Someone should make a video game of The Inconvenient Truth. The generation
of most game-players will inherit global warming's escalating march, and
many won't see any documentary, even an excellent one. Inconvenient Truth
is, after all, a lecture and slide show, mixed with a strong personal story,
some nice Matt Groening animation, and more humor and hope than you'd expect
from a film on the subject. We need to get everyone we can into the theater
seats, buying tickets for friends, colleagues, and neighbors, paying the way
for those on the fence to at least give it a look. I'd love to see schools
negotiate daytime matinees in normally empty weekday theaters, so their
students can attend at radically discounted prices. But some--especially
those swayed by the Bush administration's propaganda against science,
thinking, and other "reality-based" pursuits--will still find it too much of
a high-brow lecture.
Given that we need to reach more people, how about an Inconvenient Video
Game, a Sim World where players learn about the issues surrounding global
warming, choose paths of action to address it, and link to real-world
external websites? The goal would be to navigate America (and help navigate
the planet) through what it will take to emerge without disaster. Players
could research the facts, make good or bad choices, and see the consequences
of various actions taken. The game could even include some modeling of
political advocacy, so players could take the role of ordinary citizens,
since our efforts will ultimately decide whether America ever does really
addresses one of the most complex and urgent crises in human history.
The game could build on Gore's existing movie, slide show, and website,
adapting whatever elements were useful, but also making the process more
interactive, more engaging for an audience for whom games are a prime
language. Why not put people in the role of climate scientists assessing
the evidence, governmental and corporate decision makers, citizens trying to
keep our society from driving off a cliff? Why not let them try out
different ways of acting?
There's actually one existing model called A Force More Powerful: The Game
of Nonviolent Strategy Developed by The International Center on Nonviolent
Conflict (ICNC) (from their book and PBS documentary of the same name),
along with media firm York Zimmerman Inc. and game designers at BreakAway
Ltd., the game explores strategies and tactics used successfully in ten
historical nonviolent struggles to win freedom and secure human rights
against dictators, occupiers, colonizers, and corrupt regimes. It's part
simulation, part strategy game for scholars, activists, and anyone
interested in alternative paths to change. I'm not a gamer, but I found it
provocative and challenging. An Inconvenient Video Game could draw on its
lessons.
I'd love to see a climate change game distributed and promoted for free as
an internet download. The goal wouldn't be to make money-it never was with
the film. It would be to draw in as many people as possible to grapple with
the threat we now face, taking advantage of every possible medium. And by
giving away the game online, and promoting it with viral marketing, it would
have a chance to reach the widest possible audience.
There's a danger of course, that all people will do is play the video. But
that exists any time we're sitting watching screens. If we wanted to get
really creative, the program could even ask repeat users to log on with
whatever they'd done that week to help address the issue. Our top game
designers can now create and destroy complex virtual worlds, that entrance
us in powerful ways. They could do the same to save the habitability of the
world we actually inhabit.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A
Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, winner of the 2005 Nautilus Award
for the best book on social change, and Soul of a Citizen See
www.paulloeb.org. To get his articles directly, email
sympa@lists.onenw.org
with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles
