CALS501 Assignment 4: Unit 2 Blog Post
This piece is a reflection for CALS501, Leading Climate Action in Society Part 1 after completing CALS500, Climate Science, Impacts, and Services and having had the chance to work with my team for the design thinking challenge as part of CALS501. Transdisciplinary thinking is a focus of the Master of Arts in Climate Action Leadership program and the further we get into the program, the more deeply I understand the importance of a transdisciplinary approach to climate action. In CALS500, Climate Science, Impacts, and Services, it became even more apparent how challenging and complex climate science can be. Some of the resources shared in class were extremely interactive and digestible for folks who don’t necessarily have a science background, such as the MIT Climate Science Interactive Module. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC AR6) was released this past summer while we were in CALS500, Climate Science, Impacts, and Services. The IPCC Summary For Policymakers was another important resource in this course; however, it is challenging to absorb information from this resource as a non-scientist.
This is where a transdisciplinary approach becomes important. The IPCC report is a great example of a resource that should be widely used and understood due to the importance of its content, but is often not widely understood because of the technical nature of climate science. The IPCC acknowledges this by taking part in outreach in various capacities.
Our cohort’s current course, CALS502, Communication for Climate Action, gives us the tools to communicate effectively , focusing on story, place, and diversity. Accessibility is a major focus of this course, which has made me realize just how inaccessible most of the climate science resources are.
The experience of taking these two courses back-to-back has been inspiring, as there are so many tools that can be used to bridge the gap between important information and people (the public, politicians, decision makers).
My team’s thinking in the design thinking challenge for CALS501, Leading Climate Action in Society Part 1 is informed by these courses and the focus of a transdisciplinary approach. We have decided on creating an open-access resource for youth in Canadian public high schools to learn about climate action in a hands on way. The resource will include information from Indigenous perspectives, Western climate science, and as many diverse perspectives as possible.
Now we continue to learn about communication in relation to climate action before regrouping in CALS501, Leading Climate Action in Society Part 1. As each course builds on the next, the transdisciplinary approach will continue to be a key component of both the design thinking challenge and the program itself. I look forward to seeing how CALS502, Communication for Climate Action will inform our thinking as we come back together to go through another iteration of our design thinking challenge as a team. How can we create an idea that is as accessible as possible from a communications standpoint? How will our upcoming course, CALS503, Climate Risk Management inform our thinking?
References
Emanuel, Kerry A. Climate Science, Risk & Solutions. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 15 May 2020: https://climateprimer.mit.edu/climate-science-risk-solutions.pdf
Summary for Policymakers IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [MassonDelmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press.