Eco Game For All Ages

Here is a game that dropped itself into my brain one day, What If Everybody In The World Was Doing It. The game is for all ages, it is challenging and can lead to contemplation and conversation.

The rules or structure of the game are incredibly simple, the difficulty comes with the analysis.

• The game isn’t worried about fixing the world’s issues.
• The game considers all people to be of equal value & treatment.
• Any proposed offering must include the holistic value of the proposition. For example if everyone was riding in hot air balloons. You would need to account for the manufacturing of the entire hot air balloon. You would need to account for the gas being burned, the extraction of that gas which includes all machinery used and the manufacturing plants. You would need to account for the distribution of the hot air balloons which would most likely be ocean vessels, big rig truckers, roads, more fuel. There is plenty more, if you have never seen The Story Of Stuff watch it.
• A winning move is something that promotes true sustainability

The question is posed “what if everybody in the world was doing it?” and then the next person responds with something that they believe would be sustainable for the masses. One tricky aspect of the game is holding 7 billion people in reference to the action or ownership of something.

What if everybody in the world was growing his or her own vegetables?

If people were composting their food scraps and feeding that back into their soil, collecting the seeds from prior generations and replanting them, harvesting nutrient dense food and consuming it the world would be a better place.

Ok, lets look at this one. All of this can be done with simple homemade hand tools. There would be fewer stores, healthier & happier people, more reverence for nature & food, fewer trucks on the road, diesel consumption is down, fewer stores means less electricity use as well as all the construction materials etc. I think this is a winner!

What if everybody in the world was driving an electric car?

If everyone was given an electric car people would be cruising around doing all the things they love to do. Going to all the places they want to see. Freedom, right?

Ok, lets look at this one. We would need more factories (concrete, copper wire, machines, steel & other building supplies), we would need more roads (asphalt, crushed rock, drainage, equipment to make the roads), we would need to increase our electricity production to fuel the cars (nuclear or coal power plants most likely, wires, transfer stations, fuel stations), more oil (tires, paints, plastics, oil changes) etc. I think this one isn’t sustainable and rather destructive.

This is an easy way to decide if something is sustainable or not. It is what it is and it doesn’t matter how much we want it to be something else it won’t. Honesty & acknowledgment is the first step towards true change. Looking for band aids and opportunities to congratulate one another on simple choices between things like what bag we are going to carry and use while we live destructive lives is certain destruction and not worthy of congratulations.

I would love to read a few of your interpretations.