ICS Lecture Series: Policy Options for Climate Change Mitigation

Dr. Eric C. Miller, professor of communication studies

Though most people now have a general sense that climate change is a problem, fewer have a clear understanding of the severe threats that it poses, or the urgent timeline on which it poses them. Such an understanding may be reached with help from visual climate models. This presentation will consider one such model (EN-ROADS, developed by Climate Interactive and the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative) that allows audiences to see the future of climate change across a wide range of customizable scenarios. Should we electrify all infrastructure? Should we plant a trillion trees? Should we place a tax on carbon emissions? What kind of effect would each of these policies (and others) have on the earth’s average temperature? This interactive presentation will offer audiences a chance to see for themselves.