This map is part of a wider online collective intelligence project, ESSENCE – being organized by Debategraph, the Open University and MIT and supported by the World Federation of UN Associations – focused on the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 and beyond.

The structure of the interactive map is like a wiki – every aspect is mutable provisional, and open to further refinement – and anyone can add new issues, positions, arguments and evidence to the map.

The aim is to weave together the key scientific and political arguments into a rich, transparent, multi-dimensional structure that anyone can explore quickly to gain a broad understanding of the complex considerations and choices that humanity faces on climate change and a range of systemically interrelated issues. Through collaborative and iterative community input, every perspective can be represented fairly, succinctly and in full.

So where you spot gaps, or incorrect and/or unchallenged arguments on the map, please help us to fill the gaps and correct and challenge the arguments.

Each element on the map can be cross-related to any other element on the map; so any point can be seen in the context of any other point. And each element is described not only via the heading and roll-over text shown in the visualization above, but also via an expanded text that can be up to 50,000 characters and include images and other media. You can begin to access and explore this deeper content via the buttons displayed below the graph.

As with the other maps in The Independent series you can you can keep up to date with developments on the Climate Change map via the Independent Minds blog and @TheIndyDebate on Twitter.