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Climate change communication efforts grounded in the information deficit model have largely failed to close the gap between scientific and public understanding of the risks posed by climate change. In response, simulations have been proposed to enable people to learn for themselves about this complex and politically charged topic. Here we assess the impact of a widely-used simulation, World Climate, which combines a socially and emotionally engaging role-play with interactive exploration of climate change science through the CROADS climate simulation model. Participants take on the roles of delegates to the UN climate negotiations and are challenged to create an agreement that meets international climate goals. Their decisions are entered into C-ROADS, which provides immediate feedback about expected global climate impacts, enabling them to learn about climate change while experiencing the social dynamics of negotiations. We assess the impact of World Climate by analyzing pre- and post-survey results from >2,000 participants in 39 sessions in eight nations. We find statistically significant gains in three areas: (i) knowledge of climate change causes, dynamics and impacts; (ii) affective engagement including greater feelings of urgency and hope; and (iii) a desire to learn and do more about climate change. Contrary to the deficit model, gains in urgency were associated with gains in participants' desire to learn more and intent to act, while gains in climate knowledge were not. Gains were just as strong among American participants who oppose government regulation of free
markets - a political ideology that has been linked to climate change denial in the US - suggesting the simulation's potential to reach across political divides. The results indicate that World Climate offers a climate change communication tool that enables people to learn and feel for themselves, which together have the potential to motivate action informed by science.
Background. We describe and provide an initial evaluation of the Climate Action Simulation, a simulation-based role playing game that enables participants to learn for themselves about the response of the climate-energy system to potential policies and actions. Participants gain an understanding of the scale and urgency of climate action, the impact of different policies and actions, and the dynamics and interactions of different policy choices.
Intervention. The Climate Action Simulation combines an interactive computer model, En-ROADS, with a role play in which participants make decisions about energy and climate policy. They learn about the dynamics of the climate and energy systems as they discover how En-ROADS responds to their own climate-energy decisions.
Methods. We evaluated learning outcomes from the Climate Action Simulation using pre- and post-simulation surveys as well as a focus group.
Results. Analysis of survey results showed that the Climate Action Simulation increases participants’ knowledge about the scale of emissions reductions and policies and actions needed to address climate change. Their personal and emotional engagement with climate change also grew. Focus group participants were overwhelmingly positive about the Climate Action Simulation, saying it left them feeling empowered to make a positive difference in addressing the climate challenge.
Das Pariser Klimaschutzabkommen von 2015 fordert die Begrenzung der globalen Erwärmung auf "deutlich unter" 2 Grad Celsius gegenüber der vorindustriellen Zeit. Zwar wurde es von der internationalen Staatengemeinschaft anerkannt, jedoch reichen die national festgelegten Beiträge (NDCs) bisher nicht aus, um das Ziel zu erreichen. Neben der "Emissionslücke" besteht eine große Kluft zwischen naturwissenschaftlichem und öffentlichem Verständnis über den Klimawandel. Während die Besorgnis über den Klimawandel steigt, sehen die meisten Menschen den Klimawandel nicht als ernsthafte Bedrohung für sich selbst und Ansichten über den Klimawandel sind politisch polarisiert. Konventionelle Kommunikationsansätze haben die Lücke zwischen dem wissenschaftlichen und öffentlichen Verständnis über die durch den Klimawandel entstehenden Bedrohungen nicht geschlossen. Hier wird mit dem simulationsbasierten Rollenspiel World Climate ein innovativer Ansatz für die Klimakommunikation vorgestellt: ein soziales, einnehmendes Rollenspiel bei der Entscheidungsfindung im Klimaschutz ist mit einem interaktiven Computermodell kombiniert, das eine sofortige Rückmeldung über die erwarteten Ergebnisse von Entscheidungen liefert. Die Teilnehmenden erfahren mehr über den Klimawandel und erleben sogleich die soziale Dynamik der Verhandlungen. In diesem Beitrag werden die Ergebnisse einer Studie über Auswirkungen von World Climate präsentiert.
Many scientific reports have warned about the catastrophic consequences of unchecked climate change, with the latest international report calling for emissions of climate pollutants to reach net zero by around 2050 (IPCC, 2018). Limiting warming to 1.5°C could save more than 100 million people from water shortages, as many as 2 billion people from dangerous heatwaves, and the majority of species from climate change extinction risks (IPCC, 2018; Warren et al., 2018). The actions taken to achieve these climate outcomes would generate benefits of more than $20 trillion while easing global economic inequality (Burke et al., 2018). Scientists make it clear that it is physically possible to meet these goals using today’s technologies (Holz et al., 2018). Yet emissions of climate pollutants continue to grow, reaching a new record high in 2018 (Jackson et al., 2018). Clearly, scientific evidence has failed to spark needed climate action. The question now is: what can?
Many high-quality educational innovations are freely available, and some are known to motivate evidence-based climate and sustainability action. Typically, eforts to propagate educational innovations rely on outreach and word-of-mouth difusion, but these approaches tend to achieve little. We develop and analyse a dynamic computational model to understand why and to test other propagation strategies. Our analysis reveals that outreach has limited impact and does little to accelerate word-of-mouth adoption under conditions typical in higher education. Instead, we fnd that community-based propagation can rapidly accelerate adoption, as is also shown by a small number of successful real-world scaling eforts. This approach supports a community of ‘ambassadors’, facilitating and rewarding their sharing the innovation with potential adopters. Community-based propagation can generate exponential growth in adopters, rapidly outpacing outreach and word-of-mouth propagation. Without it, we are unlikely to rapidly scale the educational innovations needed to build urgently needed capacity in sustainability.