Catan New Energies, Cooler Parks, Vaquitas, and More!

Hey climate heroes! Welcome to The Climate Roundup, where we round up the change, er the news about climate and the environment. As part of the Gen E community, we thank you for making climate action part of everyday life. (Reading this newsletter counts!)

Sign up for The Climate Roundup weekly newsletter here

In Pop Culture:

If, like me, you only know of the popular board game The Settlers of CATAN from watching Parks and Rec, so what?! It was a perfectly executed example of product placement, and it surely exposed new audiences to the game. Well now it’s time for climate change to do some of its own ‘product placement’ – within the world of CATAN. The newest version of the board game, CATAN: New Energies, is all about addressing climate change, and bonus- it uses no plastic pieces in the game itself.

In New Energies, players find themselves in the 21st Century deciding whether to use fossil fuels or renewables for energy when building new settlements. Building fossil fuel plants may be quicker and easier, but it increases greenhouse gas emissions, causing extreme weather events that destroy resources and settlements. Am I explaining the game or reality? Both, because the game reflects reality, using a creative format to educate new audiences about the climate crisis. In fact, climate change is emerging as a trend in video games, as more games include climate disasters and environmental consequences in game play. Sadly, designers don’t even have to use their imaginations at this point, as real world examples of the climate crisis are already all around us. That said, climate solutions and environmental stewardship are rewarded with positive outcomes for players.

Sometimes it takes seeing or experiencing things from a different perspective in order to gain clarity. Who knows, climate-themed games could have a real impact shifting mindsets and inspiring climate action within the gaming community…and maybe even positively impact society at large.

Getting down to climate business:

🐬 The vaquita porpoise is the most endangered marine mammal on Earth. Only 10 remain, maybe less. Why? Humans and their huge fishing nets that entangle the vaquitas, causing them to drown. Read about the most recent survey tracking the existence of this beautiful creature.

🚧 A Bill Gates-backed startup broke ground on a new nuclear reactor on a coal mine in Wyoming.

♨️ Google announced a deal to source emissions-free geothermal energy to power its data centers in Nevada.

🧊 EMT’s are using ice filled body bags to cool victims of extreme heat. The concept has been used at sporting events and in the military.

🌤 The nonprofit, Environmental Defense Fund, will fund scientific research of controversial solar geoengineering, a process that aims to artificially cool the planet. “We are not in favor, period, of deployment. That’s not our goal here…Our goal is information, and solid, well-formulated science.”

🥗 The White House announced a strategy to deal with the 30% of food that’s wasted in our country each year and sent to landfills where it emits methane as it breaks down. The strategy focuses on research and messaging instead of cold hard action.

🗳 The EU lost its Green Party hold in last week’s elections, making the fight for the health of our planet that much more difficult.

🙅 Climate talks held in Bonn, Germany last week were supposed to culminate with clarity on who will pay what amount for poor countries to decarbonize. They didn’t.

Cooler Parks & Rec

Researchers at Princeton are designing ways to cool down urban parks that lack shade from trees. Sidenote: is a park even a park without trees?! Part of their motivation is to offer outdoor options for cooling, rather than an unappealing commercial building-turned cooling center that nobody wants to chill in. That’s right, folks, cooling centers are now a thing as heat waves and overall hotter temperatures become the norm and a danger to our fragile human bodies.

In the illustration above, you can see some of the cool designs, like misters that cool the surrounding air, the obvious sun shade, plus some new tech like reflective panels and cooling tubes that you can read about. Now we just have to shade all city sidewalks, and summer in the city just might become bearable!