Increasing research + output of credible information on climate change action
WikiCred collaboration will research and share how people can fight the climate crisis
Through a WikiCred grant this project will pilot a new collaboration among three organizations: Wikipedia, CSteps, and www.EarthHero.org. The goal of this project is to share and publish well-researched information across the three platforms, starting with Wikipedia, and thus help engender trust in information
By Annette Olson, Ph.D., Climate Steps (AnnetteCSteps)
“How can I fight climate change?” is a question I and others have seen across social media since at least 2016. That year also, two friends took me to lunch specifically to ask me that question, which resulted in Climate Steps (CSteps, www.climatesteps.org) becoming one of the first online platforms to help public citizens, i.e., regular folks and not government or industry, learn about diverse actions they could take. We co-founded the nonprofit EarthHero app in 2019 and became a nonprofit in late 2020. Simultaneously, many other platforms arose highlighting climate mitigation, including on Wikipedia.
The need for this information is vast and timely for several reasons.
Climate change is currently the most critical issue to exist for our planet
Our weather patterns are already changing, but the scientific consensus, via the International Panel on Climate Change 6th IPCC Report, is that we are very close to tipping points for a catastrophic global climate and sea level rise that will challenge human and other species’ survivability. At current greenhouse gas emission rates, for instance, Washington DC may experience an average of 41 days of 100+ deg Fahrenheit weather per year by 2100; it currently averages three. We must massively change our infrastructure, our processes, and our culture to reduce emissions by half by 2030. This has to occur on all scales — from government to industry to communities to individuals.
Already, millions of people are joining organizations (e.g., the Sunrise Movement), and/or are seeking information on how to take action, from youth to parents to retirees and from diverse cultures, regions, and prosperities.
Luckily, verified methods already exist that can start us today in significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But the presentation of methods in public media is often low-key, glossed over, or not prioritized for effectiveness (e.g., “#1 — Recycle”), or it is found on more specialized sites (e.g., Project Drawdown). Individual action is often played down, limited to voting, talking to one’s representative, or changing to LED lightbulbs, when individuals can have a much greater impact. Citizens are often the main receivers or implementers of policy, and, if won over (unlike in COVID), they can carry action forward, replacing HVAC systems with heat pumps, asking for and taking transit, creating community resilience, training for new jobs, and more.
As climate change is caused by multiple factors (industry, transportation, agriculture, etc. ), we have many areas of opportunity. Also, some actions are more impactful than others, depending on how “contagious” a behavior might be among neighbors, or on how much it changes our infrastructure and regulations; an action may even cause a backlash.
It is critical that knowledge and news organizations discover and serve well-researched information regarding actions so that diverse users can select effective actions for their situations as soon as possible.
Through a grant by WikiCred, we’re piloting a new collaboration among three organizations: Wikipedia, CSteps, and www.EarthHero.org. We all do similar curated research, although we present information in different ways.
Combining our research efforts will help us all save time. Our goals are to share and publish well-researched information across the three platforms, starting with Wikipedia, and thus help engender trust in information.
Wikipedia editors built the WikiProject Climate Change (PCC) in 2010, which provides a shared workspace, and they have created three main climate action pages: climate mitigation, which presents needed actions by sector; social climate movements, and individual_action_on_climate_change, along with other useful topic pages. This project focuses on expanding information on climate actions that individuals can take via:
- Diverse Food and Agriculture steps in the U.S., and;
- Africa-specific actions beyond agriculture, such as community education, infrastructure, and resilience efforts often neglected in media.
CSteps just completed its own gap review of Wikipedia main topical pages that could be tied more strongly to climate action, and we’ve asked and received some ideas on editors’ priorities. Next, a dive into a discussion with everyone on subjects to focus on — for this project but also for a long-term framework.
We have already drawn our 6000 CSteps Facebook members directly into the process via a survey on what information they seek regarding Food, Agriculture, and Climate Action realm. One example question:
“What is the relative climate sustainability of lab-grown food?”
This helps us prioritize both user-sought and science-recommended actions and will help meet the PCC’s aim of stressing climate change solutions.
By learning from each other in this collaboration, we also will match WikiCred’s aims of “strengthen[ing] sourcing practices within Wikimedia projects …” and of “information reliability and credibility in the larger information ecosystem on the internet and in the real world…”
How to get involved or learn more
Wikipedia is the largest information platform in the world; it is critical globally and, in this crisis, it should become a substantial source of credible knowledge on climate action. We can do this not only by writing climate action pages, but by tying in Wikipedia pages not yet highlighted as important climate actions, such as Tool Libraries, which can increase community resilience to climate change.
We’d love to have more editors join us. Joint efforts will rapidly increase reader accessibility to credible action information and resources. Join us on the PCC Talk page, or contact me at Annette {@} climatesteps {.} org.
