Skip to main content
Climate
Search

Main navigation

  • Climate 101
    • What We Know
    • What Can Be Done
    • Climate Primer
  • Explore
    • Podcast
    • Explainers
    • Climate Questions
    • For Educators
  • MIT Action
    • News
    • Events
    • Resources
  • Search
MIT

Main navigation

  • Climate 101
    • What We Know
    • What Can Be Done
    • Climate Primer
  • Explore
    • Podcast
    • Explainers
    • Climate Questions
    • For Educators
  • MIT Action
    • News
    • Events
    • Resources
  • Search
PostApril 23, 2020

The Professor Who Turns Climate Change Into A Game

Learn how Professor Sterman is allowing people to learn climate solutions for themselves in Bloomberg Green's recent profile.

John Sterman has spent his life explaining why big systems fail. 

A professor at MIT Sloan School of Management since the early 1980s, his research extends from global supply chain disruptions to the collapse of the biosphere. He literally wrote the book on how to manage complexity, Business Dynamics, and has guided generations of MBA students and executives. Now he focuses on sustainability and climate change.

Sterman likes to start his presentations with a devastating assessment of how well facts, diagrams and figures change people’s minds: “Research,” he deadpans, “shows that showing people research doesn’t work.” 

What does work is playing games. The latest game takes the shape of an easy-to-use, deceptively sophisticated model called En-ROADS that turns hypothetical policy scenarios into climate impacts, projected out to the year 2100.

Source: Eric Roston, Bloomberg 

by MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative
Topics
Finance & Economics
Humanities & Social Science
Education
Energy
Food, Water & Agriculture
Government & Policy
Transportation

Related Posts

PostApril 21, 2026

PODCAST: Climate Reveal (Season 2, Episode 7) - Oceans

MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy
Podcast: Climate Reveal
PodcastApril 9, 2026

Re-air and update: Carbon pricing

Ask MIT Climate Podcast
Ask MIT Climate
PostApril 6, 2026

Connecting climate and sustainability: Synergies and tradeoffs

MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy
MIT Global Change Forum 48
PostApril 3, 2026

Toward cheaper, cleaner hydrogen production

MIT News
“Creating high-impact technologies is always fun,” says Sobek.

MIT Climate Knowledge in Your Inbox

 
 

MIT Groups Log In

Log In

Footer

  • About
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Accessibility
  • Contact
MIT Climate Project
MIT
  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • Simplecast
Communicator Award Winner
Communicator Award Winner