SD Community:
Kim Warren asked to hear about efforts to communicate the dynamics of
global warming to a non-SD audience.
Here at Sustainability Institute, we've undertaken three efforts
recently along this front, some of which builds on the excellent work of
Sterman/Booth Sweeney (SD Review Summer 2002) and Fiddaman (SD Review
Summer 2002).
1. Writing short opinion columns on global warming that incorporate a
stock/flow and/or a feedback perspective. Two examples are below.
http://sustainer.org/pubs/columns/07.19.02Jones.html
http://sustainer.org/pubs/columns/09.04.03Sawin.html
2. Developing an interactive model-based flight simulator to be lodged
in a kiosk in a science museum. A consortium of science museums here in
the US has asked us (pending funding) to develop a short museum floor
experience where a learner would be given a challenge such as ""save New
England's sugar maples"" and/or ""stabilize atmospheric carbon."" While a
clock ticks away one year every second, she would input various actions
(e.g., more hydrogen cars, less population growth, more electricity from
renewables and less from coal) and learn about the dynamics of the
system by observing graphs and ""bathtubs"" of variables such as
emissions, net removals, global CO2, global temperature, and a local
""harbinger"" such as the extent of sugar maples in New England.
3. SI's Beth Sawin is developing a global warming curriculum that could
be taught ""in the living room"" from non-technical person to
non-technical person, similar to the successful work of ""Beyond War"" in
the 80s and 90s. It would incorporate SD metaphors such as the climate
bathtub. We've further been experimenting with ways to use stock/flow
mapping and causal loop mapping to explain basic principles of the
climate system to small groups of citizens, students, and policymakers.
Some of our thinking about how System Dynamics can contribute is
captured in a white paper,
http://sustainer.org/pubs/siclimate.PDF
Also, Steve Peterson developed a ""Story of the Month"" on climate change
in the past couple of years. I assume it would be available through
isee systems (formerly HPS).
Perhaps Kim and others interested in this thread could meet and talk
about his work over a pint at the Oxford conference. I'd be game for
it.
Drew Jones
apjones@sustainer.org