For the average person, the complexity of climate change and lack of clarity on impactful solutions can be paralyzing. For government leaders and decision-makers, it can help drive misguided investment in pie-in-the sky solutions that avoid more impactful policy decisions. En-Roads, a free, easy-to-use online dashboard and modeling tool co-developed by today’s guest, Andrew Jones, Executive Director of Climate Interactive, and a team at MIT’s Sloan Sustainability Initiative, allows anyone, from my mom to President Biden, to test out and explore the real-world impact of various climate solutions, generating outcomes based on systems thinking, dynamic systems modeling, and the latest climate data.
En-Roads is a great example of how the research activity, intellectual heft, innovative culture, and educational mission of an institution like MIT can be operationalized to meaningfully address climate change. Since its release in 2019, En-roads has influenced world leaders, policy-makers, and CEOS, been a centerpiece of high stakes climate talks, and used to train almost 800 Climate Ambassadors, who are scaling the use of the tool in the workplace, communities, schools, and on college campuses.
On this episode I talk to Drew about the origin of En-Roads, how the tool has influenced smart climate policies, its use as an educational tool, and his vision for En-Roads’s future.
Guest Bio
Andrew Jones is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Climate Interactive and a Research Affiliate at MIT Sloan. He is an expert on international climate and energy policy and a system dynamics modeler.
Drew led the teams that developed En-ROADS. He now teaches systems thinking and climate policy at MIT Sloan, Stanford, and UNC-Chapel Hill. He lives with his family in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina.
Resources & Links
Climate Interactive website
En-Roads Climate Simulator
En-Roads Climate Ambassador Program
Climate.edu is written and produced by Richard Sebastian. If you liked this episode, please subscribe. The Climate.edu theme song "Serious Business (CC-BY- NC) was written, performed, and openly licensed by Serge Quadrado. Check out all of his music on his page on the Free Music Archive.
You can go to the show website at http://www.climatedotedu.com to find details about this and other episodes of the podcast, get news and updates related to climate change and higher ed, or to get in touch.
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