So I teach young people about climate change. It’s a semester science elective class for high school students. It’s a good class; I don’t lie to them and they learn a lot — as much about politics, psychology, and social policy as about chemistry and physics, I think. But, beyond the normal tinkering and the ever-deepening technological and psychological hole we’ve been digging for ourselves, the class will have to change a bit this next year.
Once students understand the basic chemistry and physics of the climate system and they recognize that projections for the future (absent transformational efforts in every aspect of our lives) are shaded somewhere between charcoal and pitch, I used to have them play this lovely little game from the BBC called Climate Challenge. The game (from 2006) does a reasonable job of laying out some of the many things a government could do to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. Of course the time frames are now pretty wildly off, but that’s worth talking about, too. The students find it challenging but possible to avoid a popular revolt while reducing greenhouse emissions to zero over the course of a century and they can imagine how challenging it might be to achieve that over a couple of decades. So it’s a simple game that can be used to make a wide variety of points, and the students love playing it and talking about it. Unfortunately, our school won’t be able to access the (Java-based?) applet next year. Security risk, software upgrade; whatever, I can’t use it.
So I’m looking for other games that deal with the uncomfortable choices facing us regarding climate change. I searched the Apple ApStore and came up empty. Surely someone must have something out there, and who better than the Kos community to crowdsource it. If it’s good enough, I’m not above spending money on it, either. (Lord knows I didn’t start teaching to get rich.)