After Gore’s 24 hours of climate reality back in September, I thought that he’d pretty much hit rock bottom with faking the science in it. Even Nature thought it was dumb. I thought we couldn’t possibly see anything stupider than that. I was wrong.
Al Gore has announced a partnership with PSFK to make a series of propaganda climate games. Here’s what he has to say about it:
Games are the new normal. The popularity and proliferation of smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices—coupled with a wide variety of social networking platforms—provide fertile ground for the incorporation of games into our lives in fresh, new ways. Whether it’s playing Scrabble on your iPhone or Farmville on Facebook, now millions fill the interstitial moments of their lives with the simple fun that these programs and apps provide.
As games have become ubiquitous, both the private and public sectors have begun to seriously look at the role that gamification can play in their work. Game design, techniques and mechanics, have something to teach those of us who are seeking to engage people on issues of social importance.
In the forty years that I have worked to build public awareness of the need to urgently solve the climate crisis, I have always sought out new methods of communication— from my slideshow on three Kodak carousels (which evolved from an actual slideshow to a multi-media presentation on Keynote)—to my work on An Inconvenient Truth, the “Live Earth” global concerts, “24 Hours of Reality” on the web, and an app for the iPhone and iPad called Our Choice. Exploring the interplay of gamification and social change is a fascinating challenge, and one that I have been exploring for the last three years. Clearly, there is tremendous potential for advocates to reach entirely new audiences with games that are engaging, fun, and motivational.
Recently, I was introduced to Piers Fawkes and the wonderful team at PSFK and for the past several months The Climate Reality Project, PSFK and I have collaborated in an open source “Gaming for Good” Challenge. I hope that you will enjoy the results of this collaboration and that it will encourage you to think creatively about social impact games.
Here’s a video where Al hypes the new battle for young minds:
He’s got a whole gaming racket. For example:
CLIMATE HEROES. GET READY TO CHANGE THE WORLD
Climate Heroes is an online game that capitalizes on the long-standing role of superheroes as beacons of goodness in our lives. This game gives users the opportunity to become a superhero and take up the fight to solve the planet’s climate issues. The future of the planet is in your hands. Create your profile and save the world! Users are able to select from a number of superhero avatars, such as Mr. Smog and Miss Waste, all of which are visually engaging and representative of a specific climate challenge. Users can capture climate abuse using their mobile phones and upload photos or share news items. Those that do so with regular frequency and take on the role of ‘influencer’ will be engaged by the Organization to do a public mission. A sample mission might be to organize a flash mob that sheds light on a specific issue.
CLIMATE TRAIL
There’s a lot of information and disinformation surrounding climate
change. But much of the disinformation can be debunked by following the
“money trail” of companies sponsoring the research and publication that
disseminates this false data. How do we encourage the public to think for
themselves and question the sources of their information? By encouraging
them to play “Climate Trail”, a simple text-based game that mirrors the
functionality of classic online games like “Oregon Trail”.
At the start of the game, each player is given a leadership role in a
community with set levels of renewable resources, atmospheric levels, and
other indicators of climate health. The goal is to reach the year 2036 with a
healthy and livable community. As game play proceeds, players are asked
questions like “Do you want clean coal or wind power to be your town’s main
source of power” or “Do you want to clear 10,000 acres of forest to create
more farmland?” Correct answers help boost resource levels while wrong
answers impact negatively on community health. After each answer, players
are also presented with information about choices that were made in the
real world (e.g. Portland, Oregon switched to natural gas for city vehicles
and reduced emissions 30%). Users will also be able to share answers across
social networks like Twitter and Facebook.
Once the initial levels have been completed, players are promoted
to a higher rank with responsibilities for larger and more complex
communities. As they progress to higher leadership levels they are also
greeted with new challenges (e.g. “Lobbyists want to meet with you to
discuss new vehicle standards.”).
Game play either ends when resource goals are reached on a global scale
or climate change has reached unacceptable levels and the community is
no longer sustainable. Players will be able to compare their performances
against real life politicians. They will also be given tips on where they
went wrong in the game (e.g. “You believed reports about Clean Coal
but research was actually funded by Mining Companies”) highlighting
both the money trail and the need for independent consumer research
on high impact environmental and climate issues.
CLIMATE REALITY PATROL
Idea: Social media activism meets gaming and rewards
Concept: Instantly tag your comments with Climate Reality keyword facts to
earn badges and rewards.
How it Works:
Climate Reality creates and hosts a database of short-form facts (1–2 sentences
each) tied to “hot topic” keywords. Each description includes a link to optionally
find a deeper resource of related information.
Users create a profile on The Climate Reality Patrol website, activate the browser
plugin, then begin patrolling the web, looking to dispel unfounded environmental
information in articles and comments from media sites, politicians, brands,
celebrities, blogs, etc.
Wherever commenting is allowed, users who’ve activated Climate Reality Patrol
can post responses including keywords that automatically pull facts served from
The Climate Reality database. The keywords are presented and activated via a
menu that appears as they type (similar to an advanced spell-check).
Other users who view these comments can hover over any of the activated keywords
to find a pop-up fact window that includes the respective “quick fact” and a link to
more info.
Each post would include #ClimateRealityPatrol and/or @ClimateRealityPatrol at the end by default, to brand the posts.
The Climate Reality Patrol website tracks user stats and features a leaderboard for all user rankings. A Facebook app displays rankings on individual user’s profiles.
Levels of “Climate Reality Activist” badges are awarded based on the amount
of false information a user has dispelled (based on the number of keywords they’ve posted). Rewards could include special recognition, invitation to events, or entry into exclusive contests.
…
This one takes the cake for silliness:
REALiTREE (pronounced RE-AL-i-TREE)
Realitree is a digital manifestation of our local environment and the
role that we are playing in sustaining its wellbeing. It is a game played
by different groups in many places. Individuals, teams, communities,
cities and even countries compete against their counterparts via Twitter,
Facebook and through other social tools.
A Realitree is like a huge Tamagotchi for which thousands of people care.
It is a massive projection showing a digital image of a tree, complete with leaves, branches, roots, sky and earth. Realitree functions like a real tree, in that it will thrive and suffer according to the health of its surrounding enviroment.
Realitree’s environment takes into account news media, so news stories that are in conflict with climate reality will reflect negatively on its health. Realitree will expose agents of the fossil fuel industry who propagate smear, innuendo, criminal hacking and leaking of out-of context snippets or lies.
Each Realitree will be fed two distinct types of data:
• Current, statistical environmental data about the surrounding community as well as news and insights about political and corporate forces working against the climate’s good health.
• Real-time updates using tweets and the various social networking activity of the Realitree’s caretakers. Anyone can participate in keeping it alive and thriving through their real world deeds and virtual nutrients, delivered through their social networking activity.
As their networks grow, they will be represented as the intertwined roots of the tree, keeping it alive, fed and guarded against attack.
The overall “health” of Realitree will be on constant display. With good activities, it will grow, multiply and sway appreciatively. With bad deeds, Realitree will appear to shake and wither. It will always display climate reality truths, news, facts and shares from participants throughout its community and all over the world. We envision “planting” 300 Realitrees in cities and towns across the globe.
Each caretaker will play on different levels and earn points by doing
different things. A single tweet, for example, may garner one point, while a Foursquare check-in to a “green” business or using clean energy at home will gain more points. On the Realitree website, through Facebook connections, people can form teams, compete against friends and measure their contributions to helping reverse the effects of climate change. On another level, Realitrees (planted in New York City, for example) could compete against every other city where Realitrees are placed.
Corporations would be allowed the opportunity to play and even remedy earlier misdeeds by correcting falsehoods and donating money to pay for real initiatives in winning communities. Those that create the healthiest environment for their Realitree win the game.
And finally, Climate Reality hits Farmville:
DESTINATION REALITY: FARMVILLE
It’s a funny thing when there are more virtual farmers than real ones on Earth.
Real life farmers see the effects of climate change, but do virtual ones? Let’s
partner with Farmville to drop a dose of Reality on the 31 million people who
log on daily to tend to their plants, harvest, and redeem gold coins for seeds,
supplies, and fuel.
We could partner with Zynga to plan the best way to expose crops to weather
and wind and offer The Climate Reality Project branded goods to help
Farmers mitigate and adapt to unexpected weather conditions. Goods such
as wind-powered tractors, windmills, jackets to shield you from the elements,
seeds for heartier crops like organic cassava and chickpeas, decorations like a
Climate Reality flag, rainwater collection troughs and green ring tags for your
livestock. We’d want to do this in a way that presents a challenge to Farmville
players, and makes it possible via gameplay mechanics to heal the destruction
caused by Climate events, illustrating that through action, we can change the
current trajectory.
Wind-powered tractors?
And while I didn’t expect to find such a ridiculous thing when I went looking, amazingly, some physics challenged fool has actually made a concept image:
From the website, the description:
Windmill-powered electric farm tractors.
The picture above shows a windmill-powered electric farm tractor. The tractor is shown with it’s windmill extended for recharging. When the tractor is parked,the tractor’s windmill is extended on a telescopic mast. The tractor remains parked like this with it’s windmill extended,for several hours. While it is parked,the windmill turns wind energy into electrical energy. The electricity produced by the windmill is stored in batteries located inside the tractor.
No, really. Somebody thinks this is the farming of the future.
And there’s more. Al has plans for farm animals, blogs, chatrooms, and school kids.
Read all about it here in this report gaming-for-good-psfk-111202215545-phpapp01 (PDF 8.5 MB)
I predict it will be even less successful than Al’s previous sideshow attraction, because lets face it, the games are stupid and without challenge.
Ok correction accepted 😉
Let’s just say, his psychosis now looks florid. Like Nebuchadnezzar eating grass, so nobody is going to be fooled any more.
Crimson75 said @ur momisugly January 12, 2012 at 7:29 am
Can I get a ManBearPig for my farm? He can pull the “wind-powered” tractor 😉
“Games are the new normal” doesn’t even begin to make sense. It’s like saying “communication is the new deviancy.”
It’s not even a functional linguistic formulation. What they were trying to say is “a lot of people are spending a lot of time playing electronic games, more than when I grew up.”
Or rather, “we figure a lot of people playing games won’t be able to think through our ham-handed political propaganda.”
May work well in kindergarten …
Last year I gave a talk on climate change to a class of British 11 year old children. none of them had ever heard of Al Gore.
Tonyb
RockyRoad said @ur momisugly January 12, 2012 at 7:50 am
We used to be a host farm for Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF). Workers provide half a day’s labour in return for a night’s accommodation & meals. One worker sent into the garden to harvest peas returned empty-handed having been unable to find any. The worker expressed great surprise when shown that peas come from pods that grow on the plant. Another thought that carrots were a kind of fruit that grew on a bush! Both were undergoing tertiary education.
We gave up hosting when the ecozealots started telling us that what we were doing was wrong. How dare we use plastic (greenhouse film) to grow tomatoes, capsicums, eggplants & cucumbers. When I pointed out that the car they were driving had vinyl seat covers and dashboard, not tomention insulation on the electrical wiring, the response was: “But I need my car!” Like we didn’t need warm season crops.
I despair…
You can make all the jokes about Gore you want. Yet don’t be surprised if he once again ends up being the one laughing – all the way to the bank.
I used to think Al was a [snip] idiot. Until I realized just how rich he’s gotten off of global warming. The guy is a first class hypocrite. But a rich one who may be on to another method to add to his coffers. Keep that in mind when making fun of him.
PS – where are those 4 marines when you need them? I know I’d have no issue with pissing down Gore’s back and telling him it’s raining. I’d even claim it was a result of global warming.
How about Snake oil salesman & Ladders, a variation on an old favourite?
You advance up the board on ladders as usual, but when you land on a snake oil salesman you have to buy his carbon credits and then going crashing down, just like the real carbon trading markets.
Al Gore is desperately fighting for his carbon investments. Occidentally, his family got rich on oil and now he is targeting carbon dioxide.
I think we should introduce a new game called CAGW
(Catastrophic Alarmism Gone West)
Which involves showing how wrong the alarmists have proved to be.
Watched a BBC travel show called Tropic of Capricorn where travel junkie Simon Reeve visits various place like Michael Palin did but with his own agenda of course. In Simon’s case Climate Change features heavily.
In the Australia segment he visits a cattle station at Longreach Queensland which was towards the end of a drought (I think the show was produced in early 2009).
But anybody that knows outback Australia knows that it is a “sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountains ranges of droughts and flooding rains”. And the climate has very little to do with CO2.
When you listen to the BBC documentary you would think it is never ever going to rain again in Queensland. But what would Simon Reeve have to say if went back to-day?
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200902/r340987_1551721.jpg
Picture of Longreach 2010
(As at 31 October 2011, there are no local government areas or Individually Droughted Properties (IDP) drought declared under the Queensland State processes.)
From Longreach, Reeve travels to the Great Barrier Reef at Heron Island where there is more CAGW. If you want some even more preposterous “scientific conclusions” have a look at that one too. You will find if you Google:
The Tropic of Capricorn 14 of 20 – Australia – BBC Travel – YouTube
By the way, Al Gores second home is a 6,500 sq. foot villa near the beach which boasts 9 bathrooms, 6 bedrooms, a large pool house, 6 fireplaces.
I do not for one minute believe that Al Gore believes in the utter tripe that comes out of his mouth. If he thought we have a planetary emergency then why on Earth would you buy a second home with all the extras.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/17/photos-al-goree-new-8875_n_579286.html
Gamification… gamification.
Shoot me please.
Zeke says:
January 12, 2012 at 9:47 am
“Do you get to send the Department of Extremism after citizens who question the science?”
_________________________________
They’d send goons authorized by the Semantics Czar.
Some people have a high opinion of themselves. I mean, what sort of personality type do you have to be to imagine that you, self-anointed you, are the voice of future generations?
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/01/12/those-who-claim-to-speak-for-the-future/
richard verney says:
January 12, 2012 at 3:11 amif that were true it would mean that back in 1971/2 he was working to build public awareness on climate related matters
Well, we all know what he was doing in 1985 was deeply connected with the environment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMRC
Roger Knights says: January 12, 2012 at 7:43 am
Sorry, Roger … you’re a little behind the times! They’ve been peddling this particular game for some time. (And I hear there’s a new, improved edition due sometime next year)
The climate change game … Monopoly: the IPCC version
UGH!
Remember: This charlatan was twice just a heartbeat away from being President of the US of A! First as Clinton’s Vice President (hmmmm…president of vice???) and again as the presidential candidate that lost to George W. Bush.
Note to Self: Send another ‘Thank You’ card to the great State of Tennessee, for their majority popular vote and 3 electoral college ballots, all cast against their home state senator Al Gore. They knew him better than anyone else.. and collectively turned their backs on him in the November 1999 elections. A pity the rest of the world did not take note and follow their wise example.
thepompousgit says:
January 12, 2012 at 12:36 pm
“Hu McCulloch said @ur momisugly January 12, 2012 at 6:41 am
The EPA has a new online map of the “biggest GHG emitters”, perhaps so that Gore’s “flash mobs” will know where to congregate. See this AM’s NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/science/earth/epa-unveils-map-of-major-greenhouse-gas-producers.html ”
Any way to ‘monkey wrench’ the site to only show the locations of Al Gore’s various villas, mansions, and estates? They really must be the ‘biggest Gore House Gas emitters’. Perhaps they could be inexplicably targeted by his own ‘flash mobs’…….
James Evans on January 12, 2012 at 1:52 pm:
In-game reply by Worldsaving, The Mission produced by Gore International Entertainment:
The US EPA has implemented stronger regulations against lead pollution for the benefit of all residents of Earth, including humans.
Your request is denied.
I’m sorry, I can’t read through that trite swill, especially where the name of that charlattan is concerned. My hat off to all of you who did.
Welcome to the old-new strategy of conquest by repetition through a thousand of little sources, many of them aimed at children and youth, the next generation, many at popular culture. Through a flood of innocuous little matter-of-fact “mentionings” in movies, dramas, art, literature, imagery, daily language, news stories, school projects, textbooks, cartoons, techno-geegaws…and of course games, the message will be repeated again and again, until it’s smiling at us from every corner of our conscious lives. No need to explain, justify or defend; quantity trumps quality. The SkS site makes it clear the skeptic will be treated as an old, set-in-his-ways fool who must be waited out . The butt of uppity jokes and ad hominem mockery. No more serious debates, no more attempts to justify the science. Skeptics will cease to exist as a meaningful factor. This is now a plain culture war which they believe they can win. And win they will, if we stay only on the high road of science, believing that truth is self-evident and that facts can conquer, and if fail to meet them in the sweaty trenches.
He’s a nut case.
The US sailed through the eye of the needle when he lost the Presidential election from Bush.
He’s sinking ever since.
Which kid wants to play with a wind mill propelled tractor?
Straight Jackets comes to mind.
What was Gore doing in 1971? From biography.com:
http://www.biography.com/people/al-gore-9316028
“ He earned a degree with high honors in government in June 1969 after writing a senior thesis titled “The Impact of Television on the Conduct of the Presidency, 1947-1969.””
and:
“Gore opposed the Vietnam War, but said that his sense of civic duty compelled him to enlist in the U.S. Army in August 1969. After basic training, Gore was assigned as a military journalist writing for The Army Flier, the base newspaper at Fort Rucker.”
And:
“With seven months left in his enlistment, Gore was shipped to Vietnam, arriving in January 1971. He served with the 20th engineer Brigade in Bien Hoa and at the Army Engineer Command in Long Binh”.
And:
“When he returned to the States in 1971, he worked as a reporter at the Tennessean. When he was later moved to the city politics beat, Gore uncovered political and bribery cases that led to convictions. While at the Tennessean, Gore, a Baptist, also studied philosophy and phenomenology at Vanderbilt University. In 1974, he enrolled in Vanderbilt’s law school.”
bottom feeder, n:
a. An opportunist who profits from the misfortunes of others
b. A low or despicable person.
=====================
The poor sod, can’t seem to learn his lesson.
If it wasn’t for hanging chads……..
The Gore Effect marches on! He’s a legend in his own mind; in the real world, the Kiss of Gore is fatal.
Seems that all those hundreds of million$ he skimmed from the suckahs who bought CCX shares are looking for a home, or something to keep them busy. I predict they will soon be parted from their current owner.
Did anyone else read the description of the “Climate Reality Patrol” game and think “Spambot”?
He eliminates the cost of a spider, by having players scan the web. But those players constitute a human-based web spider.
Then, he has those players spam a blog, etc, with statements that they do not formulate, but that come instead from a database engine.
He saves the cost of internet charges for himself, by distributing the cost of the spamming over all the players. If the spam should become enough to interfere with accessing the blog, then the players are actually volunteers to a DDOS.
And lastly, the players are “paid” in the form of rewards and achievements within the game…so that the players do not even have to believe in what they are “saying” to personally benefit. In other contexts, these would be called telemarketers, but Al Gore pays them in virtual benefits rather than real ones.
Al Gore has finally invented a net thingy. It’s a human-based Spambot.
I don’t think he’s thought this through…I think this could cause him serious monetary trouble were a class-action-suit minded law firm to take an interest. Also, I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure the creation and implementation of a spambot is illegal, especially if there is no opt-out; he could actually spend jailtime. If a teacher mandated the playing of this game for students, said teacher, and Al, could be contributing to the delinquency of a minor. If advertising for this game appears to target kids, or the game isn’t an 18-or-older game, Al could be more directly contributing to the delinquency of a minor. If the frequency actually causes difficulty accessing a website, it’s a DDOS. Penalties for organizing a DDOS could be serious.
This could be very, very entertaining.
Some thoughts: sites such as WUWT can preemptively protect themselves, to some extent, by a simple spamkiller that looks for the keyword “ClimateRealityPatrol”. Possibly, via a bunch of small claims courts claims (NOT a class action suit, ’cause WUWT would never see much money) Gore could be made to pay for the implementation and maintenance of said spamkiller, since he is essentially targeting certain websites. However, note that the “ClimateRealityPatrol” string is there as a “default”, not a “mandatory element”, so enterprising gamers could remove the string, defeating the spamkiller. The string could be considered an opt-out, but not if it can be removed by the players.
Secondly, although sites like WUWT would probably prefer to protect themselves, it would be fairly easy to set up an uprotected dummy Skeptic site that could very well exhibit the Spam and DDOS effects for court purposes.
Thirdly, a possible defense could be “Freedom of Speech” (although I would have trouble seeing that, sometimes courts are crazy). If it ends up being considered a form of protected speech…well…there’s nothing to say that Skeptics couldn’t play the game, and put the spam…anywhere. And everywhere. Until it becomes such a nuisance to everyone, that it can’t be ignored.
This could be very, very entertaining. 🙂