Take Action

The BBC has produced a Flash-based "Climate Challenge" that puts you at the helm of Europe as "President." Your goal is to curb carbon emissions and pull in the reigns on global warming without running the economy in to the ground or upsetting constituents to the point that you're booted from office, and it does a pretty fair job of highlighting the complexities of maintaining the balance without being impossibly difficult. As much as anything, it's a game of political juggling, leveraging the economy through green technology while working to keep emissions down and morale up; you can choose to promote wind power, ramp up building regulations for greater efficiency and invest in fuel cells. Subsidize carbon-cleaning technology in other countries, and they might sign on to help reduce their emissions; leave them out, and you might be lonely when you need their support. It's not all renewable energy and carbon reduction, though; impose a fuel tax and expect to take a hit at the polls, and if you neglect to plan to keep food and water production going, it costs in money, popularity and carbon emissions. It's fairly easy to end the game (at the end of the 21st century) with high ratings on one of the three considerations, but it takes more doing to get positive marks on two; this TreeHugger hasn't been able to properly balance all three just yet. If you have a few minutes to kill and want to see if you've got what it takes to lead Europe into a carbon-free future, click on over and start pulling the strings. ::BBC's "Climate Challenge" via ::Open the Future