Gamifying climate change

February 28, 2013

Our friends over at Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project just launched a new online game to fight the climate deniers, called Reality Drop. Here’s a post from President and CEO Maggie Fox introducing their new toy, er, tool.

 

 

 

Reality Drop: A New Way to Fight Climate Denial

After the hottest year on record in the continental U.S. in 2012, coupled with a number of devastating dirty weather events, it’s become increasingly clear we are living with the impacts of carbon pollution and a warming climate, and the polls show it. Yet despite this reality, climate deniers continue to dig in. A recent journalistic exposé found that wealthy, anonymous donors have funneled yet more money— $120 million — in recent years to groups that deny climate change and block efforts to solve it.

But no amount of manufactured denial can make the reality of climate change disappear. So it’s up to us to speak up, share the truth about climate change, and put an end to the denial.

That’s why we’re introducing Reality Drop, an interactive online tool designed to change the conversation around climate change.

Here’s how Reality Drop works. We start with an online library of more than a hundred of the most common climate change myths deniers try to propagate — the same myths you might read in news stories, online comment threads, hear on talk radio, or even run across in your community or workplace. For each one, Reality Drop offers a simple, succinct rebuttal, grounded in the most up-to-date climate science — without an attitude. It’s just the facts, but easy to understand and share, no matter who you’re talking to.

So take a look — it’s a very exciting tool build to help all of us change the climate conversation and turn denial to action.

Introducing Reality Drop from Climate Reality on Vimeo.

Each day, we feature a roundup of climate news from around the world that demands a response. Some articles may contain misleading quotes from a climate denier. And in other cases, distortions of the truth are polluting the comment section. Reality Drop matches each article with the appropriate climate fact. To respond, you simply go to the article, take the response from Reality Drop, and put it into your own words. In only a minute, you’ve helped change the conversation.

It’s time to counter the well-funded denial machine with facts. We shouldn’t give the deniers any more attention than they deserve. But we can’t ignore them either. Together, we need to speak up, engage both online and offline, and use our voices to demand that our leaders face the reality of climate change and embrace the opportunity for action.