Last week I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Beth Sawin of www.ClimateInteractive.org give her most recent presentation of the Climate Change simulator she’s co-created with partners Drew Jones and Tom Fiddamin. I’ve known Beth for many years and have deep respect for her professional brilliance and personal integrity. Beth is a student of the late Donella Meadows, and like her mentor she is loath to get on a plane so as not to increase her contribution to Carbon footprint, even if the trip is for noble purpose like a Climate Change meeting in Copenhagen. She is the original “Walk the Talk” practitioner of Global healing working as mother, organic farmer and community member at Cobb Hill in Vermont while creating breakthrough systems simulations in the field of Climate Change. I knew that Beth and partners had been working on a Climate Change simulation for years, that they’d recently received much accolade for the current versions of the work, including an article in the Washington Post, consultating to members of the Obama administration, and perhaps most importantly the use of the tool to provide real time analysis for the country level negotiators at the upcoming Climate Change summit of the UN in Copenhagen in December. Having seen earlier versions of the simulator, I was excited to learn more.

Beth gave her presentation to an audience of Dana Meadows Sustainability Fellows, http://www.sustainer.org/fellows/index.html a group of activists from around the Globe working at the fore-front of ecological, social and economic sustainability. The Fellows had been through a 2-year training in Systems Thinking and Sustainability and were back for an alumni retreat to build their network with and learn more from each other. I was there as a guest presenter and friend of the network.

Beth began by showing us the current version of the simulator, “C-ROADS” which you can find a description of at http://www.climateinteractive.org/simulations/C-ROADS/overview. As she writes in the introduction to the work on this site, “C-ROADS is a decision-maker-oriented simulation that helps users understand the long term climate impacts of scenarios to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It allows for the rapid summation of national greenhouse gas reduction pledges in order to show the long-term impact on the climate.” It is and will be used by negotiators in Copenhagen to give them immediate feedback on what their proposed positions will mean in terms of impact on the climate. For example, if the US agrees to decrease emissions by 20% by the year 2050, what will that mean in terms of degrees centigrade increase in temperature and parts per million (ppm) of Carbon in the atmosphere. You can see a picture and find a description of what this looks like in the following Washington Post article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/24/AR2009092402602.html?sub=AR

To illustrate the power of the tool, Beth had us role-play 7 of the major countries involved in the negotiations. These were the US, China, Indonesia, India, Brazil, Europe and “the other Developing Nations.” Each team made a proposal as to “X” percent reduction in Carbon emissions over “Y” years. Beth input this data and ran the simulation. We were able to witness in full color, the curves over time between now and 2050 showing degrees centigrade and ppm Carbon results.

I was “wowed” by the power of the tool and by Beth’s intention for it. As she explained to us, when she asks country level negotiators what data they are basing their positions on climate change on they reply, “We don’t, we’re just trying to get our guy elected.” The C-ROADS simulator would give negotiators real data to back up their positions. And perhaps more importantly, it could give advocates, policy makers, journalists and potentially, anyone with a computer, the power of data to put pressure on our governments to do the right thing.

According to a quote last weekend from Carol Browner, Obama’s #1 Climate advisor, it looks like the Climate Bill will NOT pass the senate this year. This is a big shame, given that other countries are rightfully waiting for us, the US, the biggest contributor to Carbon emissions on the planet (along with China) to take a stand. How much more powerful would pro-climate bill advocates be if we had the power of something like C-ROADS in our hands and minds to make our leaders accountable to us and future generations?

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