Debategraph: Copenhagen - What’s happening?

The balance of probability, if the recent downbeat pronouncements from the UN are to be believed, is that the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen next month will end, like a Spike Milligan sketch, with the actors shuffling offstage, staring into the half-distance, mumbling "What are we going to do now? What are we going to do now?"

For some the absence of a punchline will signify a potentially catastrophic failure of political leadership and imagination, for others it will reaffirm a predictable pattern of rational choice.

So what’s up? How and why have we arrived at this point? And is this projected outcome inevitable?

Help us explore these questions and the prospects for Copenhagen, using interactive debate map above.

As before, the structure of the map is like a wiki – every aspect is provisional, and open to further iterative improvement – and everyone can add new points and comments to the map.

The arguments on the map also interlink with those on the The Independent’s wider map on climate change, which has been buidling online over the last six months.

The aim is to weave together and rate all of the salient issues, positions and arguments in a single rich, transparent structure – in which each idea and argument is expressed just once – so that anyone can explore quickly and gain a good sense of the perceived merits of the relevant ideas.

You can move around the map by clicking on the spheres: clicking on the smallest coloured spheres takes you deeper into an argument, clicking on the largest sphere takes you back up.

To contribute to the map, click here or on the “+ button” below the map. There’s a quick video overview of the process here.

As with the other maps in the series you can you can keep up to date with developments on this map via the Independent Minds blog and @TheIndyDebate on Twitter. And you are welcome to embed the map on your own website or blog (like a Google map) using the code shown below:

<iframe src='http://debategraph.org/flash/fv_indep.aspx?r=35600&sc=small' frameborder='0' width='490' height='500' scrolling='no'></iframe>

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