By M&C Jan 8, 2007, 19:15 GMT
The BBC plans to launch an interactive climate change game entitled “Climate Challenge” on its BBC.co.uk interactive network January 16th, 2007. Funded by the BBC and produced by Red Redemption Ltd, an Oxford-based environmental games company, Climate Challenge builds on the BBC's Climate Chaos collaboration with www.climateprediction.net - the world's largest computing experiment to try and produce a forecast of the climate in the 21st century.
The inconvenient, yet truthful game will be available January 16th.
Climate Challenge players will log onto BBC.co.uk, take “the hot seat” and attempt to guide Europe from 2000 to 2100 while all the time making choices that could make the difference between a safe or dangerous future for humanity. Climate Challenge will be launched on the BBC.co.uk Science and Nature website, and will be available here when released.
The choices made by each Climate Challenge player are the real ones that government also has to tackle. Can you juggle the demands of running a country? Can you deliver food, water, and clean energy for a hundred years? Would your ideas save the planet? Or will you just get voted out of power as you make the wrong choices?
Gobion Rowlands, Climate Challenge producer says "As we developed the game it was amazing seeing the science come together with the strategy elements. The chance to try out different strategies was exciting and seeing the subtle interplay of different policies and technologies whilst trying to negotiate a global response was both challenging and rewarding.”
Climate Challenge is also part of ongoing policy research by Oxford University Centre for the Environment examining how effectively computer games can communicate important subjects such as climate change. As part of the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Climate Challenge Fund - which aims to develop new and exciting ways of communicating climate change at a local, regional and national level to help change people's attitudes towards the issue, The BBC will collaborate with other government agencies to develop a second version of the game, geared primarily towards school children to play as a learning aide.
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