The good people at Worldchanging have an ally by name of Michael Schmitz from Berlin who sent them this terrific video their way earlier this week. He and several friends produced the animation, which reviews (in a weirdly soothing way) the process of climate change, and offers a glimpse of a grim future in which we've done nothing about it. But the main point of the video is hope and education: the animators describe a variety of solutions that will be needed to transform the way our national and social systems operate.

The video underscores some important points: the need for smart policy to support and hasten the development of clean forms of energy, and for regulations that will limit the amount of carbon dioxide that corporations and individuals can create. As the video explains it, implementing the right policies around the best alternative energy options will allow us to drop the worst options – like nuclear power and carbon capture and storage – from our energy portfolio.

At the end of the animation is an interactive tool that allows you to explore solutions for curbing our carbon emissions. You can click around to learn about the efficiency measures, alternative energy options, and various regulation tools that could be used take us from the disastrous 14 gigaton CO2 future we are now facing to the 3 gigaton CO2 future we need.

This brilliant example of citizen media is just one example of a handful of new tools helping to create a base of knowledge necessary for understanding climate change. Though it's designed specifically to address solutions for the Geneva-based NGO Noe21, this video has enough worthwhile info to help many people understand and seek their own answers.

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