Sushi anyone?

It's not specifically related to climate change, but I think this Surfrider campaign illustrates their message in a powerful way. The contrast of the delicate foodstuff with waste is a visceral reminder of the contamination of seafood. I have a feeling that the image might well come back to haunt you just before tucking into that plate of sushi you've just ordered... Although this "disgust" reaction might be more effective at stopping people from eating seafood, rather than their intended "call to action" (look at this website).

As the World Tipped

I've just been reading about an "aerial theatre" performance called As the World Tipped. The show apparently uses a vertical stage - with actors suspended using harnesses and wires. It seems to use back projection and music and, yes, dangling actors, to tell an apocalyptic story based on themes of climate change and bureaucracy:

http://www.tippingpoint.org.uk/as-the-world-tipped/

While the gimmick of the tilting stage may or may not be to your tastes, I found it interesting to see some of the lengths that producers will go to to attract attention on these issues. I think the themes of the performance also highlight an increasing frustration felt by some artists and communicators about the slow progress from official organisations.

Climate CoLab at MIT

Over at MIT in the US, a project called Climate CoLab is investigating the power of online collaboration to suggest "what to do about climate change". The resulting website is somewhere between a moderated discussion forum and a voting tool for ideas to combat global warming:

http://climatecolab.org/

I wonder what kind of people contribute to such projects - I'm assuming it will mostly be people who are very strongly engaged with climate change already, and as such it must be challenging to involve a representative group of people in discussion / voting activity.

Further information, and some working papers linked to the project are available here:

http://cci.mit.edu/research/climate.html

They do note that initially, some unrealistic ideas (such as reducing emissions by 99% in all countries by 2050%) tended to get the most votes (which may give some suggestions about the kind of people that are involved in voting). They have worked around this by getting expert climate scientists to review the suggestions and provide a shortlist for voting, however.

Climate Challenge puts the player in the hot seat

I've had a few "educational" computer games inflicted on me in my time. I have to admit, however, to enjoying this free flash game, commissioned by the BBC and made by Red Redemption games, in consultation with researchers at Oxford University:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climate_challenge/index_1.shtml

It's starting to look a little dated now (it was made in 2006), but it is still an interesting way of giving the player a new perspective on the struggles of decision-makers trying to balance economy, environment, resources and popularity.

I found that my political views and opinions definitely affected the policies I chose. There were times when it would have made sense, game-wise, to invest in intensive farming to get more food, but it wasn't something I wanted to do... I also wonder how much the political leanings of the creators affected the values assigned to the different policies - particularly when talking about how 'popular' different things would be.

I've also downloaded a full game by the same authors, but haven't found time to play it much yet:

http://fateoftheworld.net/

chalking up a street's energy usage

This chalk stencil approach has been used in Brighton to show the average daily energy use of a street, compared to the Brighton average. An interesting way of making the invisible visible - something that I believe information graphics are particularly good at.

More details here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/apr/12/energy-use-households-monitor-electricity

Rio +20 animation

I've just been sent a link to an animation called Rio+20: Turn the Tide for Our Ocean, by Pew and ZSL.

The narrative begins with an idealised future, setting up for a stark comparison to the current state of our oceans. The piece is obviously intended as a call to action for those at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, urging them to make the choices that lead to the ideal future presented at the start of the video. Nice to see some very positive messaging out there.

Video here: http://youtu.be/GkQa1cyvHXE

A better day the 100 way

The team behind the German project "Ein Guter Tag hat 100 Punkten" (A better day has 100 points) have recently released a (mostly) English version of their site. The idea is to show how people could live sustainably, with a budget of 100 "points" of greenhouse gas emissions. They've tried to set their scale so that if everyone used only 100 "points", the global temperature would remain constant (at current population levels). They plan to adjust the points values in line with scientific developments and population growth.

The strength of the idea is in its simplicity. While there are of course gaps in their lists of products and activities, it is a good start for anyone interested in knowing about their contribution to climate change. They also produce simple stickers that can be used to put on different products and objects. They tell me that these are particularly popular with schoolchildren.

Their site is here:
http://www.better-day.org/
You can use it to look up the "points" value of specific items, calculate and store the value for your day, or order the stickers that you can use to spread the word...