Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

Our project, Energetic, is an immersive learning system that can teach anyone the real world process for decarbonizing a city, scaling from a 2.5 hour game to a month long workshop. 

Our drive to educate is validated by a report from the National Academies:

"The U.S. public is under-prepared and insufficiently educated to fully carry out the work required of them for the nation to achieve deep decarbonization or to participate and engage effectively in deep decarbonization planning processes." 
National Academies, 2023, p. 224
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/25931/accelerating-decarbonization-in-the-united-states-technology-policy-and-societal

Press coverage of our project:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/nyregion/earth-day-energetic-game.html
https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/environment/2023/05/17/board-game-teaching-students-to-decarbonize-new-york-city

Feedback from teachers:
https://newyork.thecityatlas.org/lifestyle/teacher-feedback/

Built around a board game, Energetic is used by more than a dozen high schools in NYC, as well as schools in New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, and California. Universities including Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Vanderbilt, and Vassar, and programs in Ireland, India, Rwanda, and Hong Kong are using Energetic.

Our advisors include the IPCC Coordinating Lead Author Paulina Jaramillo (AR6 WG3) and sociologist Daniel Aldana Cohen, whose explanation of our project is here: https://bit.ly/AldanaCohen 

Energetic is based on NYC but we plan to replicate the format around the world. We're seeking the resources to scale for maximum public impact.

Climate change is a crisis that involves everyone, but where few people feel they have any influence or ability to change unstoppable events. Our solution is to have groups work in teams with information accurate to the real world. Engaging the public with accurate information opens the doors to a coherent political response, and a coherent political response is necessary to curb emissions for targets under 2°C.

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Replaces/avoids GHGs (e.g., projects that replace sources of GHGs, such as the burning of fossil fuels for electricity, heat, transport, or other energy uses), Reduces GHGs (e.g., projects that reduce sources of GHGs, such as through efficiency or other changes in consumption)

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Energy literacy is a human right.

Energetic equips communities, especially those on the frontlines of climate impacts, with the knowledge they need to both lead, and benefit from, the energy transition. 

We are making our educational materials free to low income communities and schools. We believe the educational tools for energy literacy must be made with the people who have borne the brunt of the impacts from climate change foremost in mind.

We are a member of the NOAA-funded Climate and Resiliency Education Taskforce (cretf.org), founded on the principles of environmental justice and equity. Equal access to accurate information is the basis of equity in the energy transition.

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Mission Statement:

The mission of City Atlas is to help the public understand and prepare for the future as described by the IPCC and C40.org, and to strengthen the democratic process towards equitable responses to climate change.

We are New York-based, but our climate and energy game is currently being played in Cambridge, MA, San Francisco and San Mateo, CA, Pittsburgh, PA, Kigali, Rwanda, St. Thomas, USVI, Dublin, Ireland, and Hong Kong.

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