Graduate Student Seminar | MacKenzie Cameron, Spatial and Temporal Discounting in a Coupled Social-Climate Model

AMATH Grad Students

Candidate

MacKenzie Cameron | University of Waterloo

Title

Spatial and Temporal Discounting in a Coupled Social-Climate Model

Abstract

The standard technique of presenting climate change in the media is through 'distant framing', which removes the general public from climate change issues. This common method of portraying the negative effects of climate change as "there and later" reduces an individual’s motivation to mitigate "here and now". In my research I implement the behaviour of devaluing future and further climate conditions into a social-climate model, which dynamically couples human behaviour with a simplified Earth System Model. In this talk I will discuss some key steps in incorporating discounting into a social-climate model and some results. All with the focus on understanding the relationship between spatial and temporal discounting and the changing climate.