Subject: Climate Change

Posted by Lees Stuntz on 2/5/2007

Message:

This was posted yesterday on the SD listserve by Drew Jones. It is an interesting list of SD activities vis a vis climate change. Some good stuff for students!


Lees


From: sdmail@lists.systemdynamics.org
Subject: REPLY Climate change (SD6232)
Date: February 5, 2007 7:58:17 AM EST
To: sdmail@lists.systemdynamics.org


Posted by "Andrew Jones"


Dear System Dynamicists:


Mitchel Kling asked about efforts to use system dynamics to address climate
change.


Here are several current activities, primarily from a US perspective.


1. Tom Fiddaman has built a suite of insightful climate-economy models,
captured in his MIT PHD thesis, a flight simulator with Bert de Vries, and
the SD Review paper for which he won the most recent Forrester award (18(2)
Summer 2002). Resources at: http://www.metasd.com/index.html


2. We at Sustainability Institute have been working with Rocky Mountain
Institute to help electrical utility leaders and their investors explore the
dynamics of reducing their CO2 output and strategies for possible future
carbon taxes, using a system dynamics model and flight simulator. Article
at:
http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/pubs/Systems_Climate_Utilities.pdf


3. John Sterman and Linda Booth Sweeney's experimental work aimed at
understanding public complacency on climate change action from a system
dynamics perspective was recently published in Climatic Change. Their
article is here:
http://web.mit.edu/jsterman/www/Understanding_public.html


4. Aiming to correct the problems identified in the previous paper, there
are two efforts:


a. a team including Sterman, Sweeney, Sustainability Institute, Peter Senge
at SoL, and Michael Tempel at SEED are working to create an online
educational simulation that will help learners understand climate dynamics
using a stock-flow-bathtub perspective. The work is in progress and will
eventually reside at:
http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/index.htm




(Ed. note- go to
http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/stock.htm

for a simulated bathtub showing what a stock and flow are)




b. Beth Sawin and Phil Rice at Sustainability Institute are developing
approaches that employ systems thinking concepts to educate the public on
the need to act on climate change -- "Our Climate Ourselves."
http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/oco/index.html


5. Chris Soderquist and team have built an online system dynamics game,
CO2FX, that explores addressing climate change from a national perspective.
Play it at www.globalwarminginteractive.com .


6. Two sessions at the Society for Organizational Learning's "Sustainability
Consortium" Business Forum March 27-29 in Atlanta USA will focus on using
models and learning tools to help business address climate change. The
event is open to non-SoL members. Info at:
http://www.solsustainability.org/forum2007.htm


AND, this long list is paltry relative to the potential impact our field
could have. We have SO much to contribute. Bring it on!


Drew Jones
Sustainability Institute
Posted by "Andrew Jones"
posting date Sun, 4 Feb 2007 10:16:40 -0500
_______________________________________________


Lees N. Stuntz

Creative Learning Exchange

Follow Ups:

Climate Change - Anderson, Lascelles 2/5/2007