THE CLIMATE CRISIS Finding Solutions
SUSTAINABILITY PEOPLE DESPERATELY NEED HELP WITH THE ACTUAL STRATEGIES THAT ARE GOING TO WORK, BECAUSE A LOT OF THEMARE JUST STRUGGLING TO GET TRACTION
GAME ON Patrick has mocked-up for one project, which uses satellite imagery to measure and score green cover in different cities around the world. “You would only need to update it once a year, because trees don’t grow that fast. You work out a percentage of green cover for each city and then rank the cities and track their progress over time. People have done bits and pieces – the satellites are there and people have done one-off projects and maybe put the results into a scientific paper behind a paywall – but in terms of making something that anyone can view in a web browser with good user design, that has hardly started.” Patrick has sketched out other potential interventions like using Magic Leap AR to see in real time the live thermal images of city buildings or public displays that show how much energy a city or neighbourhood is using. There’s no reason that individual buildings or public spaces couldn’t display real-time updates of energy use and local air quality. And in the big picture, regularly updated data streams – like stock market numbers – of global greenhouse gas levels could be both a unifying and motivating force internationally. But just giving people the right data isn’t enough to create change. As with any
another, you start to see a big result. Using the ‘social norms’ is when you say: ‘92% of people in your community have committed to doing this particular water- saving behaviour’ and that gets people to act. They’re really simple concepts, but they’re the main drivers of human behaviour,” she explains. Patrick’s writing, teaching and podcasting around using design and data to transform the planet has been condensed into a book called, How to Save the World: How to Making Changing the World the Greatest Game on Earth . The book has attracted the greatest interest, not in the environmental movement, but in the game design community. “The people who seem to be the most effusive and complimentary about my work seem to be game designers. I would have thought it would be sustainability people, but it’s game designers and Silicon Valley people who are looking for more meaning and more impact. She concludes: “Sustainability people desperately need help with the actual strategies that are going to work, because a lot of them are just struggling to get traction. They may know about the science of sustainability, but may not know how to create the movement.”
good design, clear, simple calls to action are essential for getting people to actually change behaviour when they are presented with this data. Enabling people to compare their performance with others is one excellent driver of change. “Showing people the data helps, but when you compare one person against another person, or one building against another building, or one company against
GAME OVER Katie Patrick wants to gamify the climate crisis by comparing data to encourage positive action
feedzinesocial feedmagazine.tv
Powered by FlippingBook