On January 31, at the Jokkmokk Winter Conference

If the morning session was the intellectual exploration of political and climate change issues, the afternoon was characterized by solution-finding.

Kjetil-Odin Johnsen, creator of WhatIf (a Norwegian Firm) and Christer Jonasson, from the Abisko Scientific Research Station introduced the participants of the JWC to a full afternoon session of ‘WhatIf working groups game’; a board game used as a training tool. A risk analysis game that brings participants to act as mentors and experts on global and local issues resulting from climate change.

“When risk analyses are successful, it distills issues into concrete actions and solutions. This then allows to open dialogues” says Kjetil-Odin Johnsen. In this specific event, it was a brilliant way to engage the participants into pushing the thought process undergoing throughout the conference. Also, the great spectrum of different disciplines, sectors, industries and backgrounds of the participants allowed for elaborative creativity to be exchanged. The resulting outcome was an extensive list of concrete, doable and inspiring actions.

Now, the next step is to take these ideas back to our goups, communities and home countries and push these initiatives from paper to reality!