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Lord Wants Games to Fight Climate Change

Rob Crossley's picture

By Rob Crossley

February 6, 2009

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Film maker and UK politician Lord Puttnam has called for videogames to be used as a method of educating people on the issues of climate change.‭

Puttnam,‭ ‬a film producer who was awarded a life peer in‭ ‬1997‭ ‬by the Labour Government,‭ ‬emphasised that it was the reach that gaming has which makes it an ideal candidate for mass-education.

‭“‬Serious games based upon real-life geography should be vital tools in our fight against climate change,‭” ‬he said in a press statement.‭ ‬“Educating people about the impact of prolonged changes to our climate in an accessible way is the best catalyst for action I know.‭”

Lord Puttnam is the founding Chair‭ ‬of the National Endowment for Science,‭ ‬Technology and the Arts,‭ ‬though he also chaired‭ ‬the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Draft Climate Change Bill.‭ ‬His comments come ahead of his‭ ‬keynote speech at‭ ‬the‭ ‬Terra future conference,‭ ‬a gathering which will discuss and debate policies needed to address climate change.

gobion's picture
On February 6th gobion said:

@Jesse_Dylan_Watson
That's not quite true - we (Red Redemption) have been developing games that directly tackle climate change for the last 4 years including the award-winning Climate Challenge(http://makesyouthink.net/games/climate-challenge/) which was sponsored by the BBC and which has had over 2 million players, the follow up for schools in the UK for pupils aged 15-16 called Operation: Climate Control (http://makesyouthink.net/games/operation-climate-control/) and several new upcoming commercial titles :)

We have a full-time climate scientist on the team and are partnered with Oxford University. Since beginning down this path (we started as a regular games company back in 2000) I have become ever more sure of the importance of tackling this issue and have also recently become an Affiliate Researcher at the Environmental Change Institute in addition to my role as Chairman at Red Redemption.

But that said - Lord Puttnam is an excellent spokesman for the video games industry and especially games and learning and climate change. I've discussed the issues with him several times and he is very knowledgeable and passionate on the subject, and it is great to hear him getting the message out there.

Cheers,
Gobion Rowlands
Chairman Red Redemption
www.red-redemption.com

Jesse_Dylan_Watson's picture
On February 6th Jesse_Dylan_Watson said:

I totally agree. Video and computer games are completely under-utilized in the fields of education. When done well, they can be extremely compelling. While Oregon Trail is one of the few educational games that seemed to work well from a design standpoint, "real" games like SimCity and other Maxis sims have been used all over the place for educational purposes, to excellent effect.

And there is absolutely nothing more important than educating people about the planet we must stop destroying if we want to stick around as a species.