In Colorado, I will be working on visualising issues of the green economy and climate communication discourses. This work would be situated in the Integrating Activities research theme at CIRES will focus on the visual communication of complex ecological problems. This practice-based research would facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations and learning thereby contributing to greater capacities to respond effectively to environmental problems.

The two research interests are described below:

1) System Visualizations for the Valuation of Nature

The ‘Green Economy’ initiative launched by the UNEP at Rio+20 is a global initiative to address the accelerating biodiversity crisis (UNEP 2011). Interdisciplinary research is needed to examine methodologies and practices proposed to value ecosystems and biodiversity. This work will visualize proposals for valuing Nature using a variety of analytical perspectives: earth sciences, conservation biology, ecological economics, cognitive science, communication theory, ecological theory and learning theory.

2) Network Visualization in Climate Science Communication

This research would map the organizations, individuals and discourses that contribute to climate science and climate science communication. The work will support research by Max Boykoff and others on media representation of climate change by making highly accessible network visualizations. The work will serve to clarify the relationship between science, media, policy and civil society – thereby making climate science communication processes more transparent. Network visualizations will include detailed information and the dynamics between nodes. This work will be done with the goal of providing a base for theoretical work on governance in climate and environmental communication.

This work will attend to environmental threats by developing communication processes to navigate complexity. Large-scale system visualizations illustrate the context of contested ideas in environmental communication and provide a basis for analysis. This work would contribute to fast-moving discourses in environmental policy and sustainability by using visuals to contextualize information and make links between disparate knowledge systems. The impact of this work would be its creation of greater capacities for the development of sustainable policy and practice by supporting collaborations, outreach and education.