Ken Homer's List: Vision 2050

Researchers worldwide are tackling climate change in various ways, but the problem is so vast and complex that no individual or group can have all the solutions or even understand it all. Moreover, traditional methods of communicating—conferences, journal articles, public media, and so on—are not capable of gathering and synthesizing the distributed knowledge accurately and quickly.

Thomas W. Malone, the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management, believes that it is time to address the climate change problem using collective intelligence. “We need to connect people and computers so that collectively they act more intelligently than any person, group, or computer has ever done before,” he says.

Making such connections is now possible on an unprecedented scale, and the outcome can be powerful. To illustrate, Malone cites not only Wikipedia and Linux but also popular Internet sites where the combined wisdom of thousands of users has proved surprisingly accurate at predicting the outcomes of future elections, sporting events, and more.

To apply collective intelligence to the climate change problem, Malone, who is director of MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence (CCI); Robert Laubacher, CCI’s acting executive director; and their CCI colleagues have developed an online forum called the Climate Collaboratorium, a combination of software tools on a website and a broad community of people who use them, including policy makers, businesspeople, educators, students, activists, and other concerned citizens.

Computer models

This we know: the planet will go on without us. But we cannot go on without it. At its core, sustainability is about people. In order to promote a healthy planet, we must start with a healthy society. Not just sharing the wealth, but redefining the word.

The Living Principles for Design framework is a catalyst for driving positive cultural change. It distills the four streams of sustainability – environment, people, economy, and culture – into a roadmap that is understandable, integrated, and most importantly, actionable. Designers, business leaders, and educators can use The Living Principles to guide every decision, every day.