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Stabilization Wedge Game

Determining how to fix the problem of global warming is no game, but some folks at Princeton University have devised a fun way to engage policymakers and students in the process of identifying readily available solutions for reducing greenhouses gases.

The Stabilization Wedge Game – a joint project of Princeton University, BP and Ford Motor Company – challenges those who “play” to select from a list of 15 currently available technologies that can help reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions over the next 50 years. The goal is to keep emissions flat by filling in seven stabilization game wedges representing strategies such as increasing wind or nuclear power or storing CO2 emissions.

The game focuses on the need to cut 175 billion tons of predicted carbon emissions over the next five decades to prevent a doubling of greenhouse gases over pre-industrial levels. In real life, researchers predict that if we succeed in keeping emissions at current levels, we can avoid some of the worst consequences of global warming. However, even at current levels, some consequences are unavoidable and have already begun to occur.

Scientists believe climate change is already responsible for increased heat waves and droughts, fiercer hurricanes and the accelerated melting of the polar ice caps. The stabilization wedge game is a tool that helps draw attention to the fact that technologies already exist that can help us solve this problem.

For more information about this story, visit the Princeton site.

To learn more about what you can do to help reduce global warming, visit www.fightglobalwarming.com.

To read more about this and other environmental health issues, go to: www.environmentalhealthnews.org, www.ourstolenfuture.org, or www.healthandenvironment.org