Scientists have been warning about the potential consequences of climate change for more than 50 years, and mitigating climate change has been a topic of research and activism for more than 30 years. As a result almost infinite information is available with which to understand and tackle climate change. The bad news is that the climate information deluge is overwhelming, and that climate change is a “wicked problem” defying silver bullet (and even silver buckshot) solutions.
The good news is that the specific actionable climate knowledge individuals and organizations could use to more effectively advance their climate objectives exists. The challenge is finding it!
Roadmaps into the Climate Web
The Climate Web, representing more than 20,000 hours of knowledge curation and analysis, facilitates user access to actionable climate knowledge. It is the closest thing today to a collective climate intelligence.
The Climatograhers have built the Climate Web as an Open Access resource; anyone can use it to gain in-depth insight into hundreds of climate topics. But it’s a large resource, and many climate topics are complex. That’s why the Climatographers have created “Roadmaps into the Climate Web” to faciliate access to actionable climate knowledge. There are two kinds of Roadmps, Lite and Premium.
Lite Topical Roadmaps
Lite Topical Roadmaps help you rapidly jump to the most relevant parts of the Climate Web, and are a great way to overcome some of the speed and functionality limitations of on-line access to the Climate Web. Lite Roadmaps hyperlink you to the most relevant:
- Index Entries
- Sources Headings
- News and Opinion Headings
- Extracted Materials Headings
- Multimedia Headings
- Website Headings
- Selected Recently Added Topical Materials
Click on any of the Headings in Lite Roadmaps and you’ll find collections of resources you can scan through or dig into. Even just scanning collected topical news stories without even opening them, for example, can give you a good sense of how that topical conversation has evolved over time.
NOTE: Accessing the Climate Web via Roadmap hyperlinks can be a bit disconcerting if you’re not familiar with TheBrain software’s basic functionality, which you can explore via the Basic Navigation link at right. If you do explore some of the links, please remember that cloud-based Open Access to the Climate Web is much slower and less powerful than Premium Access to the Climate Web (which allows you to download the Climate Web to your computer AND take advantage of TheBrain’s superior desktop and mobile softwares).
You can access individual Lite Roadmaps through individual Climate Sites, or via the full collection of Lite Roadmaps available here.
Premium Roadmaps
Premium Roadmaps can be “Topic” or “Audience” focused, and are much more detailed than Lite Roadmaps. Premium Roadmaps take advantage of the two insights in the slide above, namely that we collectively know so much about climate change, and that someone will usually have already thought a lot about whatever topics you’re likely to be intersted in. Roadmaps don’t try to encyclopedically restate existing knowledge; they synthesize core knowledge and point you to all kinds of more detailed work and thinking that already exists and that you can access in the Climate Web, saving you from dozens to hundreds of hours. Premium Roadmaps take advantage of everything from explanatory prose and customized videos, to topical Headings and highly curated topical Dashboards focused on narrower sub-topics, to individual sources and news stories, and ultimately to individual ideas and graphics extracted by the Climatographers from key sources.
Premium Topical Roadmaps can be accessed through their respective Lite Roadmaps (access the full set of Lite Roadmaps here), or through the Climate Web’s store. Roadmaps are priced based on comprehensiveness, with almost all Premium Roadmaps ranging from $9.99 to $99.99. Once purchased, however, you’ll have permanent access to the Roadmap as it becomes more comprehensive over time. Premium Roadmaps are very reasonably priced for the value being delivered, but if you can’t afford a Topical Roadmap you’d really like to access, contact the Climatographers.
You can see the difference between a Lite and a Premium Roadmap for the same topic, in this case “Underestimated Climate Risk” through these links:
Premium Audience Roadmaps provide a much more detailed structuring of information relevant to a particular audience, e.g. K-12 teachers, than a Lite Roadmap. The full collection of Premium Audience Roadmaps can be purchased here.
Note that if you have Premium Access to the Climate Web, which allows you to download the Climate Web to your own computer, Roadmap links will activate instantly on your computer rather than more slowly in the cloud-based version of the Climate Web. You can explore Premium Access through the link at right.
To learn more about the larger structure and capabilities of the Climate Web use this dedicated Climate Site.
To learn more about the many ways you or your organization can take best advantage of the the Climate Web as a knowledge resource, use this dedicated Climate Site. Those options include purchasing topical slices of the Climate Web, or a copy of the whole thing(!), for use in your own knowledge management system.
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