Alllllllllllll games are made up. All of ’em.

All games play towards some outcome that is agreed upon, which can be won or lost, with a time clock,, with boundaries, rules, players, and equipment. Games are n e v e r able to be predicted exactly, and the surprising emergence of the actions gives a game its “juice.” The uncertainty and spontaneity of the game occurs as fun. While some games can seem merely frivolous to some people, people tend to play games full out, for the fun of it yet often very earnestly, as if their very lives depended on it. People tend to love games. In fact, one could say all people need games worthy of their lives. When a challenge seen as difficult, or unfamiliar, or slippery or even dangerous is constituted as a game, it allows we us to step in and step up to the challenge. Inside games, we get bolder, more inventive, more connected.

To bring the game metaphor to the climate challenges we face, it is as if we human beings intend to play soccer yet without knowing where the ball is, where the goal is, where are the players, including my teammates, what is the objective of such a game, and where is the time clock. In short, we are attempting to win at the climate challenge game blindfolded and tied up.

2030orbust.org gets it, and designs, and delivers the global game any and all of us can play to win the climate game : a game of personal action to empower and equip humanity to live life so that not only do we take the “crisis” out of the climate crisis, and by 2030, but that we move widely and decisively towards that our relationships to the planet and each other work, effectively, for us human beings with ourselves, each other and for the physical source of our lives: the planet…..A global games allows for anyone and everyone and is sustainable over time, even a very long time.

Take note: Life currently may not be sustainable and its predictable end point may not be pretty. Exhaust the source of our physical lives…….which is the physical planet….and we exhaust ourselves. While what people call “The Science” of climate change is neither conclusive nor certain (just like so much of science), it is clear that we humans burning fossil fuel is a significant contributor to global warming. (See the recognition/admission of all of the 5 major oil companies in Federal court, March, 2018 that the burning of fossil fuels is “95-100% likelihood that human activity has been the dominant cause of the global warming of the Earth since the mid 20th century.” (See the Independent, 9 12 2020) major cause in our current global warming). Note that our current global warming is widely measured and acknowledged as what is actually happening, including by people who dispute the exact timing and the magnitude of the impact of fossil fuels burning (see one challenger to the urgency, Steve Koonin, former Under Secretary for Science in the Obama Administration, in his book, Unsettled, 2021, who nonetheless, recognizes and attempts to measure the timing and impact of the human burning of fossil fuels).

While Koonin is a rigorous scientist proclaiming scientific integrity (bravo!) he ends up acknowledging what every one knows: the timing and impact of fossil fuel burning is not dead certain. What is clear is that carbon (and methane) definitely trap heat especially infrared irradiation, in a way other gases do not. It is also true that carbon emissions are unequivocally thickening the insulation blanket of heat trapping gases (methane too at 25 times that of CO2), an insulation blanket that increasingly encircles our Earth and lies very close to our surface (the troposhpre which is the first 7 to 9 miles off the surface)>.who 8 years to make the decisive difference in The Game which is: to reduce the predicted 60 gigatons of carbon emissions expected in 2030 to 41 gigatons, a 32% decrease. If we do that, then the planet and we human beings stay inside a trajectory of a heat increase of 2 degrees C. If we stay inside 2 degrees C, the planet is livable, workable. If we exceed 2 degrees, then it will get quite nasty…..not just the weather but the civil strife, including violence akin to Syria. Both homicide and suicide will increase a lot, dramatically, beyond what is tolerable.

2030orbust.org says that we humans need a game to play that we have shot at winning. …. a shot.. Human beings will and do risk their lives inside a game that matters. That game is the 60 to 41 gigatons gap being closed and won. Killing off spectatorship and creating players on the field is the game. The game is played on the 2030orbust app. Download it here for Apple or here for Android.

The app will enable to you to say what you will do, starting with a download menu of actions to take. The impact of your actions will be measured in carbon pounds per week and cumulatively. And we/you will see what your fellow players are doing as a community..

So why constitute the most important and serious crisis human beings have ever faced as a game. ? Let’s look at the nature of games.

Games can come into being any time we say a future event or happening is more important that what is happening right now. Example: in basketball we invented the rule that a ball going through the net is more important than dribbling the ball up and down. This aspect of some future happening being  more important than some present happening…the ball going through the net vs. dribbling it up the court….organizes and drives the action towards causing that outcome which at the moment exists as a “future that could happen.” Sometimes this is called the “goal” of the game, the point of the game . One form of a future is called an outcome.

That gap between the intended future and whatever is happening right now generates creative tension between the future and the present (the current reality ). Standing in that gap, intending to move the present into the future, or better said, standing in the future and calling the present to it, gives creative tension which….like with releasing a stretched rubber band…. gives energy, lots of it. When one releases that creative tension into action, one gets creative energy. Work, when constituted as a game, like all games, directs that creative energy into winning and growing.

People l o v e games.

Games can be won or lost.

There is a start time to the game and an end time.

The game is played to be won.

There are ground rules to the game which too are (or were, if already in place ) made up, invented, discovered.

The game has stakes in it that matter to the players. The outcome matters.

The play of, the flow of,  the game moves and morphs as however it does. Things do not stay put. Games allow for and expect flow…….. unpredictable actions emerge that make the game exciting.

Players must innovate on the spot and execute on the spot.

Games allow for and invite this stuff, fun………..there is pleasure and play in games, even intense, serious ones.

So ….. it is time.

Time for what?

Time to play ball with 2030orbust.org and win the biggest game ever: ending the crisis in the climate crisis !

Download the app 2030orbust.org, sign in, and get in the game. We all need you on our team !