Globe-Town

1. Connecting Global and Local:
Using Open Data to Convey Climate Change Risks,
Responsibilities and Mitigation & Adaptation Opportunities
@JackTownsend_

2. Problems
Lowest ice levels in history

3. Problems
Human Impact

4. Problems
Complex social & environmental challenge

5. Problems
Public engagement with climate change
Climate change
requires diverse actions by people around the world
However to act effectively, people need to be
Hoffman (2011)
well informed about the challenge (often not)
motivated to act - can seem far away in time & place

6. informs
motivates by
connecting

13. Next steps
• Focus groups of experts
• Re-design
• Build second version
• User testing with school pupils

14. Conclusions
• Communicating climate change is central to making individual
and social changes for mitigation
• The rapidly growing resource of open data online provides an
excellent foundation for communication
• Stories and imagery of significance to the user are much more
powerful than “dry” number and facts (Lakoff, “personal frames”)
• Interactive visualizations empower the user to draw their own
stories from the data, along with meaningful imagery.
• Open innovation competitions and hackathons are an effective
way to generate novel visualization projects

15. Some caveats
• Environmental info better integrated into generally useful
interactive tools for work, education, or interest.
– Avoid engaging only with those who already have an
interest
– Likely to give users reason to keep coming back.
• Sustainable development is highly complex and inherent
tensions and trade-offs need to be communicated

16. …some more caveats
• With hackathons and app competitions need to achieve
the other sort of sustainable development
• Visualisations and open data can create
accidental false impressions, or be used misleadingly
• The whole global public does not have access to
visualization technologies = the digital divide

17. Further research interests
How can open knowledge, the Web and ICTs
help roll-out renewables for international development?
Forming & maintaining groups
Coordinating and informing organisations
Energy type and site selection
Accessing and servicing finance
Purchasing
Learning/ accessing expertise
System status and impact monitoring
Intelligent distribution networks

18. References
• Townsend, J. et al. (2012) “Open Knowledge Festival Sustainability Stream Recap”,
http://openeconomics.net/2012/10/06/okfestival-sustainability-stream-recap/
• World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal,
http://sdwebx.worldbank.org/climateportal/index.cfm
• G Lakoff (2010), “Why it matters how we frame the environment”, Environmental
Communication, Taylor & Francis.
• AJ. Hoffman (2011), “Sociology: The growing climate divide” ,Nature Climate Change
• O’Neill, S., & Boykoff, M. (2009). The Role of New Media In Engaging the Public With
Climate Change”, Lakeland.
• Rosling, H. (2007). “Visual technology unveils the beauty of statistics and swaps
policy from dissemination to access.” Statistical Journal of the IAOS
• ER Tufte, PR Graves-Morris (1983), “The visual display of quantitative information”
@JackTownsend_

19. Thank you
@JackTownsend_