'Clim City', French game where you play with climate change
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Play, relaxation, recreation, rest, joke - many focus on the fun, the childish and banal, meanwhile the true game is always a regulated and serious activity, but also rich and educational - here, you get fifty years to change to get emissions down to 25%
'CLIM CITY' is appearing now on the educational play scene; a new game in line with the science association of Bordeaux’s aims to raise awareness and inform on the deterioration of the environment, and the consequences it has on all of us.
Onscreen is a French region with a mountain, urban and coastal areas and around 100, 000 inhabitants. The player has the task of getting energy wastage and greenhouse gas emissions down to 25%. They have 50 years to do this, during which time they must work with business organisations, citizens and official bodies. They are given 250 actions or possible behavioural choices to use. With comprehensible logic, as quickly as possible, the player must act. Slowness and inactivity go against them.
This game provides us with around 300 written, visual and sound documents, which are very valuable materials for teachers and students, and which, on top of being open for consultation, can also be downloaded.
Mental colour-blindness
The validity of this resource isn’t wasted nowadays, in a time when raising awareness about the deterioration of the environment and consequent climate change is a growing preoccupation, as proclaimed by scientists, governments and victims.
Nevertheless, there is no lack of those who think differently. The conservative unionist, Sammy Wilson, environment minister from Northern Ireland, has just killed off a campaign to raise awareness of this issue in his country, arguing that global warming wasn’t down to the actions of Man. 'Pure Labour propaganda' ensures the commercial break is kept censored. And since the English physicist John Dalton explained to us that there are those who confuse colours, seeing red as green and viceversa, even certain opinions and statements seem to be reasonable. '
Despite this, and only with the hope of seeing light in such a thick cloud of smoke and toxicity, one must ask themselves why the same people always seem to come together in such things: Sammy Wilson, Czech president Vaclav Klaus, Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, former Spanish president Jose Maria Aznar, current Spanish opposition leader Mariano Rajoy and his cousin… At least we’re always left with a hope.
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Translated from Clim City: jugar a no matar el tiempo