Earth Remembers
Inspired by the “edutainment” video game wave of the 1990s, Earth Remembers is a computer game that illustrates how the impacts of climate change are a direct outcome of the decisions made by political entities, and teaches its users how to negotiate. Set in 2033, Earth Remembers begins when scientists have confirmed that the tipping point for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been triggered and traditional measures of reversing global warming, like lowering emission rates, will no longer stop global sea levels from rising by over four meters. Island nations and low lying cities are now being steadily engulfed by the oceans. The game mirrors our current international climate change decision-making process, where the user plays as a UN delegate representing a specific country at the UN COP24 Climate Change conference in Katowice, Poland. With each turn they must negotiate with all other delegates about how they will spend their national budget and what environmental commitments they will make. After decisions have been made, the game uses IPCC climate models to simulate the effects their decisions had on global temperature, carbon emissions, and the respective country’s national GDP over a five year period, allowing the player to “live through” the scenarios. Each five year round from 2033 to 2118 produces different results based on the negotiations finalized by the user’s interactions. A collaboration between researchers from Glasgow Caledonian University, Utrecht University and the Purdue Climate Change Research Centre in Indiana, the ultimate goal of Earth Remembers is to combine art, science, and political discourse in a way that inspires youth to foster meaningful change and avert future climate crises. The game may overlook some of the nuances of negotiations where countries may not always live up to their commitments, like the 34 of the 37 countries who have ratified from their second-round commitments to the Kyoto Protocol in 2005. Additionally, it is hard to make clear outcome scenarios for short term environmental impacts for over 100 years in the future. Despite this however, users have so far reported viewing tipping points as much more “real”, and by understanding the political processes involved, they could help create better systems for managing environmental regulation.
Von Stein, J., 2008. “The international law and politics of climate change: Ratification of the United Nations Framework Convention and the Kyoto Protocol.”
Categories
Aesthetic/Leisure, Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Immersive Technology, Internet of Things, Psychology, Regulation
More Ideas
Air Pollution Robot
The dangers of air pollution to human health are well documented, though the traditional methodology of collecting and reporting on sample lags behind the need to keep abreast and regulate air pollution in a meaningful amount of time. The use of drones and robots have been identified by researchers as resources that can be tweaked […]
Artificial Life, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Industry/Natural Commodities, Lifestyle, Monitoring
Telematic Rivers
Erica Kermani’s artwork seeks to answer a central question: if rivers were seeing an equal, living entity, would humans take issues like climate change threatening them more seriously? In his year-long art exhibition in 2017, Kermani, in collaboration with Diana Salcedo & Jeana Chesnik, created a new forum of interaction between humans and rivers to […]
Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Lifestyle, Monitoring, Pollution, Visual Technologies
Co-occupied Boundaries
Art is easily found in nature but rarely is what considered art today inherently natural. The concept of co-occupied mediums that serve to be both functional for nature and aesthetically pleasing to people is being actively explored by Asya Ilgun and Phil Ayres, from the CITAstudio at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In […]
Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Lifestyle, Monitoring, Pollution, Visual Technologies