Speaker Profile: Drew Jones

Drew works with Asheville’s Sustainability Institute, a U.S. not-for-profit organization founded by Donella Meadows.

Trained in System Dynamics modeling at Dartmouth College and MIT, Drew  worked on the 1993 “Greening of the White House” as part of Rocky Mountain Institute and in 2008, as part of the CDC System Dynamics team, accepted the “ASysT Prize” for “a significant accomplishment achieved through the application of systems thinking to a problem of U.S. national significance.”

Currently his primary focus is helping improve the strength of international climate change treaties through the sharing of open-architecture, policy-maker-oriented climate simulations, which are available at climateinteractive.org.

He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in systems thinking and modeling in the schools of business and economics at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and Asheville.

His journal articles and other media are available at: http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/SIinfo/AJones.html.

Climate Interactive Blog

TEDxAshville Speaker Q&A:

TEDxAsheville: In your own words, tell the TEDxAsheville readers who you are and what you do.

I’m a North Asheville Dad and MIT-trained model geek from Sustainability Institute with a passion for helping steer humanity towards sustaining a livable planet.

TEDxAsheville: Why are you so passionate about your work?  What is it about your work that really turns you on and gets you out of bed in the morning?

I love the look on folks’ faces when they “get” a new idea, and that getting leads them to some sort of action. And I REALLY love it when the action will help us all live more gently on the Earth.

TEDxAsheville: Tell us a little about what you’re going to be talking about at TEDxAsheville.

I’m going to help the participants EXPERIENCE what the global climate change deal could look like at the December United Nations meeting in Copenhagen (the follow-up to Kyoto 12 years ago…).

TEDxAsheville: Why should we care about this topic?

We should care about this topic because we love Pisgah Pale Ale and tubing the French Broad and kids dancing at Shindig on the Green and funny-looking dogs and the City Hall at sunset and chillaxing with friends and the view from the Grove Park Inn’s porch and the Friday Night Drum circle in Prichard Park and sourwood honey and downtown buskers. And we need a global deal on climate change in Copenhagen to keep all this possible.

TEDxAsheville: What is the coolest thing that’s ever happened to you or that you’ve been able to do or contribute to as a result of your work?

In April, the U.S. State Department’s envoy on climate change, Jonathan Pershing, presented results from our climate change simulation model in the UN meeting in Bonn, Germany, to make the case that we need to increase our level of action globally.  I’ll be presenting the same simulation at TEDx Asheville.

TEDxAsheville: Share one really cool, funny or otherwise interesting thing about yourself, NOT related to your work, that most people don’t know:

Once a month for the past four years, I have been donning a 50 gallon Stetson cowboy hat and playing “Twist and Shout” and “Hound Dog” for 50 one-to-five year-olds at North Asheville Preschool.

Videos:

Soni Pitts, a TEDxAsheville Organizer

This event is not being organized by the TED conferences — this is an independently organized TED event.