Software for saving the planet

Chris Crawford has mortgaged his house to produce a computer game entitled 'Balance of the Planet', which helps educate the user about the complexity and inter-relatedness of the world's environmental problems. To play the game, you have to imagine you are the High Commissioner of the Environment at the United Nations, and that you have until the year 2035 to enact your policies for improvement.

'You have to imagine you are the UN High Commissioner and that you have until the year 2035'

At your control are the rates of tax on beef, CFCs, coal, fertilisers, heavy metals, logging, natural gas, oil, pesticides and the nuclear industry. These produce your income which you can then spend on research into coal, dam use, oil, nuclear power, solar power or basic research; or you can subsidise debt for nature swaps, family planning, recycling centres, solar energy or the use of wood stoves. There are 150 screen-fuls of background information as to causes and effects, although the strong temptation is to skip these and get on with 'policy execution' which leads to your 'results' for each five year period (your aim being to win points).

Thus, say you decide on 'business as usual' and make no changes of policy at all, for 1995 you receive the following feedback:

Problems:

Starvation points worsened by 549; Inundation points worsened by 164; Land abuse points worsened by 108; Lung disease points worsened by 82; Radiation waste points worsened by 43.

Successes:

Quality points improved by 19; Sustainability points improved by 15.

With the result that:

Overall, your score went down by 1020 points.

Software for saving the planet

Repeating this no-changes policy, by the year 2035 your final score is -12,165 and the computer reports:

Your attempts to solve the problems of starvation were a miserable failure; your administration has led to great economic hardship around the globe; global warming became much worse, inundating large areas of coastal land; continuing air pollution took its toll in the form of lung disease; destruction of precious forests continued under your administration; you failed to stem the destruction of biodiversity; you did little to solve the problems of radioactive waste; land abuse grew slightly worse during your years in charge; now skin cancer deaths are on the increase; and as far as floods go, things got worse.

Institute members testing the software, using a wise caution, and carefully balancing the need for environmental taxes against the need to preserve the global economy, have been unable to score better than -8,860 by the year 2035 - which is all the more worrying, given that as a species we cannot replay the next decades until we get them right, nor do we have a superfluity of ecologically informed leaders.

The game is a triumph of design, and allows the player to change the underlying biases, to pro-nuclear, pro-environmentalist, pro-industrialist or pro-third world. As the author writes: 'This lets the player come backstage in the simulation and take control of many of the critical factors. Not only does this empower the player, but it also challenges him to examine closely his own beliefs.'

'In a sane world, the politician would be encouraged to practise his or her theories on a computer model of the world, before being unleashed on the real thing'

As a game it makes a good educational tool for any group of teenagers; and in a sane world, just as a pilot in training has to undergo arcade-style simulations, so the politician would be encouraged to practise his or her theories on a computer model of the world, before being unleashed on the real thing.

It is a political flaw in the game to concentrate all power on a potentially tyrannical and inaccessible United Nations High Commissioner. Perhaps one day there could be a multi-user version with different players representing the various countries.

'Balance of the Planet' is available in an IBM or Mac version, for L34-99 from the Cache Collection, 105 Gaunt St, London SE1 6DP (tel 071 407 3463; fax 407 3563).

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