Team Roosevelt by cle2010

4comments

Share conversation:

Christopher Fry Oct 2, 2011 11:54 Member 1 \| Share via:	"This program takes the issue of climate change, and compliance, in totally unorthodox direction." After trying hard to see what direction your solution takes, I can only conclude that the "unorthodox direction" is no direction. There's no actual solution here, there's just a refined description of the problem and nothing telling us how merely describing the problem would actually effect change. I will agree that its (perhaps) nice to know just when and how we will all die, but, um, do you actually want to prevent that?
Chris Esposo Oct 4, 2011 07:40 Member 2 \| Share via:	Proposal contributor The thrust of our proposal is to create greater awareness in the nation about, not just the implications of climate change, but also why scientists and experts believe in its veracity. The United States is one of the few nations on Earth, and the last large economy, not to embrace, even the measures of the Kyoto protocol. We believe that the tendency to deny or minimize the human impact on the climate has its much of its roots in ignorance about the science, as well as scientists. Moreover, many believe that there has been a widespread lobbying effort going on by companies, notably oil companies, to delegitimize the scientific basis of climate change, in the minds of the public. Our proposal addresses this directly, and in a way that academics, such as those running the colab, and others not involved directly in policy, could implement. Whereas many other proposals may focus on implementing some particular public plan (infrastructure, R&D, taxes etc.), often times these projects require a large front-ended investment. Thus, they are dependent on the vagaries of the pertinent legislature. Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. We have seen time and again, that the traditional approaches of implementation are not effective in the United States. Achieving consensus from the collective intelligence of the populace, at the individual level, is not only unique, but now possible, with the advent of web 2.0 and peer-to-peer online social networks. We believe the creation of modeling tools for the public to better partake in contests, such as the colab, is a natural extension of this collective intelligence program. We also propose not only to 'democratize' the models in this way, and spread knowledge about their basis and limits, but also to create tools for policy makers to better understand which models may be more accurate. Only ignorance would blind an individual from recognizing these dual links. The Arab Spring, and the current large-scale demonstrations in NYC, shows the potential of social network to effect change, and/or create consensus.
Dennis Peterson Oct 5, 2011 04:58 Member 3 \| Share via:	How do you convince skeptics that the models correspond to reality? I think even the most diehard denialists agree that the models predict global warming. They just don't think the models are correct. I do like the idea of making models more accessible to everyone. Even if they don't convince the skeptics, they help people who are convinced play with the parameters and work on ideas for fixing things. I'd like to see models built on free tools, too. (I checked on Stella, and it would cost me $1899 to run your model. But that's not a knock on the idea, it just means it's not fully implemented yet.)
2011 Judges Oct 11, 2011 05:12 Member 4 \| Share via:	Overall assessment: The judges commend the model generated by this team and suggest exploring whether it could be integrated within the Climate CoLab. But the team does not really propose a set of actions they want to see taken. Specific comments and suggestions for improvement: - This proposal is a good attempt at redefining the climate economics modeling problem in system dynamics terms. Of course, that doesn't actually propose any solutions to the climate problem, it provides a different and arguably better framing of the issue. - Not original, but the modeling appears to be quite a useful elaboration of the Limits to Growth model.

Christopher Fry Oct 2, 2011 11:54 Member 1 \| Share via:	"This program takes the issue of climate change, and compliance, in totally unorthodox direction." After trying hard to see what direction your solution takes, I can only conclude that the "unorthodox direction" is no direction. There's no actual solution here, there's just a refined description of the problem and nothing telling us how merely describing the problem would actually effect change. I will agree that its (perhaps) nice to know just when and how we will all die, but, um, do you actually want to prevent that?
Chris Esposo Oct 4, 2011 07:40 Member 2 \| Share via:	Proposal contributor The thrust of our proposal is to create greater awareness in the nation about, not just the implications of climate change, but also why scientists and experts believe in its veracity. The United States is one of the few nations on Earth, and the last large economy, not to embrace, even the measures of the Kyoto protocol. We believe that the tendency to deny or minimize the human impact on the climate has its much of its roots in ignorance about the science, as well as scientists. Moreover, many believe that there has been a widespread lobbying effort going on by companies, notably oil companies, to delegitimize the scientific basis of climate change, in the minds of the public. Our proposal addresses this directly, and in a way that academics, such as those running the colab, and others not involved directly in policy, could implement. Whereas many other proposals may focus on implementing some particular public plan (infrastructure, R&D, taxes etc.), often times these projects require a large front-ended investment. Thus, they are dependent on the vagaries of the pertinent legislature. Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. We have seen time and again, that the traditional approaches of implementation are not effective in the United States. Achieving consensus from the collective intelligence of the populace, at the individual level, is not only unique, but now possible, with the advent of web 2.0 and peer-to-peer online social networks. We believe the creation of modeling tools for the public to better partake in contests, such as the colab, is a natural extension of this collective intelligence program. We also propose not only to 'democratize' the models in this way, and spread knowledge about their basis and limits, but also to create tools for policy makers to better understand which models may be more accurate. Only ignorance would blind an individual from recognizing these dual links. The Arab Spring, and the current large-scale demonstrations in NYC, shows the potential of social network to effect change, and/or create consensus.
Dennis Peterson Oct 5, 2011 04:58 Member 3 \| Share via:	How do you convince skeptics that the models correspond to reality? I think even the most diehard denialists agree that the models predict global warming. They just don't think the models are correct. I do like the idea of making models more accessible to everyone. Even if they don't convince the skeptics, they help people who are convinced play with the parameters and work on ideas for fixing things. I'd like to see models built on free tools, too. (I checked on Stella, and it would cost me $1899 to run your model. But that's not a knock on the idea, it just means it's not fully implemented yet.)
2011 Judges Oct 11, 2011 05:12 Member 4 \| Share via:	Overall assessment: The judges commend the model generated by this team and suggest exploring whether it could be integrated within the Climate CoLab. But the team does not really propose a set of actions they want to see taken. Specific comments and suggestions for improvement: - This proposal is a good attempt at redefining the climate economics modeling problem in system dynamics terms. Of course, that doesn't actually propose any solutions to the climate problem, it provides a different and arguably better framing of the issue. - Not original, but the modeling appears to be quite a useful elaboration of the Limits to Growth model.