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	<title type="text">Climate Interactive - The Blog</title>
	<subtitle type="text">Tools for a Thriving Future</subtitle>

	<updated>2013-05-15T18:26:04Z</updated>

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		<author>
			<name>bethsawin</name>
					</author>
		<title type="html"><![CDATA[New project! Green Infrastructure As a Transformative Response to Climate Change]]></title>
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		<id>http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=5707</id>
		<updated>2013-05-13T15:39:49Z</updated>
		<published>2013-05-13T14:22:19Z</published>
		<category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Project news" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="green infrastructure" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="system dynamics" />		<summary type="html"><![CDATA[ “Anyone who thinks that there is not a dramatic change in weather patterns is denying reality. We have a new reality, and old infrastructures and old systems.” So stated New York Governor Cuomo in the days immediately following Hurricane Sandy, &#8230; <a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/new-project-green-infrastructure-as-a-transformative-response-to-climate-change/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&#038;blog=4522334&#038;post=5707&#038;subd=climateinteractive&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></summary>
		<content type="html" xml:base="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/new-project-green-infrastructure-as-a-transformative-response-to-climate-change/">&lt;div id="attachment_5711" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 235px"&gt;&lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/jerry-wong-creative-commons.png"&gt;&lt;img class="size-medium wp-image-5711 " title="New project! Green Infrastructure As a Transformative Response to Climate Change" alt="jerry wong creative commons" src="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/jerry-wong-creative-commons.png?w=225&amp;#038;h=300" width="225" height="300" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p class="wp-caption-text"&gt;Photo Credit: Jerry Wong Creative Commons&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; “Anyone who thinks that there is not a dramatic change in weather patterns is denying reality. We have a new reality, and old infrastructures and old systems.”&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/28/nyregion/hurricane-sandy.html#sha=953fcca9c"&gt;So stated New York Governor Cuomo&lt;/a&gt; in the days immediately following Hurricane Sandy, commenting on a challenge facing communities not just in the US but around the world. With some climate change already &amp;#8216;locked in&amp;#8217; to the momentum of the climate system, human communities are facing an uncertain future. Finding those solutions that increase communities&amp;#8217; readiness for extreme events is a part of responding to climate change.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The promise of green infrastructure, which relies on wetlands, green roofs, rain gardens and permeable pavement, among other approaches, is that it can help communities deal cost-effectively with increased precipitation and storm water runoff while potentially bringing co-benefits, from good jobs to healthier air and cooler summer temperatures. Solutions like green infrastructure are a source of hope that, in responding to climate change we can also help our communities become healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable places to live and work.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#8217;s why we at Climate Interactive are thrilled to announce the start of a new project (thanks to the &lt;a href="http://www.surdna.org/"&gt;Surdna Foundation&lt;/a&gt;) which will, over the course of the next year, see us creating a prototype system dynamics simulation of green infrastructure that will allow for the same sort of &amp;#8216;what-if&amp;#8217; scenario testing that has been so effective in our other models of &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.org/simulations/C-ROADS"&gt;global climate change&lt;/a&gt;, the&lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.org/simulations/en-roads"&gt; transition to clean energy&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/new-project-reducing-disaster-risk-for-pastoralist-in-kenya/"&gt;resilience to drought&lt;/a&gt; in eastern Africa.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span id="more-5707"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;With the new simulation, which we are currently calling the Green Infrastructure Decision Support Simulator, users will be able to explore the consequences of different fractional investments in green infrastructure (solutions like wetland restoration and rain barrel installation) versus investments in gray infrastructure (pipes, holding tanks and cisterns, etc.) The simulation will also make it easier to understand how a system performs in response to different climate change and land-use scenarios and  the implications  for both upfront and operational costs. The simulation will also show simple indicators of some of the co-benefits of green infrastructure, from jobs and economic development to air quality and local temperatures.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Modeling won&amp;#8217;t likely begin until early fall, but in the next few months we will identify the partner city for the pilot project, and begin digesting the many excellent studies on the topic. Already we are discovering that green infrastructure truly is a &amp;#8216;systems intervention&amp;#8217; that touches on topics ranging from ecology to hydrology to economics, social justice, and community well being. As such, we are very optimistic that our systems simulation approach, which helps people see what works for whole systems, will help a promising idea scale up to its fullest potential.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&amp;#038;blog=4522334&amp;#038;post=5707&amp;#038;subd=climateinteractive&amp;#038;ref=&amp;#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" /&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~4/1ldU6UAZ4Oo" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>
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		<entry>
		<author>
			<name>Ellie Johnston</name>
					</author>
		<title type="html"><![CDATA[Mothers Talk Climate Using Climate Bathtub Analogy]]></title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~3/SqCjP2Uu7t8/" />
		<id>http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=5720</id>
		<updated>2013-05-13T15:38:53Z</updated>
		<published>2013-05-11T00:55:49Z</published>
		<category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Media coverage" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Climate Bathtub" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="climate change" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Juliette Rooney-Varga" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Somerville" />		<summary type="html"><![CDATA[In the Boston area, as in other places, parents are coming together to discuss how they can address climate change and discuss the issue with their children in a constructive way. University of Massachusetts Lowell Professor, Juliette Rooney Varga, a &#8230; <a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/mothers-talk-climate-using-climate-bathtub-analogy/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&#038;blog=4522334&#038;post=5720&#038;subd=climateinteractive&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></summary>
		<content type="html" xml:base="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/mothers-talk-climate-using-climate-bathtub-analogy/">&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/_flood_/6987952625/sizes/n/"&gt;&lt;img class="alignright" title="Mothers Talk Climate Using Climate Bathtub Analogy" alt="" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7054/6987952625_b28b47b689_n.jpg" width="256" height="173" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;In the Boston area, as in &lt;a href="https://www.facebook.com/MomsAgainstClimateChange" target="_blank"&gt;other places&lt;/a&gt;, parents are coming together to discuss how they can address climate change and discuss the issue with their children in a constructive way. University of Massachusetts Lowell Professor, Juliette Rooney Varga, a mom herself, was on hand at one of these events explaining how carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, just like a bathtub accumulates water when the faucet is on but the drain is plugged or doesn&amp;#8217;t drain as fast as the water coming in. We use this analogy frequently here at Climate Interactive and have a &lt;a title="Climate Bathtub sim" href="http://www.climateinteractive.org/simulations/bathtub/the-climate-bathtub-animation" target="_blank"&gt;simple simulation&lt;/a&gt; to help people understand it for themselves. Read below for the full story about the event Juliette was a part of.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/news/x1853933285/Conversation-on-climate-change-at-Somervilles-Brown-School#ixzz2Svx3VQp0"&gt;Conversation on climate change at Somerville&amp;#8217;s Brown School &amp;#8211; Somerville, Massachusetts 02144&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;strong&gt;By Delia Marshall, May 04, 2013 @ 10:46 AM&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Somerville Journal&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;Somerville — For many parents of young children in Somerville, the idea of climate change inspires fear, loathing, and silence. Wanting to inspire some hope, connection, and constructive conversation on this topic, Brown School PTA president MaryLou Carey-Sturniolo asked fellow Somerville moms Juliette Rooney-Varga and Eliza Johnston to help her host an April 3 event called “Parenting in a Time of Climate Change.” Johnston, the mother of a toddler, serves on the city’s Commission on Energy Use and Climate Change. Rooney-Varga has three children at the Brown School and directs the Climate Change Initiative at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.&lt;span id="more-5720"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Rooney-Varga opened the meeting by giving a visual model of the earth and its atmosphere. “When you look up, …you think maybe the sky goes on forever,” she said.  “It’s a surprise for most people that the sky is a very thin layer. If you think of the earth as an apple, it’s the skin of that apple.” For millennia, the inflow and outflow of carbon dioxide in that thin layer was in balance. But since the industrial revolution, humans have been generating carbon dioxide at unsustainable levels. &lt;strong&gt;To help attendees imagine this, Rooney-Varga held up a large pitcher of water and began pouring it into a small pitcher, stopping just before water spilled over the edge. The earth’s people, by contrast, have reached the brim and kept on pouring carbon dioxide into its atmosphere, at a rate of 33 billion tons per year. Carbon dioxide traps heat, which contributes to rising sea levels and extreme weather, from droughts to floods and “freak” storms.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Participants exchanged ideas, voiced questions and concerns, and pondered how to be “honest but not scary” when talking about climate change with children. Examples were cited where children have been key players and even role models for their elders in decreasing a family’s carbon footprint. But, as several speakers noted, climate change must also be addressed at a policy level. If there is to be permanent progress on the issue, said Johnston, people must “engage in creating political will.” She has co-founded a group of moms who, though typically overscheduled and exhausted, are getting energized by learning and working together. “Mothers Out Front: Mobilizing for a Livable Climate,” brings friends together to learn about climate change and to put pressure on politicians and business leaders to do better by the planet.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Rooney-Varga stressed that crises related to climate change will not go away by being ignored. Asking “What did Hurricane Sandy cost us?” she said, “Taking action is less expensive than not taking action.” And, although “it’s hard to get our minds around it, …we can’t stick with the status quo. The status quo is over.”&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The Brown School PTA gratefully acknowledges First Church Somerville and Reverend Molly Baskette for the use of their parish hall. For more information on local sustainability initiatives, visit: Mothers Out Front at &lt;a href="http://mothersoutfront.org/"&gt;http://mothersoutfront.org/&lt;/a&gt;; Somerville Climate Action at &lt;a href="http://www.somervilleclimateaction.org/"&gt;http://www.somervilleclimateaction.org/&lt;/a&gt;; and Groundwork Somerville at &lt;a href="http://www.groundworksomerville.org/"&gt;http://www.groundworksomerville.org/&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&amp;#038;blog=4522334&amp;#038;post=5720&amp;#038;subd=climateinteractive&amp;#038;ref=&amp;#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" /&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~4/SqCjP2Uu7t8" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>
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		<entry>
		<author>
			<name>Ellie Johnston</name>
					</author>
		<title type="html"><![CDATA[We&#8217;re hiring: Climate &amp; Digital Media Intern]]></title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~3/iwWDYeKTLHI/" />
		<id>http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=5699</id>
		<updated>2013-05-15T18:26:03Z</updated>
		<published>2013-04-24T15:23:15Z</published>
		<category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Uncategorized" />		<summary type="html"><![CDATA[-Updated May 15, 2013- Climate Interactive seeks an Intern to work 20 hours a week (with the possibility of more) assisting with media, administrative, and research tasks. This is a telecommuting position, as CI has no central office (its 7 &#8230; <a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/were-hiring-climate-digital-media-intern/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&#038;blog=4522334&#038;post=5699&#038;subd=climateinteractive&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></summary>
		<content type="html" xml:base="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/were-hiring-climate-digital-media-intern/">&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;-Updated May 15, 2013-&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Climate Interactive seeks an Intern to work 20 hours a week (with the possibility of more) assisting with media, administrative, and research tasks. This is a telecommuting position, as CI has no central office (its 7 person staff is spread across VT, NH, MA, SC, and NC, with its fiscal home in Washington DC). The Intern will work as a contractor, and the internship will run for 12 months with a 30 day review period, to ensure an adequate fit for both Climate Interactive and the Intern. Compensation for the internship will be $15/hour, and the Intern will provide his/her computer equipment and software.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Responsibilities are listed below. The top three characteristics required are 1) self-motivation and ability to telecommute effectively, 2) web communication skills, and 3) productivity and attention to detail with administrative tasks.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span id="more-5699"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Key responsibilities of this position include:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Administration (50%):&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Entering data and analyzing spreadsheets&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Organizing staff travel – researching hotels and flights&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Completing miscellaneous computer tasks and responding to short-term needs for help from staff&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Creating, organizing and reviewing expense reports&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Responding to email inquiries from external partners&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Creating user accounts and managing contact database&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Note-taking at meetings&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Media (40%):&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Maintaining and updating website, blog, and twitter content and posts&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Creating content for online communications and electronic newsletters&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Creating and editing video and images&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Research (10%):&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Gathering relevant information on climate policies and proposals as directed by staff&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Qualifications, skills &amp;amp; core competencies required:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Self-motivated and independent&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Preferably a recent graduate&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Available to telecommute during part of Eastern time business hours&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Excellent writing and editing skills with a strong attention to detail&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Well-organized, self-motivated, and able to manage deadlines&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Team player willing to perform a variety of tasks&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Exceptional computer skills&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Experience with HTML and CSS&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Proficient in blogging and social media&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Able to quickly master new technology systems&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Interest in climate, sustainability, and energy issues&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Experienced in system dynamics, systems thinking, and organizational learning would be a plus&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This position offers the chance to contribute significantly to the mission of the organization.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Hiring process:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Applicants should fill out and submit the &lt;a href="https://docs.google.com/a/climateinteractive.org/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEdONXRJb3c0a0hTdDNoR09BdkNGYUE6MA" target="_blank"&gt;application form&lt;/a&gt;, as part of the first round of the hiring process (please include links to relevant work). Applicants reaching the second round will be asked to submit their resume. Applicants reaching the third round will be invited to a phone interview. Please do not submit any other materials or contact CI staff during the first round.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Our team at Climate Interactive helps people see what works to address climate change and related issues like energy, water, food, and disaster risk reduction. Please explore &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.org" target="_blank"&gt;climateinteractive.org&lt;/a&gt; to become more familiar with our work.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="text-align:center;"&gt;&lt;img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5658" title="We're hiring: Climate &amp;amp; Digital Media Intern" alt="" src="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/ci-logo.jpg?w=300&amp;#038;h=112" width="300" height="112" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&amp;#038;blog=4522334&amp;#038;post=5699&amp;#038;subd=climateinteractive&amp;#038;ref=&amp;#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" /&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~4/iwWDYeKTLHI" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>
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		<entry>
		<author>
			<name>Travis Franck</name>
						<uri>http://tfranck.wordpress.com</uri>
					</author>
		<title type="html"><![CDATA[Data-mining in Kenya]]></title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~3/XUagrVAnZB0/" />
		<id>http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=5661</id>
		<updated>2013-03-28T19:48:33Z</updated>
		<published>2013-03-28T15:55:48Z</published>
		<category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Project news" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Travis Franck" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="kenya" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="idmc" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="pastoralist" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="climate adaptation" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="resilience" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="system dynamics model" />		<summary type="html"><![CDATA[“The data might just be in filing cabinets at each border crossing.” We always knew it was going to be tough to make a model of drought-induced population displacement in Kenya, and this comment in one of my meetings last &#8230; <a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/data-mining-in-kenya/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&#038;blog=4522334&#038;post=5661&#038;subd=climateinteractive&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></summary>
		<content type="html" xml:base="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/data-mining-in-kenya/">&lt;p style="text-align:center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/24739_6610.jpg"&gt;&lt;img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-5681" title="Data-mining in Kenya" alt="" src="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/24739_6610.jpg?w=500&amp;#038;h=219" width="500" height="219" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;“The data might just be in filing cabinets at each border crossing.”&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We always knew it was going to be tough to make a model of drought-induced population displacement in Kenya, and this comment in one of my meetings last month confirmed it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I was in Nairobi to meet with experts and decision makers about our &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/new-project-reducing-disaster-risk-for-pastoralist-in-kenya/" target="_blank"&gt;pastoralist climate risk and resiliency simulation&lt;/a&gt;, showing them the work we have done so far on a prototype simulation, and looking for leads on new data. It was a week full of meetings filled with learning about the complexities of rural life in Kenya. I was fascinated to hear about all the different factors – from where national borders lie to international aid priorities – that are affecting the resiliency of pastoralists.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Along with our partner from &lt;a href="http://internal-displacement.org/" target="_blank"&gt;IDMC&lt;/a&gt;, I demoed our real-time simulation that combines rainfall/drought, pasture quality, livestock population, and international food assistance to explore the interplay of rainfall, livelihoods, and displacement.  In the real world and in the simulation, when rainfall changes, pastoralist livelihoods suffer and families can become displaced from their homes and grazing lands. The simulation shows the interplay of factors, and eventually we expect to be able to help decision makers test how different policies can help reduce the risk of drought-induced displacement.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span id="more-5661"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;During my trip I was able to meet many groups that are supporting Kenya’s pastoralists, including, &lt;a href="http://www.ilri.org/"&gt;International Livestock Research Institute&lt;/a&gt; (ILRI), &lt;a href="http://www.unfpa.org/public/" target="_blank"&gt;UN Population Fund&lt;/a&gt; (UNFPA), pastoralist advocacy group &lt;a href="http://www.disasterriskreduction.net/east-central-africa/reglap"&gt;REGLAP&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;a href="www.iom.int/" target="_blank"&gt;International Organization of Migration&lt;/a&gt; (IOM), professors at the University of Nairobi, and several pastoralists from northern Kenya. Reactions to the simulation were very positive and reinforced our sense of need for this work.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;While some speculated that portions of the additional data we are looking for may be inaccessible (unless we find an intrepid grad student ready to do some &lt;i&gt;pro bono&lt;/i&gt; fieldwork), we’ve still been able to uncover and connect data on important trends, for instance creating datasets that show the relationship between amount of rainfall and the distance livestock must travel to reach water.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;One of the challenges of this project, not unlike some of &lt;a href="http://www.climateinteractive.org/simulations/"&gt;our previous work&lt;/a&gt;, has been that we need to bring together research from many different fields. In this case we’re combining pasture research, livestock research, and pastoralism social science research. For now we’re continuing to integrate the different datasets and adjusting our simulation in light of newly discovered data. We are also expanding the model to include more policy interventions, like livestock restocking and changes in land tenure and access. Soon we’ll be expanding the framework to include cross-border flows of pastoralists in the Horn of Africa — between Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;With some unavoidable climate change already locked into the momentum of the climate system, we expect that more regions around the world are going to be needing risk reduction scenario planning tools, and we are hopeful that our style of interactive user-friendly simulations can help connect people with the data, analysis, and insight they will need.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&amp;#038;blog=4522334&amp;#038;post=5661&amp;#038;subd=climateinteractive&amp;#038;ref=&amp;#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" /&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~4/XUagrVAnZB0" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>
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		<entry>
		<author>
			<name>Ellie Johnston</name>
					</author>
		<title type="html"><![CDATA[MIT Professor: We Ended the Slave Trade, We Can End Fossil Fuel Use]]></title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~3/NWOSlP27-5E/" />
		<id>http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=5643</id>
		<updated>2013-03-23T15:20:20Z</updated>
		<published>2013-03-22T15:25:40Z</published>
		<category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Presentation" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="climate change" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="cognitive dissonance" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="insurmountable challenges" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="john sterman" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="optimism" />		<summary type="html"><![CDATA[In this interview Climate Interactive team member and MIT Professor John Sterman describes how slavery was once an integral source of energy for our society and yet we realized how wrong it was and stopped.  John is optimistic that we &#8230; <a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/mit-professor-we-ended-slavery-we-can-end-fossil-fuel-use/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&#038;blog=4522334&#038;post=5643&#038;subd=climateinteractive&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></summary>
		<content type="html" xml:base="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/mit-professor-we-ended-slavery-we-can-end-fossil-fuel-use/">&lt;span class='embed-youtube' style='text-align:center; display: block;'&gt;&lt;iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='500' height='312' src='http://www.youtube.com/embed/k9lR9jQdBS0?version=3&amp;#038;rel=1&amp;#038;fs=1&amp;#038;showsearch=0&amp;#038;showinfo=1&amp;#038;iv_load_policy=1&amp;#038;wmode=transparent' frameborder='0'&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In this interview &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.org/" target="_blank"&gt;Climate Interactive&lt;/a&gt; team member and MIT Professor &lt;a href="http://jsterman.scripts.mit.edu/" target="_blank"&gt;John Sterman&lt;/a&gt; describes how slavery was once an integral source of energy for our society and yet we realized how wrong it was and stopped.  John is optimistic that we will come to the same conclusions about the damaging energy sources we are dependent on today.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;He explains &lt;a href="http://jsterman.scripts.mit.edu/On-Line_Publications.html"&gt;his research&lt;/a&gt;, which shows that people are often so overwhelmed by the scope of climate change and the feeling they can&amp;#8217;t do anything about it that they become cognitively dissonant. He explains that we can take steps to help people reorient their thinking about climate change, like reminding people that throughout history people have been able to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges, like ending slavery.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Check out the video interview from the Australian School of Business above or visit &lt;a href="http://knowledge.asb.unsw.edu.au/article.cfm;jsessionid=d030ffe99b4123c71921285256427535ee2c?articleid=1773" target="_blank"&gt;their website for the full transcript or audio.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="text-align:center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/ci-logo.jpg"&gt;&lt;img class=" wp-image-5658 aligncenter" title="MIT Professor: We Ended the Slave Trade, We Can End Fossil Fuel Use" alt="CI logo" src="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/ci-logo.jpg?w=150" width="150" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&amp;#038;blog=4522334&amp;#038;post=5643&amp;#038;subd=climateinteractive&amp;#038;ref=&amp;#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" /&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~4/NWOSlP27-5E" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>
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		<entry>
		<author>
			<name>Ellie Johnston</name>
					</author>
		<title type="html"><![CDATA[Two Myths: Let&#8217;s Level off Emissions &amp; Reverse Climate Change]]></title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~3/5wRmtxDdI0c/" />
		<id>http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=5630</id>
		<updated>2013-03-20T18:51:41Z</updated>
		<published>2013-03-19T18:39:27Z</published>
		<category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Insights" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Climate" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Climate Bathtub" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="emissions" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="john sterman" />		<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Suggesting that we can reverse climate change or that it&#8217;ll be okay because we&#8217;re leveling off emissions is thinking that doesn&#8217;t reflect the real dynamics of our world. CO2 lasts in the atmosphere for lifetimes, meaning we are already locked &#8230; <a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/two-myths-lets-level-off-emissions-reverse-climate-change/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&#038;blog=4522334&#038;post=5630&#038;subd=climateinteractive&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></summary>
		<content type="html" xml:base="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/two-myths-lets-level-off-emissions-reverse-climate-change/">&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/tub.jpg"&gt;&lt;img class="alignright size-full wp-image-5631" title="Two Myths: Let's Level off Emissions &amp;amp; Reverse Climate Change" alt="tub" src="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/tub.jpg?w=500"   /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Suggesting that we can reverse climate change or that it&amp;#8217;ll be okay because we&amp;#8217;re leveling off emissions is thinking that doesn&amp;#8217;t reflect the real dynamics of our world. CO2 lasts in the atmosphere &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/co2-timeline-tool-a-new-tool-for-youth-climate-leaders-and-all-the-rest-of-us-too/"&gt;for lifetimes&lt;/a&gt;, meaning we are already locked in to some amount of climate change. If we were to just level off our emissions and leave it at that, we would still be adding far more CO2 annually to the atmosphere than we can cycle back down to Earth without contributing to climate change.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;These are just two angles on some of the misaligned, but generally well-intentioned thinking that one can run across in the daily energy and climate news. Below are two recent examples, both of which pop-up in articles from people trying to find a foothold to defend the widespread exploitation of the reserves of natural gas and oil that have been opened up by hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling in a warming world — a tough argument to pull off.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Myth 1: We can reverse climate change.&lt;/strong&gt; This is from New York Times Op-ed columnist Joe Nocera &lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/opinion/nocera-texas-might-be-on-to-something.html?_r=1&amp;amp;"&gt;last Friday&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;A reduction of carbon emissions from Chinese power plants would do far more to help &lt;strong&gt;reverse climate change&lt;/strong&gt; than — dare I say it? — blocking the Keystone XL oil pipeline.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span id="more-5630"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Nocera has been criticized by &lt;a href="http://grist.org/climate-energy/joe-nocera-knows-from-boneheaded/"&gt;climate bloggers&lt;/a&gt; for many of his recent Op-ed&amp;#8217;s that touch on energy and climate, so it is no surprise that he has already been pounced on for his remarks in this editorial. Joe Romm at ThinkProgress describes the &lt;a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/17/1731591/the-dangerous-myth-that-climate-change-is-reversible/"&gt;fallacy of &amp;#8220;reversing climate change&amp;#8221; here&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;As a NOAA-led paper explained 4 years ago, climate change is “&lt;a title="Permanent Link to NOAA stunner: Climate change " href="http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/26/noaa-climate-change-irreversible-1000-years-drought-dust-bowls/" rel="bookmark"&gt;largely irreversible for 1000 years&lt;/a&gt;.”&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This notion that we can reverse climate change by cutting emissions is one of the most commonly held myths — and one of the most dangerous, as explained in this 2007 MIT study, “&lt;a href="http://web.mit.edu/jsterman/www/Understanding_public.html"&gt;Understanding Public Complacency About Climate Change: Adults’ mental models of climate change violate conservation of matter&lt;/a&gt;.”&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The fact is that, as RealClimate &lt;a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/03/climate-change-commitments/"&gt;has explained&lt;/a&gt;, we would need “an immediate cut of around 60 to 70% globally and continued further cuts over time” &lt;em&gt;merely to stabilize atmospheric concentrations&lt;/em&gt; of CO2 – and that would still leave us with a radiative imbalance that would lead to “&lt;em&gt;an additional 0.3 to 0.8ºC warming&lt;/em&gt; over the 21st Century.” And that assumes no major carbon cycle feedbacks kick in, which seems &lt;a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/02/17/207552/nsidc-thawing-permafrost-will-turn-from-carbon-sink-to-source-in-mid-2020s-releasing-100-billion-tons-of-carbon-by-2100/"&gt;highly unlikely&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We’d have to drop total global emissions to zero now and for the rest of the century just to lower concentrations enough to stop temperatures from rising. Again, even in this implausible scenario, we still aren’t talking about reversing climate change, just stopping it — or, more technically, stopping the temperature rise. The great ice sheets might well continue to disintegrate, albeit slowly.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Romm cites Climate Interactive colleague and MIT professor John Sterman&amp;#8217;s &lt;a href="http://web.mit.edu/jsterman/www/Understanding_public.html"&gt;study&lt;/a&gt; that showed that Joe Nocera is by no means alone in holding this myth.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Myth 2: It&amp;#8217;ll be okay if we just stabilize emissions&lt;/strong&gt;. This thinking appears near the end of a long &lt;a href="http://www.psmag.com/environment/oil-production-peak-oil-fracking-kern-river-north-dakota-brazil-energy-53395/"&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; by Vince Beisner in the Pacific Standard on new developments in the fossil fuel industry:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;So are we doomed to a future of ever-rising temperatures? Maybe. But maybe not. It’s not all bad news: in the developed world, greenhouse gas emissions may be on track to stabilize, thanks to growing efficiency and a shift toward cleaner fuels. In the U.S., energy-related carbon emissions have fallen from a peak in 2005, and are projected to rise only slightly over the next ten years.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;True that it is good news that growth in emissions is slowing, but just stabilizing our emissions is bad news for young and future generations who would face ever-increasing temperatures because our emissions would still far exceed what the planet can handle. Sterman and Sweeney&amp;#8217;s 2007 &lt;a href="http://web.mit.edu/jsterman/www/Understanding_public.html"&gt;study&lt;/a&gt; details this fallacy and their studies reveal that this too is a widely held misunderstanding.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#8217;s the abstract from the Sterman and Sweeney&amp;#8217;s &lt;a href="http://web.mit.edu/jsterman/www/Understanding_public.html"&gt;study&lt;/a&gt; that lays both these myths to rest:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Public attitudes about climate change reveal a contradiction. Surveys show most Americans believe climate change poses serious risks but also that reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions sufficient to stabilize atmospheric GHG concentrations or net radiative forcing can be deferred until there is greater evidence that climate change is harmful. US policymakers likewise argue it is prudent to wait and see whether climate change will cause substantial economic harm before undertaking policies to reduce emissions. &lt;strong&gt;Such wait-and-see policies erroneously presume climate change can be reversed quickly should harm become evident, underestimating substantial delays in the climate’s response to anthropogenic forcing&lt;/strong&gt;. We report experiments with highly educated adults–graduate students at MIT–showing widespread misunderstanding of the fundamental stock and flow relationships, including mass balance principles, that lead to long response delays. GHG emissions are now about twice the rate of GHG removal from the atmosphere.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;GHG concentrations will therefore continue to rise even if emissions fall, stabilizing only when emissions equal removal. In contrast, results show &lt;strong&gt;most subjects believe atmospheric GHG concentrations can be stabilized while emissions into the atmosphere continuously exceed the removal of GHGs from it&lt;/strong&gt;. These beliefs-analogous to arguing a bathtub filled faster than it drains will never overflow-support wait-and-see policies but violate conservation of matter. Low public support for mitigation policies may be based more on misconceptions of climate dynamics than high discount rates or uncertainty about the risks of harmful climate change.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;For a great interactive demo on this check out the &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.org/simulations/bathtub"&gt;climate bathtub&lt;/a&gt;, which illustrates these dynamics using the simple analogy of water flowing into and out of a bathtub.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&amp;#038;blog=4522334&amp;#038;post=5630&amp;#038;subd=climateinteractive&amp;#038;ref=&amp;#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" /&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~4/5wRmtxDdI0c" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>
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		<entry>
		<author>
			<name>Ellie Johnston</name>
					</author>
		<title type="html"><![CDATA[Students Showcase our Interactive Climate Tools to Enthusiastic Crowds]]></title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~3/2ObdtDHf_Ys/" />
		<id>http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=5615</id>
		<updated>2013-03-18T13:41:01Z</updated>
		<published>2013-03-15T17:21:27Z</published>
		<category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Media coverage" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="aaas conference" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="American Association for the Advancement of Science" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="climate change" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="interactive tools" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Juliette Rooney-Varga" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="UMass Lowell" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="university of massachusetts lowell" />		<summary type="html"><![CDATA[At the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual conference in Boston, thousands got the opportunity to see a demonstration of some of our latest tools and some new interactive exercises to help people understand climate change. &#8230; <a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/students-showcase-our-interactive-climate-tools-to-enthusiastic-crowds/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&#038;blog=4522334&#038;post=5615&#038;subd=climateinteractive&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></summary>
		<content type="html" xml:base="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/students-showcase-our-interactive-climate-tools-to-enthusiastic-crowds/">&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;At the recent &lt;a href="http://www.aaas.org/" target="_blank"&gt;American Association for the Advancement of Science&lt;/a&gt; (AAAS) &lt;em&gt;annual conference&lt;/em&gt; in Boston, thousands got the opportunity to see a demonstration of some of our latest tools and some new interactive exercises to help people understand climate change. The exhibit was put together and led by University of Massachusetts Lowell professor &lt;a href="http://www.uml.edu/Biomed-Biotech/faculty/rooney-varga-juliette.aspx" target="_blank"&gt;Juliette Rooney-Varga&lt;/a&gt; and her students &lt;em&gt;&lt;em&gt;as part of the &lt;a href="http://www.uml.edu/Research/Climate-Change/" target="_blank"&gt;UMass Lowell Climate Change Initiative&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/em&gt;to showcase how engaging learning about climate change can be. Below the UMass Lowell news office recounts their experience showing off these tools.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="height:12px;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.uml.edu/News/stories/2013/Students-climate-change.aspx" target="_blank"&gt;Kids, Parents Given Introduction to Climate Change Science, Solutions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
By Edwin L. Aguirre, 03/13/2013&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/aaas-boston-meeting-resized_tcm18-102094.jpg"&gt;&lt;img class="alignright size-full wp-image-5616" alt="Students Showcase our Interactive Climate Tools to Enthusiastic Crowds" src="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/aaas-boston-meeting-resized_tcm18-102094.jpg?w=500"   /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Students experienced firsthand the important task of communicating climate change to the general public during the “Family Science Days” event held at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) &lt;a title="AAAS annual meeting" href="http://www.aaas.org/meetings/2013/" target="_blank"&gt;annual meeting&lt;/a&gt; in Boston in February.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;“It was a great learning experience — the amount of science we were able to convey to people was awesome,” said biology senior Justin Conchieri. “I believe we really did inform a lot of people and changed a lot of minds. I even think we made people want to reduce their carbon footprint.”&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;“It was a joy to see our students educating the more than 3,600 attendees about climate change science and solutions,” said biology Assoc. Prof. &lt;a title="Juliette Rooney-Varga" href="http://www.uml.edu/Biomed-Biotech/faculty/rooney-varga-juliette.aspx"&gt;Juliette Rooney-Varga&lt;/a&gt;, who is director of UMass Lowell’s &lt;a title="Climate Change Initiative" href="http://www.uml.edu/Research/Climate-Change/"&gt;Climate Change Initiative&lt;/a&gt;. “They were fantastic!”&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Joining Conchieri were fellow biology seniors Cameron Jenkins, Heather Merhi, Nathan Manalo, Chika Iloh and Itoro Inoyo and biology sophomore Jared Nease.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;“I was really surprised by the number of people who kept coming to the booth to get more information,” said Conchieri. “It was literally nonstop talking to people and a lot of times there would be a large crowd listening to us.”&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span id="more-5615"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Games for a New Climate&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The students created an exhibit entitled “Games for a New Climate,” which was packed with interactive sessions that engaged children and parents alike.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;“The activities combined simple, hands-on demonstrations with state-of-the-art decision-support computer simulations developed by one of our collaborators, &lt;a title="Climate Interactive" href="http://climateinteractive.org/" target="_blank"&gt;Climate Interactive&lt;/a&gt;. The simulations are used by the U.S. Government, the United Nations and others,” said Rooney-Varga.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The activities included:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CO2 backpacks.&lt;/strong&gt; Students brought five backpacks loaded with 1, 3, 5, 25 and 105 pounds of weight, and people had to guess which one was equivalent in mass to the average American’s daily carbon dioxide emission. “Kids had fun trying to pick them all up, while parents looked shocked when they found out that it was 105 pounds,” noted Rooney-Varga.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Carbon Trust Fund.&lt;/strong&gt; Using Hershey’s Kisses as “money,” the demonstration taught participants that they could actually make a profit by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide they emit.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Energy-policy game.&lt;/strong&gt; In this exercise, people were asked to fill out energy policy choices, which were then entered into a powerful simulation tool called &lt;a title="En-ROADS" href="http://climateinteractive.org/simulations/en-roads" target="_blank"&gt;En-ROADS&lt;/a&gt; to find out if they were able to meet their emission-reduction goals.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;“We definitely contributed to giving the public more information about climate change,” said Merhi. “I think — and hope — the kids learned something as well as their parents. I noticed there were many teachers interested in the games and were taking notes to share with their classes. The teachers ranged from kindergarten instructors to college professors.”&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&amp;#038;blog=4522334&amp;#038;post=5615&amp;#038;subd=climateinteractive&amp;#038;ref=&amp;#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" /&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~4/2ObdtDHf_Ys" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>
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		<entry>
		<author>
			<name>Ellie Johnston</name>
					</author>
		<title type="html"><![CDATA[March 12th: Climate Interactive at Oxford discussing future energy scenarios]]></title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~3/4nqzoomYwXg/" />
		<id>http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=5582</id>
		<updated>2013-03-12T13:17:35Z</updated>
		<published>2013-03-11T17:30:19Z</published>
		<category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Presentation" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="En-ROADS" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Energy Scenarios" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Oxford University" />		<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Climate Interactive Co-Directors Beth Sawin and Drew Jones will be giving an interactive presentation tomorrow, March 12th, at Oxford Universtiy&#8217;s Saïd Business School on our global energy model En-ROADS. &#160; The event: ‘En-ROADS: Interactive Experiments with a Policy-Maker-Oriented Global Energy &#8230; <a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/march-12th-climate-interactive-at-oxford-discussing-future-energy-scenarios/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&#038;blog=4522334&#038;post=5582&#038;subd=climateinteractive&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></summary>
		<content type="html" xml:base="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/march-12th-climate-interactive-at-oxford-discussing-future-energy-scenarios/">&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/sawin-jonesun.jpg"&gt;&lt;img class="alignright  wp-image-5588" title="March 12th: Climate Interactive at Oxford discussing future energy scenarios" alt="sawin-jonesUN" src="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/sawin-jonesun.jpg?w=174&amp;#038;h=176" width="174" height="176" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Climate Interactive Co-Directors &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.org/about/staff#Beth"&gt;Beth Sawin&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.org/about/staff#Drew"&gt;Drew Jones&lt;/a&gt; will be giving an interactive presentation tomorrow, March 12th, at Oxford Universtiy&amp;#8217;s Saïd Business School on our global energy model &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.org/simulations/en-roads/en-roads"&gt;En-ROADS&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The event:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="text-align:center;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.cabdyn.ox.ac.uk/complexity_PDFs/Seminars%20and%20Events%202012_13/E_Sawin_A_Jones_HT%2013.pdf"&gt; ‘En-ROADS: Interactive Experiments with a Policy-Maker-Oriented Global Energy and Climate Simulator’&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="text-align:center;"&gt;Tuesday 12th March 2013, 12.30 -14.00&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style="text-align:center;"&gt;Seminar Room 14, Saïd Business School&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Event abstract:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The Earth’s climate and society’s energy infrastructure are each complex dynamical systems driven by multiple feedback processes, accumulations, time delays and nonlinearities, but research shows poor understanding of these processes is widespread, even among highly educated people with strong technical backgrounds.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Existing climate and energy models are opaque to policymakers and too slow to be effective either in the fast-paced context of policymaking or as learning environments to help improve people’s understanding of climate dynamics.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In this interactive session we will together run experiments in &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.org/simulations/en-roads"&gt;En-ROADS&lt;/a&gt; (Energy-Rapid Overview And Decision Support), a transparent, intuitive policy simulation model developed by Climate Interactive and MIT Sloan that provides policymakers, negotiators, educators, businesses, the media, and the public with the ability to explore, for themselves, the likely consequences of energy, GDP, land use, and GHG emissions policies. The model runs on an ordinary laptop in a fraction of a second, offers an intuitive interface and has been carefully grounded in the best available science. We describe the need for such tools, the structure of the model, and calibration to climate data and state of the art general circulation models.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.org/simulations/en-roads" target="_blank"&gt;En-ROADS&lt;/a&gt; is an extension of &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.org/simulations/C-ROADS" target="_blank"&gt;C-ROADS&lt;/a&gt;, the climate simulator that is being used by officials and policymakers in key UNFCCC parties, including the United States, China and the United Nations.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Climate Interactive is a U.S.-based not-for-profit organization that helps people see what works to address climate change and related issues like energy, water, food, and disaster risk reduction. Climate Interactive employs system dynamics modeling, which was invented at MIT Sloan in the 1950s.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Sawin and Jones are co-founders and co-directors of Climate Interactive – &lt;a href="www.climateinteractive.org" target="_blank"&gt;www.climateinteractive.org&lt;/a&gt;. Both hold their degrees from Dartmouth College and MIT.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p style="text-align:left;"&gt;Thanks to the event sponsors:&lt;br /&gt;
Institute for New Economic Thinking, Oxford Martin School, and the Saïd Business School&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/oxfordsponsors.jpg"&gt;&lt;img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-5586" title="March 12th: Climate Interactive at Oxford discussing future energy scenarios" alt="oxfordsponsors" src="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/oxfordsponsors.jpg?w=500&amp;#038;h=49" width="500" height="49" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&amp;#038;blog=4522334&amp;#038;post=5582&amp;#038;subd=climateinteractive&amp;#038;ref=&amp;#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" /&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~4/4nqzoomYwXg" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>
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		<entry>
		<author>
			<name>bethsawin</name>
					</author>
		<title type="html"><![CDATA[The Youth Voice in the Climate Fight]]></title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~3/xBeIcR0pZyc/" />
		<id>http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=5560</id>
		<updated>2013-03-08T00:21:01Z</updated>
		<published>2013-03-07T21:38:15Z</published>
		<category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Insights" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Tools" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="climate change" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="CO2" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Timeline Tool" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Youth" />		<summary type="html"><![CDATA[&#8220;As youth, we don’t have a voice in this fight. In the sense that, like, there’s no way that I can climb the government ladder and end up in a position of enough political power to save myself now. I’m &#8230; <a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/the-youth-voice-in-the-climate-fight/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&#038;blog=4522334&#038;post=5560&#038;subd=climateinteractive&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></summary>
		<content type="html" xml:base="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/the-youth-voice-in-the-climate-fight/">&lt;div id="attachment_5579" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 410px"&gt;&lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/divestnow.jpg"&gt;&lt;img class="wp-image-5579  " title="The Youth Voice in the Climate Fight" alt="Justin McCallum / The Tufts Daily " src="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/divestnow.jpg?w=400&amp;#038;h=266" width="400" height="266" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p class="wp-caption-text"&gt;Justin McCallum / The Tufts Daily&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;#8220;As youth, we don’t have a voice in this fight. In the sense that, like, there’s no way that I can climb the government ladder and end up in a position of enough political power to save myself now. I’m never going to get that chance. And there are kids who are being born today, or born 10 years ago, they’re not really going to get that chance either, if we don’t start winning in the next couple of years.&amp;#8221; &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Those are the words of Alli Welton, a 20 year-old college student quoted in an excellent article in Grist by Wen Stephenson &lt;a href="http://grist.org/climate-energy/the-children-why-a-generation-is-putting-itself-on-the-line-for-the-climate"&gt;(The children: Why a generation is putting itself on the line for the climate)&lt;/a&gt;. Stephenson&amp;#8217;s article, and especially the strong clear words of the youth he interviews, can help us all see through the eyes of today&amp;#8217;s youth climate leaders, who grasp the &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/the-importance-of-the-next-five-and-10-years-–-climate-simulations-convey-what-the-author-of-the-widely-known-stern-report-considers-the-‘great-challenge’-of-climate-communicat/"&gt;narrowing window of opportunity&lt;/a&gt; for strong and effective action on climate change and are mobilizing for fossil fuel divestment, against mountain top removal, and to block the Keystone XL pipeline in growing numbers.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;At Climate Interactive, we are as likely to tell a story with numbers and graphs as we are with words. Our new &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.org/simulations/co2-timeline"&gt;CO2 Timeline Tool&lt;/a&gt; corroborates the point made in different ways by each of the young people interviewed by Stephenson; decisions about climate and energy that are being made today will reverberate, for better or worse, through lives of today&amp;#8217;s children and youth. The long lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere guarantees that today&amp;#8217;s fossil fuel pollution will warm the Earth for decades to come. And policy that keeps fossil fuels in the ground today, keeps more options open for young people&amp;#8217;s futures.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A tenant of systems thinking is that responsibility for important decisions should be given to those who will feel the impacts of the decision. For that reason alone all of us should listen, really listen, to what young people are asking, and, increasingly, demanding. In that sense the&lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.org/simulations/co2-timeline"&gt; CO2 Timeline Tool&lt;/a&gt; tells an ethical story, and a story that should make all of us, young and old alike, stop and think about who should have the strongest voice in the climate fight.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&amp;#038;blog=4522334&amp;#038;post=5560&amp;#038;subd=climateinteractive&amp;#038;ref=&amp;#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" /&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~4/xBeIcR0pZyc" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>
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		<entry>
		<author>
			<name>bethsawin</name>
					</author>
		<title type="html"><![CDATA[CO2 Timeline Tool: A New Tool for Youth Climate Leaders (and all the rest of us too!)]]></title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ClimateInteractive/~3/XLYh6-dic8A/" />
		<id>http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/?p=5510</id>
		<updated>2013-03-06T00:23:01Z</updated>
		<published>2013-03-05T14:24:41Z</published>
		<category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Insights" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Resources" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="Tools" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="climate change" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="CO2" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="college students" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="divestment" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="fossil fuels" /><category scheme="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com" term="systems thinking" />		<summary type="html"><![CDATA[Youth climate leaders rightly argue that it is they &#8211; not current-day politicians, executives, and administrators – who will have to live with the consequences of today&#8217;s decisions when it comes to fossil fuel use. As these young people mobilize &#8230; <a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/co2-timeline-tool-a-new-tool-for-youth-climate-leaders-and-all-the-rest-of-us-too/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">&#8594;</span></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=climateinteractive.wordpress.com&#038;blog=4522334&#038;post=5510&#038;subd=climateinteractive&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></summary>
		<content type="html" xml:base="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/co2-timeline-tool-a-new-tool-for-youth-climate-leaders-and-all-the-rest-of-us-too/">&lt;div id="attachment_5504" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 310px"&gt;&lt;img class="size-medium wp-image-5504  " title="CO2 Timeline Tool: A New Tool for Youth Climate Leaders (and all the rest of us too!)" alt="Timeline graphic" src="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/timeline-graphic.png?w=300&amp;#038;h=197" width="300" height="197" /&gt;&lt;p class="wp-caption-text"&gt;This view from the CO2 timeline tool allows student leaders to show the expected tenure of key administration leaders (in gold) along with possible milestones in the student leaders&amp;#8217; own lives (in blue) on a century-long timeline. The shaded grey bar at the bottom of the graphic shows how much CO2 from a pulse released during thee student&amp;#8217;s four years in college remains in the atmosphere throughout the century.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Youth climate leaders rightly argue that it is they &amp;#8211; not current-day politicians, executives, and administrators – who will have to live with the consequences of today&amp;#8217;s decisions when it comes to fossil fuel use. As these young people mobilize in hundreds of &lt;a href="http://gofossilfree.org/"&gt;fossil fuel divestment campaigns&lt;/a&gt; we are excited to release a new tool designed to help them make their case powerfully, creatively, and rigorously.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;With the CO2 Timeline tool, a first year student making a presentation to a board of trustees can show, with accuracy and confidence, that at the time she reaches the age of retirement around 65% of the CO2 released during her four years in college will still be in atmosphere, by which time the trustees she is addressing will be 90-120 years old.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Another youth leader could use the tool to find out how much CO2 from his college years will still be in the atmosphere around the time he would start a career (93%) or become a grandparent (70%) and use those benchmarks to explain to his roommate or his uncle why the divestment campaign matters to him.&lt;span id="more-5510"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href="http://www.climateinteractive.org/simulations/co2-lifetime"&gt;CO2 Timeline tool&lt;/a&gt; takes analysis we have &lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/carbon-dioxide-will-persist-in-the-atmosphere-long-after-current-decision-makers-have-left-their-roles-on-ethical-grounds-young-people-should-have-a-say/"&gt;shared previously&lt;/a&gt; on this blog, and makes it customizable to particular colleges or universities. Students can input the names and the likely tenure of key administrators at their schools who are making decisions about the inclusion of fossil fuel investments in the school&amp;#8217;s endowment and the tool will &lt;span style="color:#000000;"&gt;compare the amount of time these decision-makers will be in their positions relative to the long duration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. &lt;/span&gt;Student&amp;#8217;s can also create their own personal &amp;#8216;timelines&amp;#8217;, estimating when key milestones in their own lives might unfold and seeing how much of the CO2 released during their college years will still be in the atmosphere, say when they enter graduate school (about 98%) or when their grandchildren begin careers (64%). The graphic can be easily copied and pasted into slide-shows, reports and flyers, or even better, can be used interactively, in meetings or presentations.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div id="attachment_5521" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 310px"&gt;&lt;a href="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/timeline-table.png"&gt;&lt;img class="size-medium wp-image-5521 " title="CO2 Timeline Tool: A New Tool for Youth Climate Leaders (and all the rest of us too!)" alt="timeline table" src="http://climateinteractive.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/timeline-table.png?w=300&amp;#038;h=150" width="300" height="150" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p class="wp-caption-text"&gt;In the table view climate leaders can easily see what percent of CO2 remains in the atmosphere at given point in time, and see their own age, and the age of administration figures at that time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The Timeline Tool has a second view, shown below, which allows students to see the percentage of the CO2 released during their college years that will be in the atmosphere when they reach a specific milestone, and how old they and today&amp;#8217;s administrators will be at that point. For example, around the time today&amp;#8217;s college students begin to think of retiring 65% of the CO2 released in the next four years will still be in the atmosphere, and a Trustee who is 55 years old today would  be 105 years old.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Download the Timeline Tool and find more information about the analysis behind it &lt;a href="http://www.climateinteractive.org/simulations/co2-lifetime"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Also, check out the video introduction to the tool below.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#8217;d love to learn how the tool is being used, whether it is helpful, and how we might improve. Please comment below, or send your thoughts to info@climateinteractive.org&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div class='embed-vimeo' style='text-align:center;'&gt;&lt;iframe src='http://player.vimeo.com/video/61020722' width='500' height='281' frameborder='0'&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://vimeo.com/61020722"&gt;CO2 Timeline Tool Intro&lt;/a&gt; from &lt;a href="http://vimeo.com/user2239247"&gt;Climate Interactive&lt;/a&gt; on &lt;a href="http://vimeo.com"&gt;Vimeo&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
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