City Atlas was founded to help New Yorkers and the public everywhere understand and prepare for the future, as described in the reports of the IPCC, C40.org, and the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), and to strengthen the democratic process towards equitable responses to climate change. Our emphasis is on building public energy and climate literacy as a way to create support for a fast transition to a zero carbon world.
City Atlas launched in 2011 with a Cultural Innovation Fund award from the Rockefeller Foundation, and since then more than 30 teams of interns have researched and produced content for the project. Highlights include a 2015 interview with glaciologist James White about sea level rise and NYC, a 2016 interview with NASA scientist and author Peter Kalmus (the house shown, which is where Peter and his family lived in Altadena, later burned down in the Eaton Fire, January, 2025), and in 2017, a graphic comparing the number of offshore wind turbines that could be built for the price of supertall condo towers in Manhattan.
In 2018 we turned to fully engage with the energy challenge, and developed the board game Energetic, which since 2019 has been part of courses at universities including Carnegie Mellon and Vanderbilt, and in 2023 was featured in the New York Times. Energetic was also featured as the basis of a capstone Masters class at Columbia University, which collaborated with us and with Urban Green Council to develop the draft of Energetic Buildings, a new version about decarbonizing a city block.
As of 2025, Energetic is in use at 30 universities and dozens of high schools around the world, from Romania to India. The mod for the online version is available free, and runs on the game platform Steam with the use of the app Tabletop Simulator. More than 700 sets are in circulation, and an additional 1000 sets have been mass produced and will be available in September, 2025.
In 2020 we started a podcast in which high school students interview climate experts directly in order to find out how they would design a climate curriculum for high school (because there is not yet a climate curriculum in New York State). Notable interviews include David Bookbinder, Sierra Club lead attorney on Mass vs. EPA, the benchmark law of US climate policy, and Rebecca Willis, Expert Lead for Climate Assembly UK, the Citizens’ Assembly established by the UK Parliament.
The goals that guide our project are also shared by Dr. Sam Stephenson, who has just completed his PhD in Energy, Climate, and Net Zero Policy in the Department of Engineering, Cambridge University:
“We need people to have a vision of the future and be able to discuss it, and argue it, and imagine it. That’s got to be rooted within an understanding of what is possible to do in terms of technical construction, but also having that vision of what we’re working towards as well, and then having that sufficiently diffused throughout the entire population, so that we all feel we’re moving towards somewhere which we can collectively agree on.”
Going forward, our goals are building a universal online platform for Energetic, replicating the game for all major cities, and developing our high school podcast across multiple schools both in and outside New York.
There are hundreds of resources that have influenced the development of City Atlas. The space below features two, rotating bimonthly. For October and November, 2025:
A Climate for Sufficiency: 1.5-Degree Lifestyles Report – Hot or Cool. Hot or Cool (2025). Available at: https://hotorcool.org/publications/a-climate-for-sufficiency-1-5-degree-lifestyles-report/.
E. Mayo, et al., “I will if you will; Towards sustainable consumption,” G. Stevenson, B. Keehn, Eds. (2006). Available at: https://www.sd-commission.org.uk/data/files/publications/I_Will_If_You_Will.pdf
On social media: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Bluesky
Founder and Executive Director: Richard Reiss <richard@thecityatlas.org>
Energetic Creative Director: Işıl Akgül
Energetic Global Development: Deepak Sridhar
City Atlas Program Manager: Yuchen Liu Program Manager Emeritus: Archer Kinnane
Energetic NYC Game Development: Işıl Akgül, Ashley Brown, Connor Haseley, Truly Johnson, Richard Reiss, Janet Tam, Bridget Scanlon
Energetic Game Trainers and Event Developers: Philip Lindsay, Forrest Sparks, Helen Citterio
Energetic Educator’s Guide: Archer Kinnane, Hannah Chodosh, Jessie Yan
Energetic Teachers’ Interviews: Editor: Lalo Remes; Production Advisors, Ed Stephenson, Eileen Sweeney
Energetic Caribbean Game Development: Ariel Stolz, Selina Behr, Jack Britton, Zongming Zhao, Jakub Landa, Francesco Doda, Lalo Remes
Digital Energetic Lead: Julian Bernard; Advisors: Gil Lederman, Karl Alex Pauls
Digital Development Assistants: Jill Kang, Yuchen Liu
Web Developer: Kayla Wagonfeld, Ian Umeda
Citizen’s Assembly Workshop Group: April Goldberg, Hannah Chodosh, Isadora Nogueira, Archie Kinnane, Theo Miller
Research and Content: Marie Fadeyeva
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Energetic Advisors: Jonathan Gilligan, Paulina Jaramillo, Daniel Aldana Cohen, [more]
Founding Advisors, City Atlas: William Solecki, Eric Sanderson, Projjal Dutta
Energetic Development Partners: Caribbean Green Technology Center, W!SE
Press: New York Times, NY1, Grist, METROPOLIS, Nature Energy, Tabletop Simulator
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“Bridging the Carbon Gap” Podcast Team Season Four: David Case, Giulia Di Vincenzo, Cindy Ye, Adeline Sauberli, Helena Rambler, Pierce Siegel, Eli Gitter-Dentz, Marie Fadeyeva, Gabriel Gitter-Dentz
“Bridging the Carbon Gap” Podcast Team Season Three: Eli Gitter-Dentz, Marie Fadeyeva, Gabriel Gitter-Dentz
“Bridging the Carbon Gap” Podcast Team Season Two: Nicole Wong, Ajani Stella, Nicholas Wu, Daniel Shneider, Christopher Chen; Producer: Ariama Long
“Bridging the Carbon Gap” Podcast Team Season One: Gabriel Gitter-Dentz, Kevin Zhou, Adam Rudt
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Past teams:
Co-Founder Emeritus: Carina Molnar
Writers and Researchers: Clio Rose, Harper Serringer, Ruby Alvarado, Jessie Yan, Sasha Weber, Elisha Zhao, Ellie Buscemi, Sophia Crouch, Sophie Freedman, Miranda Simes, Chad Ayers, Alexandra Efimenko, Adina Goldman, Angie Koo, Luke McGinty, Gabe Rissman, Syed Asif Nawaz Shah, Rui Zhao, Jianzhi Tan, Gabriela Viera, Ana Maria Deustua, Marlyn Martinez Marrero, Lilas Randrianarivony, Alex Reice, Paul Rivers, Colette Rosenberg, Emily Rutland, Jonah Garnick, Nicolas Maiarelli, Susanna De Martino, Brigitte Moneymaker, Carly Steckel, Kuntian Yu, Francesca Luberti, Sarah Holder, Jamie Carpenter, Madeleine Levin, Rowan Wu, Brandon Kelly, Joseph Lin, Robin Mahmood, Lydia Miller, So-un Park, Mallorie Thomas, William Wepsala, Devon Kennedy, Travis Gonzalez, Max Reice, Jingwen Tong, Chelsea Watson, Erin Wong, Daniella Penn, Ann Dunlap, Jordan Steingard, Vesna Petrin, Angelica Ramos, Aaron Reiss, Taylor Seidel, Mia Brezin, Jody Dean, Jason James Diaz, Gabriela Kappes, Jeff Kasper, Nicholas MacDonald, Rachel Northrop, Kay Peat, Deborah Secular, Pamela Soto, Calah Singleton, Patrick O’Neill, Somala Diby, Rosie duPont, Alice Goldsmith, Amy Ho, Kathy Huang, Wenjing Dai, Jennifer Davis, Shannon Ayala, Sascha Mombartz, Shira Telushkin, Jamie Biondi, Mariya Chernaya, Sam Brand, Johanna Goetzel, Priya Ranganath, Matt Sanders, Pam Seltzer, Ari Kaputkin, Yuxi Liu, Camille Baumann-Jaeger, Teddy Kuo, Ethan Lowenthal, Zhi Ting Chang, Karen Hill, Kaizhong Huang, Krista Humphres, Tsz Wai Kun, George Phillips, Stephanie Pujols, Hannah Anousheh, Kristen Chang, Taylor Higgins, Yves Lankouade, Hallie Miller, Jeannine Muller, Maddie Oliver, Rebecca Zhu, Jesse Bakker, Katie Conrad, Stephanie Mahalchick, Amanda Steiner, Greta Workman, Allison Eng, Josh Levin, Oksana Mironova, Chelsea Gross, David Rand, Erik Mortenson, Zachary Broat, Isaac McGinn; Coding Intern: Trang Dang
Stuyvesant High School Content Team: Romeo Ardimento, Maria Ioshpa, Fauna Mahootian, Justin Strauss, Ming Yu
Editors: Abigail Carney, Kaye Cain-Nielsen
New Haven: Trini Kechkian, Addison Luck
Beijing: Jingwen Tong
Project Managers: Jocelyn Dupre, Laura Grace Gamse
Events Editors: Trude Chandler, Mia Brezin
Inspirational Force: Nathan Storey, Megan McRobert
Content Advisor: Sean Flynn
Creative Director|Special Projects: Sascha Mombartz
Identity Design Team: Takashi Kusui, Jonathan Serrano, Hui Min Lee
Design Consultant: Derek Kim
Digital Film: Caroline Kim
Public Installation Consultants: Ouida Biddle, Arnaldur Schram
Mapping Consultant: Igal Nassima