May 15 2012
How does it feel to save the world, or ruin the planet? Now you can find out, with the release this week of Game Change Rio, a sophisticated Facebook-based game that allow people to engage with the sustainability issues of the day. Players can opt for choices based on real-world data that has not been publicly available so far. The game has been released just before the Rio+20 conference in June to try and galvanise people into demanding action from the Rio+20 conference.
Game Change Rio offers a great way to engage with the complexities facing our planet today. “Once more of us begin to understand the issues involved, we have a better chance of changing the game,” said Hans Herren, winner of the World Food Prize in 1995 and founder of Biovision, a Swiss foundation for ecological development, which commissioned the game.
As you will discover, seeing the demise of ruthlessly polluting industries is just as fun as slaying some fantasy monster and providing water to the inhabitants of an arid strip of land is almost like saving the gorgeous heroine’s life. Image Credit: http:www.gamechangerio.org
The game is great fun too; for example, seeing the demise of ruthlessly polluting industries is just as fun as slaying some fantasy monster and providing water to the inhabitants of an arid strip of land is better than saving the gorgeous heroine’s life. Not only this, but a trip to the Rio conference in June is the prize for the player with the highest score and weekly prizes are also available.
Game Change Rio, the idea of Biovision, CodeSustainable and the Millennium Institute, aims to raise awareness for the issues that need to be addressed if future generations are to enjoy life on this planet and also proposes solutions to the problems we are facing.
The Earth Summit, the United Nations Conference held at Rio de Janeiro, raised the issue of sustainability around 20 years ago, but very little action has been taken and we are still on the road to disaster.
Sustainability has become a mainstream term, with nations adopting sustainable policy frameworks, and hardly any company would dare to issue a mission statement that did not include sustainability. However, these are often vague, short-term thinking still dominates and the mantra of growth at any cost still prevails. Most indicators show there is still not enough action behind the words.
Rio+20 this June was called to address this global inertia and make change happen after all. But this follow-up conference is up against many vested interests and only if we all mobilise, can we hope for a change in attitude. “We developed ‘Game Change Rio’ to get the message to people we might not reach through other channels,” Herren said. To make it truly global, the game is available in Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, English, French and German.
Game Change Rio gives you access to real-world data that so far has only been available to experts and policy makers. Based on the Millennium Institute’s Green Economy Model, which was commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the game includes all relevant sectors of the world’s economy and the natural resources available. All the elements of the three key development dimensions (environment, society and economy) are linked in a unique System Dynamics model and the effects of different policies are visualized in their full complexity. The model has over 5,000 indicators, and with the 125 policy cards developed, the game has over 100 million possible outcomes.