just, fair, decent and prosperous world?" Orr asks. "I think the answer is yes. I take my hope from just the work that we all do. And the doing of the work is what generates hope."

Appalachian's Director of Sustainability, Dr. Lee Ball sits down with Assistant Professor of Public Health, Adam Hege to discuss his journey from studying exercise science to addressing issues like poverty and food security.

Gina McCarthy discusses what it was like to be in charge of 15,000 people at the EPA and shares why she remains hopeful about our nation and our world.

Without social justice and equity, can Appalachian State University, and the world, be sustainable? Hear what Bindu Kolli Jayne, chief diversity officer and associate vice chancellor for equity, diversity and compliance, shares with the university's director of sustainability.