Consumer Consequences: American Public Media's Online Eco-Game
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA 
on 09.18.07
TreeHugger is no stranger to carbon calculators – we’ve covered BP’s efforts in this regard, we’ve written about the first wedding carbon calculator in the US, and we even had our own calculator for the Convenient Truth’s contest. It was with some scepticism, then, that this reporter heard news of yet another online resource aimed at calculating your environmental impact. Launched by the Public Insight Network of American Public Media, Consumer Consequences is an online game that calculates your overall ecological footprint (not just carbon emissions), allows you to compare it with others within your demographic, and also offers suggestions on how to improve your score.
After creating your own character (the picture is what this author ended up looking like - the gumpy face is probably a result of the less-than-perfect score he achieved!), the game then takes you threw a series of questions about your lifestyle, including energy consumption, transport choices, and food buying habits, and ultimately spits out a figure for how many planets we’d need if everyone on earth lived like you. While any such program inevitably relies on a certain amount of generalization, the overall level of detail is good. The player (or perhaps the term ‘user’ is more appropriate – this is hardly Tomb Raider) is given interesting snippets of information and advice along the way, and the compare and contrast function at the end is particularly useful. There is also an opportunity to give feedback on the game, and the statistics collected are used to inform American Public Media’s journalists. If you leave contact details, there is even a chance that they will be in touch about future stories (maybe Andy Warhol was right after all!).
Aside from being a highly usable and easy to understand illustration of the impact our everyday choices have on the planet, Consumer Consequences has another plus point – it doesn’t focus solely on the individual (a key failing of many lifestyle calculators). When it comes to providing advice on improving your score, alongside buying renewable energy and biking to work, the user is clearly told that changing government policy will help too. After all, conscious choices at the supermarket checkout are unlikely to save the world if the system around us continues to encourage over-consumption, waste, fossil fuel use, and other environmentally damaging activities by ignoring their external impacts. ::Consumer Consequences::via tip (thanks Mary!)::
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I said that I never rode in a car with more than one person and my score shot up. But I never ride in a car with more than one person, because I never ride in a car…. The fact that I said I get 0 miles in my car didn't seem to matter.
Yeah, these things never work right for people who live really low. I do not own a car, walk everwhere, hardly use electricy and throw aout on small bag a trash a week, recylce everthing and it said I need 1.9 earths to support my lifestyle!
Very flawed.
My score was 1.3 with heavy coffee drinking. But when I was born in 1970, there were not 6 billion people. For the population I was born into, I've got some planet to spare. But every time someone has another baby, I lose a little piece of "my share." So, even if your score is 1.0 planet or less, that will increase "tomorrow" without you changing your lifestyle at all.
It turns out the coffee I drink makes the biggest impact, by this report - no bonus points for fair trade shade grown organic ;-(
I find it odd that although I chose the highest % for local organic food, my food impact was rather large. I think it is the 20% meat, which these calculators always seem to factor as mainstream beef. But I eat local free range chicken and bison, which I'm sure has a smaller impact than big-beef trucked in from out-of-state.
I agree with Christina above, these calculators seem to lose accuracy when dealing with green lifestyles, and prove more accurate with high-consumerism lifestyles. But that is the lifestyle that can benefit the most, so I think the calculator is not flawed.
hmm a game... not sure how that will really resonate with the public, considering the individuals who do the most pollution are the adults. Sure we should educate the younger kids, but why not tackle the problem now, rather than hoping what we show the kids now, will actually come into play when they are old enough.
My main issue with this "game" is that is isn't a game. It is, as you point out, a good carbon calculator, and you can't really be said to play this simulation.
My main issue with this "game" is that is isn't a game. It is, as you point out, a good carbon calculator, and you can't really be said to play this simulation.