Features of plans

In the Climate Collaboratorium, plans consist of a set of proposed actions to address climate change. Each plan contains the following elements:

• Description of the plan.  Descriptions can include text that summarizes the key features, history, and rationale for the plan.  They can also include links to artistic representations of the future world the plan would produce.
• Actions
• Models to predict the impacts of those actions
• Predicted impacts of the actions
• Debate about the plan.  Debates can include positive and negative arguments about both the desirability and the plausibility of the plan

Plan process

Plans go through a three-step process:

Plan development

• A user or group of users selects a series of proposed actions, which together comprise a plan for addressing climate change.
• The actions in the plan serve as the basis for a series of inputs to a simulation model.
• The model is run and produces outputs, which are the set of key impacts projected to result from the proposed actions.
• The user provides a description of the plan and if desired, artistic representations of the future world that would emerge if that plan were pursued.
• Once these steps have been completed, the plan can be saved in the system.

Plan assessment

• Once a plan has been saved in the system, other users can comment on its overall feasibility and/or desirability.
• Users can also comment and vote on other user’s comments.

Plan selection

• Users can also vote for the plan they believe is best. The results of the voting are visible in real time to all users.
• Each registered user can vote for only one plan of each type. But users can change their votes whenever they wish.

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