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The Climate Game: an educational simulation from the Financial Times
How can we use games and simulations to teach about the climate crisis?
An interesting example comes from the British Financial Times, which just launched a small web game. Let me outline the game, then offer a few thoughts.
In “The Climate Game” you play “the global minister for future generations” for the next thirty years. Unlike the minister in Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel, you have a lot of power over the nations of the world. Your goal is to reduce global greenhouse has emissions through a series of choices about major aspects of the world: energy use, diet, transportation, architecture.
Feedback appears in several ways. Every three, four, or nineteen years (rounds) the game displays the world’s changing energy use, along with an assessment of your progress or lack thereof. You can win awards for doing especially well in some areas, like equity or job creation. Occasionally you get quicker responses from an advisor, who reports on the short-term impact of a particular choice.
At the end the game assesses your overall performance. You get a nice chart, your advisor reflects on…
