Climate Wars

I'm a regular listener to the CBC radio program Ideas. If I may use a grossly elitist and self-serving description, Ideas is the thinking man's prime time entertainment.

The past few weeks, the program has been featuring a series called Climate Wars. This is must-listen-radio! If you're a reader of this humble blog, then you will be thrilled to listen to a serious, considered investigation of the world's climate issue.

I have to listen to it again, but at this point, I'm not sure I 100% agree with Gwynne Dyer's final conclusion. I'd really like to, but... you'll have to listen for yourself to decide.

The podcast (running 3 hours) is available here.

Despite the proliferation of mini-posts in the last few weeks, I really don't have the time to blog much these days. Thus, I'm putting down things as soon as they strike me and using a handy feature of blogspot to publish these stories in the future.

Stop Global Warming

Over the last twenty years or so, I've been quietly hooked on a number of building style games... SimCity, Civilization, Caesar III, and so on. These days, I don't have the time for such trivialities but still need to get a fix now and then. That's where Facebook usually comes through.

Stop Global Warming is just such a game, albeit very stripped down and very simple, but it's played on the web through Facebook. In the game, you support other players on a daily basis, earn cash and impact points, and build structures that will eventually reduce a country's CO2 emissions. As you work through the game, you have to balance your environmental and your economic needs. Once a country is on its way to a NIL footprint, you can then tackle a bigger country. In each area, you have to be careful to tailor your response to the local climate and conditions. For example, Canada gets a pretty good return for installing wind turbines, but solar panels don't perform as well as they would in more equatorial countries.

A simple, yet fun game that captures the essence of the building game style, with a well thought-out environmental education delivery.

Feel free to add me as a friend on Facebook and then in the game. Mutual support is much more lucrative.