Blog on the reflection concerning the Climate Choices Deliberation.

Did any of the Options appeal to you more than the others?

Did you hear or think of any new way of addressing the issues associated with the warming of the climate?

What are your thoughts on the use of Public Deliberation in the classroom or the community? Is this something you would like to facilitate?

All in all, I thought the public deliberation regarding climate change was actually very enjoyable. I think the option that appealed to me the most was the third option, which pushed towards increasing innovation to help climate change. I felt like the second option was the least desirable, as it focused on reacting to the effects of climate change, instead of trying to make a change towards our bad actions. Pushing for innovation and research to effect climate change, such as producing vehicles that are more emission efficient or creating more energy sufficient homes could greatly reduce our carbon footprint. I believe it is easier to make the changes we need through innovation, and give humans more desirable options for being better on the planet.

Our group discussed several options to address the issues associated with climate change. They all definitely had their pros and cons, with the majority of them being ways to incentivize people to be more eco-friendly. One of my favorite solutions was to offer a tax incentive to people who decided to be more “green”, possibly reducing taxes on cars or homes that were more environmentally friendly. This concept could also be applied to companies, even further reducing our impact on the environment. It is obviously impossible to completely force the entire population to become more environmentally friendly, but if there was a trend in society (or people just wanted to keep more money), we could see a trend towards a more environmentally friendly population.

I think the use of Public Deliberation in the classroom or the community is an effective way of allowing individuals to discuss a topic in a well facilitated manner, allowing for a better flow of ideas in a constructive manner. Especially in the community and in the world of academia, this could be used in such an effective manner to discuss topics with multiple ideas and individuals. I think this would be pretty enjoyable to facilitate, but honestly I am more interested in participating in these in different topics, especially in the world of science.