The Climate Collaboratorium is an on-line forum designed to allow large groups of people to work together in developing plans to address climate change.
The goal of the Collaboratorium is to produce detailed plans that can be implemented to mitigate climate change impacts before it is too late. By harnessing the collective intelligence of thousands of people to create, analyze and select such plans, we hope to produce better plans more quickly than a smaller set of experts might.
Everyone is welcome to particpate in the Climate Collaboratorium - scientists, policy makers, journalists, business people, educators and concerned citizens around the world. For specific ways you can help, click here.
The Collaboratorium is a work-in-progress. Over time, we plan to:
- develop a robust community of engaged participants
- offer an evolving set of software capabilities to better support the work of the Collaboratorium
Interviews with the team that developed the launch version of the system are featured in this short video, prepared for an exhibit about the Collaboratorium at the MIT Museum.
The Collaboratorium combines three key technologies.
- Open modeling
Simulation models can project the likely impacts of actions that are proposed to address climate change. The system will make use of some of the many existing models of the physical and human systems that affect climate. The Collaboratorium will also pioneer a new approach for extending and developing these models, radically open modeling.
- Large scale argumentation
Large scale argumentation allows groups to summarize the structure and key positions held on contested topics. It works by structuring arguments into four types of entities: issues (or questions), positions, argument for (or pros), and arguments against (or cons).
- Group decision making
The Collaboratorium will use voting and rating to allow the community select the most convincing positions in the debate and the best sets of actions to pursue.
Return to About the Climate Collaboratorium