Steven R. Smith

. This extended abstract describes research being conducted at the Centre for Environment and Sus- tainability (CES) and the Centre for Research in Social Simulation (CRESS) at the University of Surrey, UK. An agent-based social simulation model (ABM) of a public goods game called Astro- Zoa is being developed in NetLogo to explore the dynamics of cooperation for a sustainable future. Specifically, this research aims to measure the rate of change of cooperation and altruism (as de- fined below) in a population over time and the relative importance of influencing factors. Once the essential features and functionality of the social simulation have been finalised, the model will be adapted into an online version of the game in which real players become participants in a social re- search experiment, and these results will in turn feed back to validate and refine the ABM. Results are intended to inform policy applications of the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Edu- cation (4), Climate Action (13), Peace, Justice and Institutions (16) and Partnerships (17).

It is becoming clear that a global decarbonisation pathway to net-zero emissions needs to be achieved by mid-century, and that descent has to begin almost immediately (by 2020, according to the UN Secretary-General). So there ought to be a tremendous urgency here - and whether you choose to frame the issue in terms of a threat or an opportunity - we have to find ways of scaling up our enthusiasm for ending the fossil-fuel era. Part of my research addresses macro-scale questions, measuring for example the rate of expansion of historical social movements - such as the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement - and trying to extract from them key lessons for the climate and sustainability movement. have to understand what is going to work to engage and mobilise enough people to care enough about climate change, even though we know that it’s a wicked problem, one that as human beings we are psychologically poorly equipped for. Another part of my research looks at these psychological factors that might be applied to a climate movement narrative. And one aspect of this is experimental, with the aim to recruit on-line participants to play a multi-player public goods game called AstroZoa. AstroZoa is relevant to sustainability on Earth, but set in space. Similar in concept to the highly successful game Sea Hero Quest - which was for dementia research - AstroZoa will be an online game to help us understand social cooperation and altruism for sustainability. Players are astronauts in individual, solar-powered space pods. Players decide how much solar energy to spend on Player decisions are recorded as data, anonymised, and analysed in seeking to understand: 1) how quickly cooperation can expand; 2) what factors most influence this expansion; and 3) what is the most effective means to induce players to care about the colony’s survival for its own sake, beyond their own mission life? As in the real-life issue of climate disruption, this is therefore a collective action problem on an intergenerational scale. The literature on intergenerational public goods games and other forms of psychological experiments suggests there could be a variety of factors capable of motivating altruism for future generations, which the AstroZoa game will investigate further. Beyond its use as a research data-gathering exercise, we hope that AstroZoa will become an educational tool for learning about sustainability in schools and other settings.

Otto et al.’s (1) evaluation of “social tipping interventions”(STIs) for accelerating a global transformation to carbon neutrality by 2050 is an important sociopolitical contribution to a debate that is all-too-often technocentric in focus. Otto et al.’s (1) expert panel identified six social tipping elements—within energy production/storage, human settlement, financial markets, norms and value systems, education, and information feedback—as candidates with the greatest potential to overcome incumbent interests and other “self-stabilizing mechanisms” (ref. 1, p. 2356) and trigger nonlinear carbon reductions. However, in considering how this “defining task for humanity” (ref. 1, p. 2354) is to be achieved, a deeper analysis of social change processes and social movement theory would be beneficial. All of the proposed STIs require radical government action, either at national or local level. In labeling their STIs as “starting points” (ref. 1, p. 2356) in the transformation process, Otto et al. thereby fail to ask: Who initiates deliberate, radical change in the collective interest?