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Goal
The Climate CoLab seeks to harness the collective intelligence of thousands of people around the world to address global climate change.
The CoLab is a global online forum where people can create, analyze and select detailed proposals for what to do about climate change.
How it works
At the core of the Climate CoLab is an evolving collection of proposals created by our members. These proposals are comprised of
- Proposed actions in response to a central question posed by the CoLab
- Models that project the impacts of the proposed actions
- Anticipated impacts of the actions
Members of the CoLab form teams and create proposals in a series of annual contests. In addition, members can participate in debates about issues relevant to these proposals, the evolution of the CoLab and climate change, in general.
Learn about the the impact of the CoLab.
The underlying technology
The Climate CoLab combines three key technologies.
- Large scale argumentation enables groups of people to debate complex issues. The tool summarizes the key points of view expressed by multiple individuals or parties on a topic and reduces redundant and ungrounded information. It structures the process of online argumentation into four stages: the issue or question, the positions, the arguments for (or pro) and the arguments against (or con).
- Group decision making is accomplished through voting and rating by CoLab members. While the voting paradigm is simple majority selection currently, the CoLab is exploring the option of more complex voting systems for future contests and activities.
- Open modeling, or simulation modeling, projects the likely impact of actions proposed to address climate change in the CoLab. The system makes use of the many existing models of the physical and human systems that affect climate. The CoLab will also pioneer a new approach for extending and developing these models, radically open modeling.
Learn more
History of the Climate CoLab
Video about the overall Climate CoLab vision and objectives (02:24 minutes)
Introductory video, prepared for an exhibit about the Climate CoLab at the MIT Museum (02:50 minutes)
