WASHINGTON POST • September 19, 2022
Paul Slovic, president of Decision Research, has suggested it’s difficult to motivate people because many can’t conceive of how climate change will affect their lives. Seen this way, the Hurricane Simulator game is an apt metaphor for the separation between abstract notions about climate disasters and their tangible real-life outcomes. The “game” is a “unique attraction,” a seemingly harmless thrill — so much easier to step inside a box than to confront the true stories of hardship, courage and survival like those I’ve recorded over the past five years. A Category 5 hurricane is not a simulation. But for the many stakeholders who find climate issues too removed from their own experiences to worry about, or too inconvenient to worry about when there are corporate profit margins to consider, this global crisis will remain merely a game — until it’s far too late for any of us to win. ~ Ricia Anne Chansky Sancinito, Humanities Action Lab