Climate Interactive: Visual Modeling

earthDECKS develops synergies across Game*Changers, such as Climate Interactive, which builds interactive, scientifically rigorous tools to enable game-players to become game-changers by seeing new connections, playing out scenarios, and trying experiments based on different assumptions to see what works. These interactive simulation games were inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s World Game and address topics from climate change to clean energy to disaster risk reduction and resilience.

Based on the long tradition of system dynamics modeling at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which examines how social and planetary systems interact, Professor John Sterman of MIT leads the World Climate Negotiation Game.

As a Co-Founder of Climate Interactive, Drew Jones leads a range of different modules with a diverse groups, from students to industry, including a

• 3 hour intensive where simulators see their assumptions play out in real time;
• 20 minute introduction offering an overview of the game and the simulation behind the game;
• train-the-trainers session for people inspired by the experience to want to take it back to their communities (school classrooms etc.)

Professor John Sterman of MIT and Drew Jones, Co-Founder of Climate Interactive, together lead a session at MIT.

Climate Interactive cautions players to: Manage the Unavoidable & Avoid the Unmanageable. Providing cutting-edge tools to address climate change, one of the biggest challenges facing life on Earth, Drew Jones engaged Stanford students in a World Climate Simulation Game.

Sterman and Jones also run an online course, or MOOC. A blog and twitter feed provide ongoing information. On August 20, 2015, Climate Interactive launched the World Climate Project at the White House.