Have you been to the NC Nature Research Center? Know anyone who has? Whether you have or have not, North Carolina has one of the most sophisticated public interactive anthropogenic climate strategy tools in the world: the Koshland Earth Lab Airborne Carbon (CO2) Mitigation Decision Wall.
This powerful anthropogenic climate education and policy development tool was licensed by the Koshland Science Museum in Washington, DC—which is the museum of the National Academy of Sciences—to the NC Museum of Sciences and the NC Nature Research Center. Even if this tool is unfamiliar to you, take a look at the Earth Lab website and this Sustain NC video. Please fill out this Sustain NC survey and share your thoughts as to how to improve on the Earth Lab work to date:
Koshland Earth Lab Raleigh – Spring 2016 Survey
Next, please share this article and highlight the survey for friends, family, and those in your professional network.
In Washington, DC the Koshland Science Museum calls their version of this interactive digital exhibit “Earth Lab”. NC Nature Research Center calls its version the “Our Changing Climate” exhibit. If you have never seen this tool, the NC Nature Research Center version is at 121 W. Jones Street across from the NC Legislative Building.
This is a Sustain NC survey. Sustain NC is a professional development initiative of StratGen fostering sustainability innovation. Sustain NC has prepared a presentation with a few ideas on where Earth Lab fits into a new NC Climate Protection Program (NC Climate). The first Sustain NC service project is to complete the NC Clean Power Plan. NC Climate and a Smart Cities & Towns initiative complement the Smart Grid, Distributed Energy, and Efficiency Program (Smart Grid DEEP) proposed by Sustain NC.
We should avoid thinking of these matters as political. The NC Department of Environmental Quality (NC DEQ) website refers to terms like sustainability and Smart Grid. UNC Charlotte, NC DEQ, and the State of North Carolina will soon be unveiling a multistate energy plan that has features of a clean power plan.
The challenge Sustain NC approaches is the demand for quality civic engagement strategy around these matters at the municipal level. Earth Lab is a great pivot to get communities engaged.
Since these older models are ready for upgrade, the original Earth Lab CO2 Mitigation Decision Walls could be designated Koshland Earth Lab I (KEL I). The NC Nature Research Center identifies its Koshland Science Museum licensed KEL I as part of its “Our Changing Climate” exhibit. The above Sustain NC video covers the location of the Raleigh KEL I exhibit in relation to the NC Legislative Building and provides a few visuals on KEL I Raleigh in use.
The final frame of the video shows the KEL I Raleigh CO2 Mitigation Decision Wall stopping with global greenhouse gases (GHGs) at 633 Parts Per Million and a global average temperature rise of 5.7 Fahrenheit (3.1 Celsius) from 2012 averages. There is a 2050 threshold, and then whatever is workshopped by 2050 determines the 2100 scenario. This is because the persistence of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main GHG, in the atmosphere once loaded by anthropogenic activity is very powerful lasting centuries.
There is not enough natural CO2 absorption capacity to cope with unmitigated anthropogenic GHGs. Immense human intervention on increasingly shortened timescales is paradoxically needed to manage our atmospheric discharges. So a lightweight intervention is displayed in the video to demonstrate how easy it is to blow past our global GHG budget of one trillion tons of CO2 and reach a new 3.6 F (2.0 C) average temperature above past averages. That new 3.6 F (2.0 C) average temperature rise will form exacerbated anthropogenic climate creating multitude risks to civilization.
“The January 2016 global average temperature across land and ocean surfaces was increased by 1.04°C (1.87°F) above the twentieth century average of 12.0°C (53.6°F), the highest for any month of January in the 137-year period of record keeping… breaking the previous record of 2007 by 0.16°C (0.29°F).” – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The Raleigh Earth Lab is located on the second floor of the NC Nature Research Center.
Questions about this survey or Sustain NC? Contact Grant Millin, Owner of StratGen and strategy innovator / Sustain NC Developer:
Ph. 828.423.2266
Email: grant@stratgen.org