Climate Interactive – The Blog Tools for a Thriving Future 2014-03-20T19:30:42Z http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/feed/atom/ WordPress.com Ellie Johnston <![CDATA[A Scientist Heads to Capitol Hill, Climate Bathtub in Hand]]> http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=6280 2014-03-20T19:30:42Z 2014-03-20T16:22:17Z Continue reading A Scientist Heads to Capitol Hill, Climate Bathtub in Hand]]> Cultivating bridges between science and policy is essential for progress on climate change. Here Dr. Max Moehs of the American Society of Plant Biologists highlights his insights after recent meetings with members of the U.S. Congress.

Impressions of Climate Science Day

By: Charles Paul “Max” Moehs, Ph.D.
Cross-posted from ASPB Plant Blog

Dr. Max Moehs discusses climate change with Sen. Maria Cantwell (WA).
Dr. Max Moehs discusses climate change with Sen. Maria Cantwell (WA).

In 1962, when I was born, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stood at 316 parts per million (ppm). Now, nearly 52 years later, the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has reached 400 ppm. I can’t see it, taste it, or feel it but through the power of science I know it is there and still rising. The evidence is unequivocal that this increase is due to our burning of fossil fuels. It is strange to think that because of this vast uncontrolled experiment we are conducting with the earth’s atmosphere the world into which I was born, in a certain sense, no longer exists.

Annual Climate Science Day: Scientific Thought Leaders Unite
To raise awareness among US politicians and policy-makers about climate change and the impacts of unrestricted carbon dioxide emissions, 14 scientific societies have joined forces to hold an annual Climate Science Day on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. Now in its 4th year, about 40 scientists fanned out across Capitol Hill on January 29th 2014 to meet lawmakers and their staffs to discuss climate science and to offer themselves as resources about the science of climate change. This year I had the privilege of representing the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) on Climate Science Day.

Preparation is Key
Since this was my first time taking part in this event, I arrived at the training session, held at the offices of the American Geophysical Union on January 28th, the day before our meetings on Capitol Hill, with anticipation. There I quickly met my partners for the following day’s meetings: Dr. Peter Guttorp, Professor of Statistics at the University of Washington and member of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), who was participating in his 3rd Climate Science Day, Dr. Tyrone Spady, science policy expert with the ASPB in Washington and Kaitlin Chell, also a local expert with the ASPB.

During the afternoon’s training, the 40 scientists introduced themselves and separated into geographically based teams, heard descriptions from local experts about the process of meeting politicians and their staffs and were treated to a lecture about climate change by Dr. Richard Alley of the Department of Geosciences of Penn State University. Dr. Alley’s perspective was particularly valuable because of his engaging communication style and the knowledge he has gained from frequent appearances on Capitol Hill testifying about climate change before congressional hearings.

During the lecture he described atmospheric physics research done by the Air Force during the course of developing heat seeking missile technology in the 1950s. He concluded that the science of climate change is as unequivocal as the science underpinning heat seeking missile technology and that one cannot deny one without denying the other.

On Capitol Hill: Communicating a Sense of Urgency
The following day, Peter, Tyrone, Kaitlin and I shuttled between the Senate and House side of the Capitol on a cold sunny day. We focused on the Washington State delegation since Peter and I both live in Seattle.  We met with Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell during their weekly constituent coffees as well as with staff members of many of Washington State’s congressional delegation from both Democratic and Republican parties. These meetings were very useful for introducing ourselves and engaging these policy-makers on an issue that American society will ultimately have to grapple with.

At the end of the day, what stood out for me was the striking contrast between the urgency of Dr. Alley’s presentation the preceding day and the relative lack of urgency on Capitol Hill where climate change may be regarded as one among many issues that politicians face.

It is clear that many people have not yet grasped the reason for this urgency—delay now makes confronting climate change and carbon emissions that much harder in the future. This has been elegantly demonstrated by Dr. John Sterman of MIT in a series of papers highlighting the fact that many people have difficulty appreciating the concept of stocks and flows (Sterman and Sweeney 2007; Sterman 2008; Sterman 2011). If one likens the amount (stock) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to the amount of water in a bathtub, then the bathtub will keep filling and eventually overflow as long as the water flowing in is greater than the water flowing out.

Even if the drain is open the level in the tub will only stabilize if the water flowing into the tub is the same as the water draining out. This means that carbon dioxide emissions have to be reduced to a level equivalent to the uptake of carbon dioxide by available carbon sinks just to stabilize carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Merely reducing emissions somewhat but at a level greater than the carbon sinks guarantees a continuing increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Increasing Awareness
Because increased awareness of these facts is part of what is required for US society and politicians to ultimately face the challenge of climate change, it is heartening to see the development of intuitive tools such as those developed by Climate Interactive to simulate possible carbon emissions trajectories and enable improved risk communication. Finally, Richard Alley concluded his lecture to us Climate Science Day participants by mentioning that he is now teaching a MOOC (massive open online course) on this topic. Given the enthusiasm and knowledge with which he approaches his topic, his students are in for an eye-opening experience!

]]> 0 smccauley <![CDATA[Now hiring – International Climate Change Adaptation Modeler]]> http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=6263 2014-03-20T19:13:21Z 2014-03-18T13:03:35Z Continue reading Now hiring – International Climate Change Adaptation Modeler]]> Climate Interactive is looking for a new team member – a Senior Modeler to work in the growing area of International Adaptation and Resilience. CI is currently engaged in projects in Kenya and the Horn of Africa, and is beginning work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, and possibly other regions of the world.

Job Description – Senior Adaptation Modeler (PDF)

To submit an application: climateinteractive.org/job

]]> 0 Ellie Johnston <![CDATA[Global Effort to Spread Climate Negotiation Simulations Takes Off]]> http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=6249 2014-03-12T17:21:31Z 2014-03-10T20:57:19Z Continue reading Global Effort to Spread Climate Negotiation Simulations Takes Off]]>
Paris, France – Source: COP in MyCity

As the U.N. climate negotiations steadily tick toward their deadline of releasing a new agreement in 2015, a global effort led by young people to have their voices heard and taken seriously in the negotiations is spreading worldwide. The initiative, COP in MyCity, is using Climate Interactive’s World Climate Exercise as the basis of their campaign to help young people understand the negotiations and set their priorities for the global outcome.

Already, they have held 46 events worldwide with over 1300 people participating in places ranging from Paris to Kathmandu to Accra. Climate Interactive first developed the World Climate Exercise in 2009. Since then, people have used the simulation in a wide range of settings, from Fortune 500 companies to Austrian middle schools. This is the first time, however, that we know of an effort to use World Climate with such a widespread global impact.

COP in MyCity Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Source: COP in MyCity
COP in MyCity is a project of the CliMates, a youth organization founded in Paris after a group of students participated in a climate negotiations simulation held at the university, Sciences Po, in 2011. The COP in MyCity effort has grown out of a campaign CliMates ran around Rio+20 that got young people holding MyCity+20 events locally in the lead up to the Rio+20 UN Sustainable Development negotiations. These events got groups discussing the sustainable development outcomes they wanted to see from the negotiations. In some cases, the event organizers then traveled to the Rio negotiations and advocated for the group positions they had come up with at their simulation event. The goal of COP in MyCity is similar. CliMates has sent delegations of young people to many of the recent United Nation negotiations on climate, including the most recent UN climate conference (COP19) in Warsaw, Poland last November. They intend to continue to help youth participate in the climate negotiations and elevate the impact of their events worldwide.
Using Climate Interactive’s free C-ROADS tool, many of the COP in MyCity simulations were able to quantify the results from their event, giving the participants immediate feedback on where their proposals would keep the planet from reaching 2 degrees C in temperature rise. Using C-ROADS also enables the organizers of COP in MyCity to compare results across all the events. They have carefully documented and summarized the outcomes and reflections from the events and captured them in a recently released report on their efforts. Read more to learn about this exciting effort that is expected to continue to build toward the climate negotiations in Paris 2015 at http://copinmycity.weebly.com/infography-2013.html
]]> 0 davidpedigo http://248016thSt. <![CDATA[Top Ten Reasons the World Needs EnROADS — a Fast, Accessible, Free, Hands-On Global Climate and Energy Simulator]]> http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=6196 2014-03-19T11:00:28Z 2014-02-27T00:32:19Z Continue reading Top Ten Reasons the World Needs EnROADS — a Fast, Accessible, Free, Hands-On Global Climate and Energy Simulator]]> By Drew Jones, Climate Interactive Co-Director

1. Grounded hope. For climate action success, we need a scientifically based narrative of what to do. EnROADS helps anyone (not just modelers) create such a narrative.

Counterintuitive Climate Strategy: See The Solution In Order to Even See the Problem
Stanford students practicing “grounded hope”

2. Policy-makers are using it.  Jonathan Pershing of the U.S. Department of Energy has asked for specific features and scenarios.

John Weyant
Prof. John Weyant

3. A complement to existing scientific models. Prof. John Weyant of Stanford University is the chair of the EnROADS external review committee. We want this simulation to complement the existing suite of research models. 

4. The futility of resignation. EnROADS allows the citizens and leaders of the world to reject the defeatist message about climate change, recently voiced by James Lovelock, “Enjoy life while you can.”

Climate Colab5. Tapping collective intelligence. MIT’s Climate CoLab would like to help global citizens create scenarios in EnROADS and tap the world’s collective intelligence. 

Morgan6. Foundations have provided some seed funding. Lisa Downey, program officer of the Morgan Family Foundation, says “the Foundation has invested in EnROADS because we see its potential to motivate everyone–from individuals to entire countries—to take action on climate change.” ClimateWorks and Zennström Philanthropies have invested as well.

7. Industry is interested. Gerard Moutet of Total (France) created scenarios in EnROADS and said, “Success on climate now seems challenging but possible.”

8. A million scenarios. We have a big idea for civil society engagement: put EnROADS online so that global citizens from Chicago to Chad to China could choose policies and create their own customized path to climate success. What if 100,000 people posted their scenarios online? Ten million?

Preventing climate risks? "Doable"
Preventing climate risks? “Doable”

9. A powerful educational tool.  After successful workshops with students at Stanford, UMass Lowell, and MIT,  we are building immersive, interactive educational tools around EnROADS, to empower students to create their own pathways to a low-carbon global economy grounded in rigorous analysis.

10. Diplomacy needs simulation. The German Marshall Fund’s Energy Transition Forum used EnROADS to promote collaboration on energy and climate change between the U.S. and EU.

 

 

 

]]> 0 davidpedigo http://248016thSt. <![CDATA[Climate Interactive in the UK: Building grounded hope on climate solutions]]> http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=6172 2014-03-19T10:57:25Z 2014-02-13T14:54:07Z Continue reading Climate Interactive in the UK: Building grounded hope on climate solutions]]> “The workshop enabled participants to visualize how the various approaches and solutions interact and impact climate outcomes.  Some of the conclusions challenged received wisdom and intuition.”

– Workshop Participant

In the latest leg of our campaign to build understanding of climate change solutions, Climate Interactive Co-Director Drew Jones traveled to London to engage leaders with our simulations at an event organized by the German Marshall Fund and hosted by the U.K.’s Green Investment Bank.

Grounded optimism shows us that reducing climate risk is "doable."
Grounded hope shows us that reducing climate risk is “doable.”

In our first exercise with U.K. policymakers, the team of Drew Jones, Miriam Maes and Alissa Burger used our interactive climate and energy models—C-ROADS and En-ROADS—to spread “grounded hope.”

For those taking on climate change, being grounded and being hopeful need to be two sides of the same coin.

Staying grounded is the goal of systems modelers. The more you experiment with rigorous simulators, the more aware you become of the complexity of the issues facing the world. But not everyone gets this opportunity, so it’s important to get the word out in ways that generate true understanding.

The London workshop, for example, was set against a backdrop of a renewed push for the development of the country’s shale gas industry by Prime Minister David Cameron and Energy Minister Greg Barker, who recently hailed natural gas as tool for mitigating climate change.

This assertion has been made by many in the U.S. as well. But although this makes intuitive sense, it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny from a full systems view.

“En-ROADS analysis is showing that significant investment in natural gas, absent a carbon price, is not an effective strategy for addressing climate change,” Jones says.

This is because new natural gas plants compete with not only coal, but also with renewable energy—which is what we really need to be developing. And gas has other effects across the system – for example, methane leakage and long term lock-in of fossil-fuel-based infrastructure. Given its economic and environmental benefits over coal, it’s very tempting to embrace natural gas as the solution to climate change, but staying grounded means we need to look at the big picture and acknowledge the limits of certain solutions.

What it doesn’t mean, however, is that we have an excuse to give up. That’s where the hope part comes in. It’s important to remind ourselves that other workable solutions are out there, otherwise it may be easy to fall into despair amid all the challenging news on climate impacts.

To help counter defeatism, we experimented with playfully charging our workshop participants £5 every time they bemoaned that climate risk prevention couldn’t be done. Interestingly enough, they spent very little time grumbling about the difficulty of the task and much more time mapping out solutions.

“Charging a playful ‘naysayer’s tax’ helped people stay open to the possibility of success,” Jones said. “The idea that there are ways to deal with this problem—people really respond to that.”

In other words, building grounded hope and preventing climate risk is—as one participant put it— “doable.”

Click below to see a slideshow of the event:

Climate Interactive in the UK: Building grounded optimism on climate solutions

]]> 1 davidpedigo http://248016thSt. <![CDATA[World Climate in French: An Integrative and Multidisciplinary Approach]]> http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=6152 2014-01-27T15:23:49Z 2014-01-24T17:57:18Z Continue reading World Climate in French: An Integrative and Multidisciplinary Approach]]> “Look, they only gave us cake crumb, we won’t give anything to the other countries!”

-a student, just before the negotiation starts

Our friend Laurent Richard, a mathematics teacher at the International School of Boston, saw transformative results after running our  World Climate Exercise with his students in French.  Here’s what he had to say (for the French version, see the bottom of the page):

P1000711On January 22nd 2013, upper school teachers from the International School of Boston (ISB) gathered in the hall of the Orthodox church in Arlington, MA, which the school has the benefit of using for its theater lessons and events.

For three hours, with the help of Travis Franck from Climate Interactive, teachers from every discipline experienced for the first time the negotiation role game, World Climate. They considered it a very enlightening simulation that enabled them to get what makes World Climate such a compelling tool for exploring the complexity of the climate change issue. Some of the themes they delved into included:

−       the impacts of temperature on sea level rise

−       its relation with greenhouse gas emissions and more specifically with CO2 emissions

−       the policies and economic implications among the main states and regions of the world.

Besides these important issues, the teachers had the opportunity to gain a more accurate vision of the project we have implemented in the school for the upper school students.

With the help of World Climate, our project is to develop an integrated, multidisciplinary, pedagogical project that involves science, math, history and economics teachers. Climate change is captivating in how it embraces all these disciplines and enables us to create links between each of them.

In November 2012, 57 students from 10th to 12th grade were designated as a delegate of one country from the six regions of the game. Country assignments were made in consideration not only of the wishes of the students, but also of the curriculum they were working on.

So, for example, we attempted to spread the students based on the French and IB curriculum:

−       12th French baccalaureate students as delegates of the U.S., the EU or “other developing countries”

−       11th French baccalaureate as delegates of China or India

−       11th IB students as delegates of Brazil, etc.

During the year with the help of different teachers, students had the time to deepen their knowledge of the countries they were representing and therefore expand their expertise and enrich the game experience.

To keep the students informed and involved in the project, on a bimonthly basis they received an email “World Climate letter” with several links including:

P1000706−       articles

−       movies and documentaries

−       Web pages and apps

In addition to this, I had the opportunity to meet with each delegation for half an hour every month. During this time, the students could talk more deeply about climate change, the latest news and the different links and tools they received by email.

On June 12th 2013, the first World Climate negotiation took place with more than 50 students from 10th to 12th grade. I was, I must admit, a bit nervous about how things would go.

But as soon as I started the U.N. Secretary speech, I felt the audience (wearing their best suits) was very attentive and focused on the game. Four-and-a-half hours later, after a hectic third round of negotiations during which the students were running and arguing furiously to reach the best agreement possible, the game ended. A round of applause followed even though they did not succeed in reaching the goal of limiting global temperature rises to 2°C. But they learned how urgent and important this problem is, how it will affect their lives and how the world is trying—or not—to cope with it.

All the students were enthusiastic about this experience and want to do it again this year!

I received a lot of positive feedback and, most importantly, several students wrote to tell me how they now want, through their studies, to fight against climate change. One student even switched his plans for college so as to pursue a degree in environmental studies.

P1000700This year, we are implementing the same project at the ISB again. Our goal is to to make this project even more integrated into the school’s curriculum and to strengthen the multidisciplinary approach.

Furthermore, and to conclude, I am getting in touch with other French-American schools in the U.S. to spread World Climate to as many schools as possible. I have also gotten in touch with some French NGOs. One of them, COP in My City, is now using the translation I made of the World Climate documents to promote it in their network. As a result, during the last United Nations Climate Change Conference in Warsaw in November 2013 (COP19), World Climate was used in many towns in France and around the world. Please, check their website as they are trying to build a world network of students.

I have developed resources for this project at our school as well as for other teachers who would like to do World Climate in French, and I would be happy to share it with them them. You will also be able to find it on the Climate Interactive website.

Laurent Richard

lrichard@isbos.org

“Regarde, ils ne nous donnent que des miettes ! On ne va rien négocier avec les autres pays !”

-un élève juste avant que les négociations ne commencent

P1000699Le 22 janvier 2013, les professeurs du Lycée International de Boston se sont retrouvés dans le hall de l’église orthodoxe qui jouxte l’école et qui sert pour les cours de théâtre et les réceptions.

Pendant 3 heures, avec l’aide de Travis Franck de Climate Interactive, les enseignants de toutes disciplines ont pu expérimenter, pour la première fois, la simulation de négociation World Climate.

Tous ont vivement apprécié le jeu et ont pu ainsi saisir tout ce qui fait de World Climate un formidable outil pour appréhender et comprendre les différents niveaux du changement climatique :

−       les conséquences d’une élévation de la température et du niveau de la mer ;

−       le lien de causalité avec les émissionsde gaz à effet de serre ;

−       les implications politiques et économiques parmi les états du monde entier.

Mais en plus de ces faits capitaux, les professeurs présents ont aussi eu l’opportunité d’acquérir une vision plus précise du projet que nous étions en train de mettre en place pour les élèves du lycée.

Notre projet est un projet pédagogique pluridisciplinaire qui implique les enseignants de physique, SVT, maths, histoire et économie. La problématique du changement climatique a ceci de captivant qu’elle embrasse toutes les matières et permet de tisser des passerelles entre chacune d’entre elles.

Précédemment, en novembre 2012, 57 élèves de la seconde à la terminale ont été désigné comme délégué d’un des pays des 6 régions du jeu.

La répartition des pays a été faite en considération des origines, des souhaits des élèves mais aussi et surtout en fonction des programmes sur lesquels ils travaillaient.

Par exemple, si nous le faisons en nous basant sur les programmes français et international :

P1000704−       les élèves de terminale française seront les délégués des Etats-Unis, de l’Union européenne ou de différents pays en développement ;

−       les élèves de 1ère bac français vont représenter la Chine ou l’Inde ;

−       les élèves de 1ère bac international auront le Brésil, etc.

Durant l’année, chaque élève, avec l’aide des différents professeurs a eu le temps d’approfondir sa connaissance du pays qu’il allait représenter durant les négociations et par conséquent élargir son expertise et enrichir son expérience du jeu.

En plus du travail effectué avec les différents enseignants, j’ai pu rencontrer chaque délégation pendant une demi-heure chaque mois. Ce fut le moment pour discuter plus spécifiquement du changement climatique, de l’actualité dans les médias et des liens et outils qu’ils avaient reçus par courriels.

Le 12 juin 2013, la première édition de World Climate eut lieu avec plus de 50 élèves de la seconde à la terminale. Nous étions évidemment un peu nerveux sur la façon dont allait se dérouler l’expérience. Les élèves étaient là et portaient leurs costumes de diplomate. Dès que j’ai commencé le discours du secrétaire général des Nations unies, les participants sont rentrés dans leurs rôles. Les négociations pouvaient commencer.

Quatre heures et demi plus tard, après un troisième round de négociation acharné pendant lequel les élèves couraient de délégation en délégation et débattaient pour arracher le meilleur accord possible, le jeu s’arrêta. Les représentants des nations applaudirent même s’ils n’avaient pas réussi à limiter le réchauffement climatique à 2°C.

Cependant, ils avaient appris combien urgent et important est ce problème, comment cela va affecter leurs vies et comment la communauté internationale essaye (ou pas) d’y faire face.

World Climate in French: An Integrative and Multidisciplinary ApproachTous les étudiants ont été enthousiastes à propos de cette expérience et souhaitent la refaire cette année. J’ai eu beaucoup de retours positifs et plus important encore, plusieurs élèves m’ont écris pour me dire à quel point ils voulaient dorénavant agir contre le changement climatique à travers des associations ou leurs études. Un élève a même changé ses plans et s’est inscrit pour suivre des cours en sciences environnementales.

Cette année, à l’ISB, nous renouvelons le projet. Mon objectif est de l’intégrer encore plus dans les curriculums et d’approfondir l’aspect pluridisciplinaire. Cela demande du temps et nous devons encore y travailler avec mes collègues.

Par ailleurs, j’essaye aussi de diffuser le plus possible cet outil. Je suis d’ores et déjà en contact avec d’autres établissements Franco-américains pour former les professeurs intéressés. J’ai aussi pris contact avec des ONG françaises. L’une d’entre elle, Cop in My City, utilise maintenant la traduction de World Climate et la diffuse dans son réseau.

Ainsi, durant la Conférence des Parties sur le climat des Nations unies à Varsovie (COP19), en novembre dernier, plusieurs villes en France et dans le Monde ont pu simuler ces négociations. N’hésitez pas à consulter leur site Internet. Ils sont en train d’essayer de construire un réseau mondial d’étudiants.

J’ai développé des ressources et outils pour les autres professeurs qui aimeraient mettre en place World Climate en français et je serais heureux de les partager directement. Vous pourrez aussi les trouver sur le site de Climate Interactive.

Laurent Richard

lrichard@isbos.org

]]> 2 davidpedigo http://248016thSt. <![CDATA[Systems Thinking and Business Solutions in a Complex World]]> http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=6135 2013-12-19T18:28:36Z 2013-12-03T21:40:02Z Continue reading Systems Thinking and Business Solutions in a Complex World]]>
Photo by MIT Sloan Sustainability Management

In the latest entry in the Network for Business Sustainability blog, Climate Interactive Member and MIT Professor John Sterman outlines how we can use systems thinking – the analytical approach that underlies Climate Interactive’s models — to solve some of the world’s most complex problems.

Although his suggestions focus on businesses, these strategies can be used by government organizations, NGOs and individuals as well. Here’s what he had to say:

From climate change and deforestation to collapsing fisheries, species extinction and poisons in our food and water, our society is unsustainable and it is getting worse fast. Many advocate that overcoming these problems requires the development of systems thinking. We’ve long known that we live on a finite “spaceship Earth” in which “there is no away” and “everything is connected to everything else.” The challenge lies in moving from slogans about systems to meaningful methods to understand complexity, facilitate individual and organizational learning, and catalyze the changes we need to create a sustainable society in which all can thrive.

Here, I’ll describe how the world operates as a system — and how businesses can respond effectively to the challenges we face.

THE WORLD AS A SYSTEM

Systems thinking helps us understand the structure and dynamics of the complex systems in which we live, from organizational change to climate change, from physiology to financial markets. The structure of systems must be understood broadly, including physical elements (such as the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the time delays in a supply chain), institutions (such as markets and governments), human behavior (such as the way we make decisions) and the mental models that shape how we perceive and interpret the world. These elements interact and coevolve to generate the world we experience.All too often, however, we treat problems in isolation, ignoring the networks of feedback that bind us to one another and to nature. We often blame policy failure on “unanticipated events” and “side effects.” Political leaders blame recession on corporate fraud or terrorism. Managers blame bankruptcy on events outside their organizations and beyond their control.

But there are no side effects — just effects. Those we expected or that prove beneficial we call the main effects and claim credit. Those that undercut our policies and cause harm we claim to be side effects, hoping to excuse our failure. But “side effects” are not a feature of reality; they are a sign that the boundaries of our mental models are too narrow, our time horizons too short.

For example, governments in many nations “solve” water shortages for irrigation by subsidizing electricity so farmers can install more powerful pumps. But the short-run success of that policy merely causes the water table to fall faster, requiring still larger pumps and still greater subsidies.

Avoiding such self-defeating interventions, in business and in sustainability, requires us to consider our actions in the context of the broader systems in which we are embedded.

Researchers have identified important characteristics of systems to help us manage them more effectively and sustainably. Complex systems, from an ant colony to a business to a society, are:

• Governed by feedback: Our decisions alter the state of the world, causing changes in nature and in the behavior of others, which then feed back to change our own behavior. Cut prices to gain market share and your competitors may respond the same way, leading to a price war. Suppress forest fires and fuel accumulates in the forest, leading to more damaging fires.

• Subject to delays: Feedback processes often involve long time delays and accumulations (stocks and flows). Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel combustion accumulate in the atmosphere, causing the world to warm and the climate to change. Emissions are far higher than the rate at which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere. Just as a bathtub continues to fill as long as the flow into the tub from the faucet exceeds the flow out through the drain, stabilizing emissions will not stabilize the climate. Limiting dangerous climate change before the end of this century requires emissions to fall dramatically, starting now.

• Nonlinear: Effect is rarely proportional to cause. Complex systems can cross “tipping points” that cause dramatic and often irreversible changes in their behavior. Take a few fish and fish stocks recover; take too many and the fish stock collapses. Warm the planet enough and greenhouse gas emissions will rise as bacteria convert carbon in melting permafrost into CO2 and methane, further warming the planet in a vicious cycle.

• Characterized by trade-offs: Time delays in feedback processes mean that the long-run response of a system to an intervention often differs from its short-run response. Ineffective policies often generate transitory improvement before the problem grows worse, while policies that can create enduring value often cause worse-before-better behavior.

• Counterintuitive and policy resistant: In complex systems, cause and effect are distant in time and space, while we tend to look for causes near the events we seek to explain. Our attention is drawn to the symptoms of difficulty rather than the underlying cause. As a result, many seemingly obvious solutions to problems fail or worsen the situation.

These and other principles have implications for the way businesses can become more successful — and sustainable.

HOW BUSINESS CAN RESPOND

Systems thinking offers several key lessons for business.

1) Expand the boundaries of our mental models. Most of our current sustainability efforts target symptoms of unsustainability rather than the causes. Our vehicles burn too much oil and generate too much CO2, so we target that symptom with standards to raise the efficiency of new cars. But the resulting reduction in oil demand will lower oil prices, undermining the incentive for people to buy efficient vehicles or cut oil use in other industries.

By expanding the boundaries of our mental models, we can identify the potential for such “policy resistance” and design more effective policies. Raising the price of CO2 will encourage auto companies to design more efficient vehicles and encourage consumers to choose them without the need for complex regulations, while simultaneously offsetting the drop in world oil prices.

2) Recognize constraints. Many of us are overstressed and operate in overstressed organizations. Trying to do too much means we are often unable to marshal the resources we need to kick-start improvements in productivity, quality and sustainability. The result is a self-reinforcing trap of low performance, overstressed resources and failed improvement programs. Firms that succeed in quality and sustainability free up the resources needed to improve by slowing down and focusing on the long-term.

Similarly, we live on a finite world. Therefore, “sustainable growth” is an oxymoron. Striving for perpetual growth while we degrade the carrying capacity of our world is self-defeating. Forward-thinking firms understand that destroying the environment also destroys the possibility of profitable enterprise. They are working to provide products that last longer and offer greater value; to take responsibility for their operations and products over their full lifecycle, including takeback and recycling; and to provide services to support the wellbeing and fulfillment of their customers instead of simply selling more stuff at lower and lower margins.

3) Move beyond technical solutions. Technology offers hope that we can build a more sustainable world. But market failures limit the efficient allocation of capital and resources, including creativity and innovation. And there are long lags from problem recognition to innovation, commercial viability and scale up. Technology often generates unintended consequences: for example, taller smokestacks reduce local smog but increase distant acid rain.

Innovation in markets, institutions and governance is essential to realize the full potential of technology. Externalities must be priced. Market failures must be corrected. We can make technology more effective by improving market signals, through regulations that create level playing fields and prevent a race to the environmental bottom, and through monitoring to prevent free riding and unintended consequences.

4) Confront our values. Our guiding values offer the most important leverage point for enduring, sustainable change. Recently, I asked MBA students how much money they needed to be happy. The average response was $2 million per year, and about half said more is always better. Most would accept lower income — as long as they could make more than everyone else. But obviously endless material growth on a finite world is impossible, and everyone cannot be richer than everyone else, no matter how clever our technology.

Those who are currently affluent must confront the culture of consumption, the conflation of having with being, that is destroying both the environment and human well being, while supporting the legitimate aspirations of billions around the world to rise out of poverty.

5) Recognize that we can make a difference. People often feel powerless in the face of huge, complex systems. But understanding how systems work helps us to find the high leverage points that make a difference. People often recoil from climate science because they fear that what they do can’t possibly matter. But we’ve created more astonishing change before, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the peaceful end of Apartheid.

The abolition of the slave trade and slavery in England can serve as a model for action on climate change and sustainability: a few committed individuals found the high leverage points and ended an institution that had existed from the dawn of history, one that nearly all assumed would always exist.

History shows we can do it. But will we? That depends on you.

BUSINESSES EMBRACING SYSTEMS

  • A major oil company has generated documented savings of several billion dollars to date, while improving safety and environmental quality.
  • A shipyard went from cost overruns and project delays to an award-winning yard in great demand.
  • Businesses bootstrap steady improvement in quality, productivity and sustainability by reinvesting initial savings in further improvement.
  • A high-tech electronics firm redesigned its supply chain, improving customer service and delivery reliability while cutting inventory.
  • A global automaker built an entirely new service business and is now the market leader in that rapidly growing segment.
  • A major university implemented maintenance projects that boosted energy efficiency and sustainability while more than paying for themselves, creating resources for still more projects.

Systems thinking can be powerful, but too often remains an abstraction. The challenge for us all is to develop our systems thinking skills, to help others develop their capabilities, and to bring systems thinking into our everyday lives: to move beyond slogans and on to action.

Read the original post here.

]]> 0 davidpedigo http://248016thSt. <![CDATA[John Sterman on the Power of Simulations]]> http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=6112 2013-11-27T16:41:24Z 2013-11-26T22:19:41Z Continue reading John Sterman on the Power of Simulations]]>
At a recent MIT conference, Climate Interactive member Prof. John Sterman provided an inspiring analysis of the relationship between big data, climate models and climate change action.
Climate Interactive team member, Prof. John Sterman
Climate Interactive team member, Prof. John Sterman

As we see data and models become more advanced and more available, we’re only really reaching the first step toward solving the problem of climate change.  The real challenge that we’re facing, Sterman said, is communicating all this information so that it teaches and inspires people to pursue the appropriate solutions.

“The burden is on us,” he said. “People are solving problems—data doesn’t solve problems [and] information doesn’t solve problems.”

So the question is, how can we use the data and the models we have to push people to solve these problems? Sterman shared one success story from a World Climate exercise he led with a group of Chinese policymakers:

As you might expect, their position is, “the Western developed nations created the problem—you should cut your emissions and we should be continue to be able to burn carbon to develop our economy.”

So we do that in the model and guess what? You find that sea level rise resulting from their continued emissions—and India and all the other developing countries—rapidly causes Shanghai and Shandong and Shenzhen and many other coastal cities of China to disappear under the ocean before the end of this century.

Now I didn’t tell them that—they discovered it themselves.

Suddenly, it gets very quiet in the room.  And one gentleman … when I asked, “what does this mean?” said, “it means we have to leave the past in the past. Pointing fingers and blaming people for historical responsibility is not going to save our country.  We have to take deeper action.”

I could never have told them that and had any impact. They had to discover it for themselves.

This is why, in addition to making our models as accurate as possible, we also make them interactive, transparent and accessible to everyone. A truly effective model is rigorously based on the best available science, but also enables people to try their own experiments and test their own assumptions.  Even more important, that process should empower people to take action in their personal and professional lives, and connect us to one another so that we can, as one conference attendee put it, “turn a crowd into a movement that can make a difference.”

You can read more about our World Climate exercise and the C-ROADS simulator it uses on our website. You can also find other ways to get involved through our related World Energy exercise or our online Climate Leader course.

]]> 1 Ellie Johnston <![CDATA[Using Simulations to Transform Climate Education]]> http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=6099 2013-12-02T17:54:53Z 2013-11-18T13:10:18Z Continue reading Using Simulations to Transform Climate Education]]>
Students presenting during a World Climate Exercise

With funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the UMass Lowell Climate Change Initiative and Climate Interactive are partnering to bring transformative climate change education tools to educators and students.  Our newly launched project uses simulation role-playing games to put students in the shoes of decision makers, navigating complex social systems while making climate and energy decisions framed by Climate Interactive’s accessible, transparent, and rigorous simulations. Tools, like the World Climate Exercise, offer students an opportunity to find out, in real time, how the climate and energy systems are likely to respond to technological advances, policy interventions, economic and demographic trends, changes in climate-Earth system feedbacks and more.

One popular simulation of the U.N. climate negotiations we will be studying is the World Climate Exercise. You can see from students’ comments here that this exercise has a transformative impact:

“[World Climate can] help with teamwork, strategic planning, public speaking, negotiating, and social skills to name a few. This simulation is far different from a simple lecture or even something as hands-on as a lab experiment. It puts you into the shoes of decision makers…”

“The hands-on experience … left a much deeper impression than simply reading or attending a lecture on the subject, and I am glad we performed this exercise in class.”

“Although this was just a simulation, it gave me an uneasy feeling of what our future may hold”

“It made me want to discuss these issues with my family and tell them … what is happening with climate change. It also made me want to take more action in my daily living to save carbon emissions.”

“We can get to zero carbon emissions.”

“It will definitely be worth the money to invest in cleaner technology than to pay for consequences (e.g. more natural disasters, higher water levels, etc.) of temperature increase later.”

Through this project, we will make it easier for educators around the world to bring these tools into their own courses in disciplines like: engineering, political science, sociology, sustainability, ethics, international studies, journalism, climatology and others.  With the help of SageFox Consulting Group, we will also assess what students learn from game experiences.  Educators who bring these tools into their own work will have an opportunity to join this research effort and—we hope—benefit from it.

The first phase of research entails collecting the experiences of people with the World Climate Exercise. If you have interest in using, or have used, World Climate, please help guide our efforts and join a growing, international community involved in our research project:

  • If you have led World Climate, we would love to know how we can make it easier to use and more accessible to other educators and communicators.  Through this survey, your feedback will guide that process. Would you take a moment to fill it out?
  • If you plan to run World Climate in the next few months and would be willing to survey your participants about their experience, please send us an email at info@climateinteractive.org

If you are interested in learning more about World Climate or are looking for  resources, please visit http://www.climateinteractive.org/simulations/world-climate/. You can also watch this short video of interviews with students after participating in World Climate.

To give educators a hands-on training and resources to use these educational tools in their own work, we will be holding an NSF-sponsored workshop January 15-16, 2014, in Lowell, Massachusetts.  Please contact Phyllis Procter (pprocter@cs.uml.edu) if you would like to learn more or attend.

]]> 0 davidpedigo http://248016thSt. <![CDATA[Counterintuitive Climate Strategy: See The Solution In Order to Even See the Problem]]> http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=6092 2014-03-19T11:01:44Z 2013-11-08T19:12:50Z Continue reading Counterintuitive Climate Strategy: See The Solution In Order to Even See the Problem]]> By Drew Jones, Climate Interactive Co-Director

How can we build political will to take responsibility for climate?

It is time to invest in grounded hope.

We should inoculate the world with an attractive, rigorous, comprehensive path toward climate success, as a means of helping people see and own the climate challenge in the first place.

Counterintuitive Climate Strategy: See The Solution In Order to Even See the ProblemI think we need to see the solution in order to see the problem.

Sounds backwards, right?

We’ve flipped the cause-and-effect for too long. We’ve mostly been saying (think “An Inconvenient Truth”), “climate disruption is a huge problem. So let’s solve it. Every small action counts.”

But it isn’t working. Too many people think, “it’s an overwhelming problem without a clear solution. I give up.”

We’ve seen the alternative work first hand. Over the past year, I’ve facilitated large groups of Stanford graduate students, international energy execs, a climate-and-business advisory panel in Washington, D.C. and others, and asked them to chart out viable solution paths and then see the impacts immediately in our simulators En-ROADS and C-ROADS.

They dream, grieve, learn, dream again, then emerge a bit readier to take responsibility for the problem, roll up their sleeves and try something a bit more ambitious. As Gerard Moutet of the French oil company Total said, “It now seems challenging but possible.”

Challenging but possible. Grounded hope.

That being said, it isn’t easy.

Take “grounded”: Playing with a rigorous simulator disappoints many. Change takes time. There are no silver bullets – not even wind, solar or energy efficiency. The U.S. can’t do it alone. China can’t do it alone. Methane matters.

Now take “hope”: Sharing a positive vision challenges many. Resignation feels safe. Sharing aspirations can leave one vulnerable. We have little experience asking for what we really want for the future.

But we can do it.

Time and time again, we hear people more able to “own” or take responsibility for climate action after creating and experiencing a rigorous pathway of success. The faces of the Stanford students (above) discovering their pathways are inspiring. Check out their work.

Grounded hope brings people into the “sweet spot” between three deeply unsatisfying positions:

  1. “We’re screwed” – When we hear resignation, we know that people should be exploring pathways to success.
  2. “Just doing what we can will add up” – Rosemary Randall described how unsatisfying this can feel: “When there is no connection between the increasingly bleak news from climate scientists and the scale of actions people are encouraged to take, the turmoil of feeling produced by the news is left to churn away, unattended.” In other words, “civilization could be doomed and you want me to change a lightbulb? Really?” We need to give people chances to imagine disruptive, transformational, large scale change.
  3. “There’s no problem” – Denial can be a symptom of our past reliance on the strategy of “climate disruption is a huge problem – let’s work on solutions.” Having a big problem and no solution is too psychologically painful, so our brains are open to the abundant disinformation that helps us deny that there is a problem.

Grounded hope done well would create experiences that have these features:

  • Self-discovery – People learn deeply by doing, not by listening or reading. So we make the simulation learner-directed and interactive.
  • Sufficient – We ask, “what would it take to limit warming fully to 2 degrees C (or 3.6 F)?”
  • Science-based – We loosen constraints on what is politically feasible but keep them tight on what is technically feasible, for example, how long power plants stay in place, the lifetime of atmospheric carbon, the effect of a carbon price on energy demand and so on.
  • System-wide – The simulation spans many areas of leverage: population, consumption, energy supply, energy efficiency, land use, agriculture and carbon pricing.
  • Truly high leverage – Attractive but insufficient half-measures are abundant. The simulator shows the limited contribution of waiting for a low-carbon energy miracle, long term reliance on natural gas and other approaches.

Yes, we still need to explain and re-explain how the climate system works and of the problem of unmitigated climate disruption. And, we need more emphasis on the counterintuitive approach I’ve outlined here.

With the diffusing of grounded hope, we can see a self-reinforcing process spring into action: more faith in solutions allows more acknowledgement of the problem. And more acknowledgement leads to investment and faith in solutions.

Grounded hope. Let’s do it!

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