ACTIONABLE CLIMATE KNOWLEDGE TOOLBOX - BETA

There have never been more people concerned or alarmed about climate change, and there has never been more information available for understanding and tackling climate change.

But very few of those people end up seeing the information that would most empower them to help tackle climate change. Most have very little idea of what they can really do, which at least helps explain why we’ve made so little progress against climate change over the last 30-50 years (slide above).

Therefore, we need new ways of organizing climate information, and facilitating access to actionable climate knowledge. The good news is that the needed information exists. The bad news is that personal knowledge management (PKM) skills are rarely taught at any educational level, and few people make effective use of the many PKM tools that are available.

What if anyone interested in climate change could access and take advantage of potentially actionable climate information and knowledge, and easily come up the learning curve for effectively managing such knowledge going forward.

That is the goal of Your First Climate Change Toolbox, a very easy to use application built with TheBrain, a uniquely powerful and easy to use (and free!) personal knowledge management software that you can use on-line, on your laptop, or on your mobile devices. As with any toolbox, the idea is to provide a wide selection of tools, even if no one will necessarily need all of them.

With Your Climate Change Toolbox you can:

• Scan a recent selection of climate news and reports, great Twitter Threads, and selected insightful LinkedIn posts.

• Explore why climate change progress has been slow, and the many uncertainties and variables that will determine the future of climate progress and average global temperature rise.

• Rapidly scan hundreds of climate topics with pre-populated search terms using Google, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, Quora, Reddit, and more. To help organize the topics we use the following groupings:

• • Wicked Problem Topics lets you dig into WHY climate change is a wicked problem, and what that implies.

• • Climate Impact Topics include the many parts of the climate change fingerprint.

• • Team No-Urgency Topics based on the metaphor of Climate Chess, explore barriers to tackling climate change.

• • Team Urgency Topics again based on the methaphor of Climate Chess, exploring some of the MANY ways that climate change mitigation goals can be advanced.

• • Individuals Topics including the searches most relevant to the “individuals and climate change” frame.

• • Business Topics organizes the searches most relevant to business decision-making.

• Challenge your own assumptions through intentionally “contrary” search terms.

• Use the Skeptical Science knowledgebase to most effectively counter climate skepticism and denial.

• Access hundreds of organized Wikipedia pages to come up climate-related learning curves whenever you have a moment.

• Leverage materials taken from the Climatographers’ Climate Web, including Topical and Audience Doorways into the Climate Web, and Climate Insights pages that synthesize ongoing conversations like:

• • What initiatives or technologies would make the biggest difference to climate change progress?

• • Where should you spend or donate your money to have the largest impact?

• • Should you buy green energy or carbon offsets, and what are the alternatives?

• Leverage hundreds of organized social media links for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Quora (a GREAT climate resource), and follow the best climate-related Twitter feeds.

• Scan Climatographer-recommended collections of books, videos, podcasts and more for rapidly coming up to speed on and tracking key climate change topics. Take advantage of climate quizzes, climate games, climate quotes, and resources for teaching climate change K-12. Or, as in the case of our recommended climate change music videos, just have some fun!

Your Climate Change Toobox is always be up to date, serving as your own personal knowledge manager!

The Future of the Toolbox?

Your Climate Change Toolbox already has A LOT of great content, but there is a lot more that we could potentially add. We could also create Toolboxes specific to different user groups or even topics.

We’d welcome your suggestions at info@climatographer.com, and we’ll continue to improve Your Climate Change Toolbox even while we keep it extremely simple to use.