MIT Crowdsources the Next Climate [Hoax] Agreement | Fast Company

Last year's Copenhagen climate conference failed to produce any sort of useful legislation. Maybe the wisdom of the crowd can do a better job. That's the idea behind MIT Climate CoLab's Collective Intelligence Climate Contest, a project that asks participants to submit proposals that answer one deceptively difficult question: What international climate agreements should the world community make?

There will be two winners of the year-long contest. After a preliminary round where judges ferret out infeasible entries, visitors to the contest site will be able to vote on their favorite proposals. The most popular entry will be one of the winners; a judge's pick will be the other.

The crowdsourcing initiative, which launched at the beginning of October, has just four entries thus far. But while the contest doesn't offer monetary compensation, it offers the opportunity to make a real impact--the top ideas will be presented to the United Nations, Congress, and the Department of Energy.