The oil crash has started at World Without Oil
Part Myst, part Inconvenient Truth, part game, part serious, the World Without Oil website has launched. The site attempts to demonstrate what will happen to our world now that a new oil shock has taken place. In case you missed it, peak oil took place on April 30, and things are changing rapidly (check the oil price, above): bananas are no longer available, McMansions are emptying out, etc.
All those events are part of the game's alternate reality. The "news" is provided both by the website operators and through individuals writing blogs, posting videos to YouTube and other Web 2.0 content. It's a way for the Internet to get a dose of oil-free reality. Or one version of it, anyway. I haven't been playing along, but it seems like it could be a good teaching tool. Have you been participating? If so, what do you think of the system? Is it realistic? Scare-mongering? Educational? Let us know.
There's a non-alternate reality press release on the site after the break.
[Source: World Without Oil]
World Without Oil, First Alternate Reality Game to Confront a Major Social Issue: A Worldwide Oil Shock
All Web Users Invited to Witness the Oil Shock, Document Their Experiences, Apply Collective Imagination to Solve a Real World Problem
The serious game for the public good begins April 30, at www.worldwithoutoil.org
"Play it - before you live it"
SAN FRANCISCO, April 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Everyone knows that "someday" the world may face an oil shortage. What if that day was sooner than you thought? What if it started today? How would your life change? PBS' Independent Lens and its Electric Shadows Web-original programming today launched WORLD WITHOUT OIL, a live interactive month-long alternate reality event to explore this very real possibility.
Produced by the design team at Writerguy, WORLD WITHOUT OIL is the first alternate reality game to enlist the Internet's vast collective intelligence and imagination to confront and attempt to solve a real-world problem: what happens when a great economy built entirely on cheap oil begins to run short? This grassroots experience looks at the impact on people's lives-work, social, family and personal-and explores what happens when our thirst for oil begins to exceed supply.
"Alternate reality gaming is emerging as the way for the world to imagine and engineer a best-case-scenario future," says WORLD WITHOUT OIL's participation architect, noted futurist Jane McGonigal. "It's been summed up this way: 'If you want to change the future, play with it first."
Beginning April 30, the nerve center for the realistic oil crisis is at worldwithoutoil.org, with links to citizen stories in blogs, videos, photos, audio and phone messages posted all over the Internet. At the grassroots website, people will learn the broad brushstrokes of the crisis, such as the current price of a gallon of gas or how widespread shortages are. Players will fill in the details, by creating Web documents that express their own perspectives from within the crisis. People of any age or Web ability can participate in the free event. Individuals are getting involved across the nation, and over 400 people have signed up to play.
"The 'alternate reality' of WORLD WITHOUT OIL is not fantasy, it's a very real possibility," says Writerguy.
Creative Director Ken Eklund. "And the game challenge is one of imagination. No one person or small group can hope to figure out the complex rippling effects of an oil shock, but the collective imagination can. And understanding it is a serious, positive step toward preventing it."
WORLD WITHOUT OIL will challenge players and player communities to engage the creative and collaborative skills that will be tested in an oil shock, and to document their ideas on the web. The game will honor outstanding player contributions with WWO None-Ton Awards: offsets of one metric ton (2,204.6 lbs) of carbon dioxide, accomplished through increased energy efficiency implemented by CarbonFund.Org. The game will bestow a total of 100 such awards, making WORLD WITHOUT OIL a "carbon-neutral" effort. To assist middle and high school teachers who want to incorporate the game into class activities, the designers have established a web page: http://www.worldwithoutoil.org/teach.
WORLD WITHOUT OIL is produced by the Writerguy team, and is a joint project of PBS' Independent Lens and its Electric Shadows Web-original programming.
Presented by Independent Lens and ITVS Interactive and funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Electric Shadows sites explore the arts, culture and society through innovative forms and meet the ITVS mission of taking creative risks and advancing civic participation.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike Z 10:22PM (5/04/2007)
For me the life of me I fail to get my mind around why 'peak oil' will represent a very fast shock to our society. If you look at the peak of US oil production, for the first 10 years after our peak, oil production declined only at about 1% per year. In fact in 1980, we produced 88% of the oil we did when we peaked in 1970. (and 76% in 1990 and 60% in 2000).
Its seems that the idea of a 'peak' and all of a sudden society goes to hell is more a dream of doom sayers as opposed to the likely scenario.
The reality is that if twenty years off from peak, if we had 75% of our production capacity it seems really reasonable that in that sort of time we could work alternatives. Hell, a doubling of fuel economy would likely work for the first ten years of it.
The decline of oil production is a problem, but I fail to see it as a heat attack as opposed to a slow growing cancer that needs a regiment of treatment.
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Tachy 1:29AM (5/05/2007)
Our gasoline-price today in germany:
1,40 € / liter
1 gallon = 4,5 liters
$1 = 1,35 €
Our REAL price today is $4,66/gal for consumers!
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TG 2:42AM (5/05/2007)
Fear mongering is such profitable fun, even Al Gore is in it and making big bucks.
When John Q Citizen wakes up to his craving for the EV and understands the freedom of never getting hosed at the gas pumps again, not to mention the saving of $200 to $450 every month, gas and diesel demand will plummit.
Baseline demand for Chemicals, plastics, jet aviation and Heavy Duty applications will always be there, but there will be oil surpluses.
Also, consider bio fuels easing the pressure.
65-million Poet ethanol plant coming to Marion, Ohio
Poet*s new slogan == *Then. Now. Always. Poet.* is kind of ironic because Poet is a new name in biofuels. It's a rebranding of Broin, a 20-year old company that currently operates 19 production facilities in the United States and markets more than one billion gallons of ethanol each year.
And we can now add a 65-million gallon a year ethanol plant to Poet's empire with the upcoming groundbreaking of a plant that will be built in Marion, Ohio. There will be a ground-breaking ceremony for the new $130 million plant on May 16.
The plant will use *21 million bushels of locally grown corn and produce 178,000 tons of premium Dakota Gold Enhanced Nutrition Distillers Products(TM),* Poet says. Poet is eight more ethanol plants in various planning stages.
========== AutoBlogGreen.com
Does this mean they could be serious about it?
The Oil Crash game can*t hold water.=TG
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Nils 6:47AM (5/05/2007)
Tachy, I think you made 2 errors in your calculation: a USgal equals to 3.79 liters and the euro is worth 1.35 dollars, not the opposite. So that makes gasoline $7.16 per gallon in Germany. You read it correctly, that's more than seven bucks! Of course Germans drive TSI's, TDI's and heck they even drive on veggie oil that's available at the gas station... Looks like high gas prices don't necesarily mean the economy is going down the drain... It's perfectly doable and it's THE most effective incentive for people to start doing something about it.
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Tachy 8:24AM (5/05/2007)
@Nils:
oops.. ok, sorry my fault with the euros.
It's time, that the US switch to the metric system, feet, miles, gallons etc. and their odd conversions are antique!
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Alex84 9:25AM (5/05/2007)
In Norway we pay on average about 11.5 NOK per liter gasoline, thats 7.3 USD/Gallon according to google. A bit more expensive than in Germany as mentioned above I think.
http://www.google.no/search?hl=no&q=11.5+nok+per+liter+in+usd+per+gallon&meta=
Americans, please stop whining. ;)
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TG 1:45PM (5/05/2007)
We Americans and Canadians will only stop whining when we discover the Electric Car. = TG
PS: Then we will start whining about the monthly Mileage Tax rate to pay for highways maintenence. = TG
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George Krpan 12:16AM (5/06/2007)
There ya' go. Gas costs more than 7 bux a gallon in Germany and Norway and it hasn't ruined their economy.
You want people to drive less and drive smaller cars? Increase the price of gas to $7.
Use the windfall to fund the rebuilding of the railroads and for public transportation.
No new roads, we won't need them.
Get big trucks off the roads, they ruin them and clog traffic.
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Der Alte 4:40AM (5/06/2007)
Just because gas is $7 USD a gallon in Germany does not mean such a rise in North America would not predicate signficant economic problems. Europeans drive a lot less than North Americans because their cities are much more dense. Public transit is much more convenient and cost effective because of those densities. High speed rail connects many major cities.
North Americans are much more dependant on autos for getting to and fro and for trade. Sprawling North American cities designed with the thought that cheap gas will last forever will have difficulties to be sure. Further complicating this is North American addiction to consumer debt. Many families live with their finances hanging by a thread. Add the over inflated housing and mortgage market where that last many years of growth has been predicated by the flourishing of sub prime mortgages and you have a recipe for disaster. A lot of those over priced suburban homes will lose value quickly the more the price of gas goes up. Increased bankruptcies will create a cascading effect across the US economy as lenders realize they've left their credit purse strings too loose in the pursuit of ever increasing profits and it will finally bite them in the ass.
That said, the economy will correct and people will adjust over time. Just don't assume the North American economy will get off scott free just because the Germans can live with $7 a gallon gas. Of course, there's also the spiralling debt of the US government....much of that debt is owned by less that hospitable creditors such as the People's Republic of China. Makes you wonder where the cheap labour will be coming from in 50 years time?
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TG 5:38PM (5/06/2007)
Herr Der Alte,
Pardon my *Fwench*, but you are so correct.
Trillion$ of debt and overheated dollar printing equipment seems the classic mix for delivery of another *29.
Almost urgent then that one should be driving an EV. Say a Phoenix EV 4 door short box SUT. The $400 cash monthly fuel payment savings could be a real relief. = TG
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George Krpan 11:37PM (5/06/2007)
If gas were $7 a gallon the US would GET like Europe. Suburbia is unsustainable. It was the squandering of our post war wealth. What are we going to do? Try and hang on to something that has no future?
The government would have plenty of dough if gas were $7 a gal.
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Mike Z 11:48PM (5/06/2007)
Nah, suburbia is not all that bad. A vast majority of people's daily commute is under 40 miles. If that were done one a EV/PHEV that would only be about 7 KwH per day (or about 20% of the electrical energy usage of the average American). Seems sustainable to me.
BTW you must never of been to Europe, as they are starting to have problems with sprawl just like us thanks to high property prices.
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George Krpan 7:57AM (5/07/2007)
Suburbia sucks and yes, I've been to Europe.
Future generations will look at our living arrangements and driving habits and ask themselves, what were they thinking? McMansions in the far flung asteroid belts of deepest darkest suburbia will be inhabited by multiple families with livestock corralled in the back yard and crops growing in the front yard.
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Mike Z 11:45AM (5/07/2007)
And you make these predictions based on what exactly?
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George Krpan 8:48PM (5/07/2007)
It's not just MY opinion. I don't blame you for being unable to protract what's going to happen when the dinosaur tits run dry. After all, all we have known in the past 100 years or so is cheap oil and plenty of it. We will not be able to sustain our current living arrangements, suburbia, even with alternative energy. Our living arrangements have to change too.
Good read for you. The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler. His website. http://www.kunstler.com/
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Turboguy 6:45PM (5/10/2007)
In reference to post #8 by George Krpan: Um I think you've missed a point or three about this place known as "The real world", and rather large ones to boot.
1. Public transportation sucks. There's infinite places that I'd rather go that I can only drive to. Further if I live outside a major metropolitan area how am I going to be able to hop onto a train or bus when there are no train tracks near my house or work and no buses? Oh, wait, did I manage to point out that there's other people in the world that your ideas are infeasable for?
2. If you raise the price of gasoline to seven dollars a gallon you'd have crashed the economy. The problem with the conversions is that they're getting paid more and gas costs more. The amount of fuel gained for amount of work expended is comparable. Minimum wage in the UK: £5.35 an hour. Minimum wage in the US: $5.15 an hour. The worker in the UK is making nearly twice the amount as the American worker, and spends the same amount numerically on gasoline.
3. You made me laugh, I'm still chuckling about this one too: You said, "Get big trucks off the roads, they ruin them and clog traffic"
You do realize that the roads were designed for the trucks and people driving on them is just an added bonus? You further realize that the mode of the vast majority of what you eat, wear, do, and are entertained by came in the back of a truck right? Sure trains move quite a lot of product all over the place. What solution are you possibly going to give to get it from the train station to the store shelves? Pygmies? Magic?
I do love it when someone as shortsighted as you makes posts like that with absolutely zero forethought to your little solutions to rising energy costs. And thank you for a good laugh.
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