Posted on Jan 25, 2022

EcoEducation: Climate Solutions Workshop

Most know at some level that there is no silver bullet to addressing climate change.  This workshop made this so apparent in such a clear way.  Twin Cities Rotary EcoClub was thrilled to be able to partner with Maple Grove Rotary Club, Eden Prairie ESRAG, District 5950 Environment Action Team, and a Group of MIT Alumni to bring this workshop to our members and the public.  
 
Breaking into small groups, we worked to see how different actions affected temperature rise.  Some actions worked harder than others but no actions by itself could get us to the goal keeping temperature from rising more than 2 degrees C by 2100.  When we got back into the larger group and discussed our findings, our facilitator demonstrated some of the other impacts that can be modeled with the simulator such as sea rise and air quality.  That drove home that a solution that could address one symptom like temperature change kind of well, may have little effect on another symptom.   We could also see that few solutions had immediate impact and would need years to be able to show results.  
 
The En-ROADS Climate Solutions Simulator (Energy – Rapid Overview and Decision Support model, http://enroads.org) is a transparent, freely-available policy simulation model that provides policymakers, educators, businesses, the media, and the public with the ability to explore, for themselves, the likely consequences of energy, economic growth, land use, and other policies and uncertainties, with the goal of improving their understanding.
 
The simulator was released in December of 2019.  It is a multisolving simulator meaning that it seeks to protect the environment, but also economies, justice, and other societal imperatives.