
Minecraft Global Warming - nsporillo
https://github.com/nsporillo/GlobalWarming
======
js8
While I like Minecraft a lot, unfortunately, in this game, it does no good.
Minecraft is a game which completely ignores conservation of matter and
energy, which is where you start with ecology.

I wish there was a game which would get the physical foundations right* so
that the ecology could be put on as a topping. What I imagine is something
like a Civilization, where each map cell would be like 1 km2 and you could
define what industries would be in that cell (perhaps even design the content
of each cell). Each cell would contain a little piece of civilization and/or
nature. These cells would then exchange different materials with each other,
according to conservation laws.

That could be used to educationally model ecology very nicely.

Most games of this type will focus on military and/or logistical challenges of
civilization. But this game would focus on production chains, land/resource
use and sustainability.

(*IMHO, the way to get the physical foundations right is to do proper
accounting of materials. So in the game, you never really ever destroy
anything, you just transform it. If you need to round a number for some
reason, then it would become part of some global pool of "waste", from which
it could be later retrieved by some industrial process.)

~~~
gameswithgo
Sometimes when you make games too much like reality they become pointless
because you could just take part in reality.

RPGs don't simulate pooping, normally, because who cares.

~~~
jontayesp
The Sims and Roller Coaster Tycoon?

~~~
flamtap
Normally (i.e.: the vast majority of the time), games don't simulate pooping.

~~~
tripzilch
And Tetris isn't even that realistic.

~~~
flamtap
I know the type of comment I'm about to make is discouraged here but...

That was really funny. Thanks for the laugh, needed that today.

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npunt
Great idea for teaching in schools. I wonder if this works with Minecraft's
Education edition? [0]

Its nice the readme goes into detail on some lesson plan ideas. Global warming
is such an abstract problem and if you can tie it to individual's behaviors
inside a (small) simulated world, it can be a very powerful teaching tool.

[0] [https://education.minecraft.net](https://education.minecraft.net)

~~~
sandov
Is education edition open source at least?. Because I don't think teaching
proprietary software to kids is a good idea.

~~~
toomanybeersies
I tend to agree with you that there are problems with teaching kids how to use
proprietary software like Microsoft Office, but this is a bit different.

It's not like Minecraft is a business tool that you're teaching to school
kids, who will then go on to use it when they graduate. It's an educational
tool.

This would be like complaining that Carl Sagan's Cosmos or Bill Nye the
Science Guy are copyrighted videos.

~~~
sandov
Maybe I exaggerated a little bit, Minecraft is a good/decent idea, but it
would be much better if it was free software.

I imagine the disappointment in the face of the bright kid of the class when
he asks the teacher to see how the game actually works. Still, it's better
than no game at all, I guess.

~~~
johncolanduoni
The modding community definitely has a very good idea of how the game actually
works, and there is a fair amount of documentation to that effect. The Forge
sources are also pretty enlightening.

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rhn_mk1
> Currently, a tree growth will instantly reduce CO2 levels so players can
> commercially farm trees while still reducing emissions. This is not ideal.

This sounds right to me. Having trees which keep reducing carbon levels
without any effort would mean that low levels of burning have no effect on
CO2.

It's as if a unit of wood was gathering ever more and more carbon, but only
released a fraction upon burning.

~~~
rwcarlsen
The CO2->O2 process of plants puts the carbon inside the plant. So plants can
only reduce carbon in the atmosphere if they are cumulatively increasing in
mass. So steady-state farming operations will not decrease carbon in the
atmosphere.

[Edit] The tree farm in isolation does not help with CO2 - but using wood in
ways that preserve it (e.g. for furniture) does.

~~~
strainer
The ecology of this issue seems more complicated than prevailing ideas about
it, eg:

Study finds fungi responsible for most carbon sequestration in northern
forests. [1]

"... they found that 47 percent of soil carbon found on large island samples
came about due to fungi, as did a whopping 70 percent of carbon in small
island soil samples. Thus far, the team is only able to guess why there are
such differences in the soils, but theorize it's likely due to differences in
decomposition rates.

The amount of carbon stored in northern forests and how, is important because
such trees cover approximately 11 percent of the Earth's surface and recent
research has calculated that they hold approximately 16 percent of all
worldwide sequestered carbon. "

[1] [https://phys.org/news/2013-03-fungi-responsible-carbon-
seque...](https://phys.org/news/2013-03-fungi-responsible-carbon-
sequestration-northern.html)

~~~
wtallis
I don't see how measurements of "soil carbon" could be counting the carbon
that's sequestered in lumber.

~~~
empath75
Trees eventually fall over.

------
driverdan
I really like this. I've wanted climate effects in MC for a long time.

I'd like to see mod support. Different machines should have different CO2
output (eg coal coke oven, coal generators). It would change the incentives of
switching to green energy production, like electric machines with solar
panels.

------
lalos
Might as well add forest fires, in theory forests should get dryer (longer
time under packed ice, hotter summers). Don't know if this mechanism exists on
the game.

~~~
nvahalik
There are no concepts of seasons in MC, just day/night cycles. There is
weather and some relationship of weather to biomes. I think that's it.

I wonder how it handles unloaded chunks.

~~~
nsporillo
It will be a challenge to efficiently implement all of the in-game mechanics,
especially to unloaded chunks. My ideas so far are to apply most of the
effects once a chunk is reloaded, but I could also queue some changes to be
applied later - even reloading the chunk to make some changes.

~~~
wuliwong
Could you keep some running score of the entire carbon footprint of the
current chunk? Then if the player moved into a new chunk, you would use the
old chunk's last score as having some effect on the current chunk?

I guess that wouldn't account for continued tree growth or burning in the
chunk you just left though...

------
ReverseCold
Might also be interesting to add a tech mod (EnderIO, Mine factory, etc) and
make it so that every bit of RF (Redstone Flux, similar to kilojoules)
generated from burning things causes CO2 emissions.

~~~
tialaramex
In a way it feels as though most tech mods are biased towards sustainable
energy already. It's common for end game power to be impossibly efficient
solar, or nuclear type power sources which produce conveniently not so
dangerous waste. In the really ludicrous modpacks the end game is usually
infinite everything in some form.

It is after all a game, if Thaumcraft's insanity mechanic drove your character
to suicide or the Space mods actually left you adrift in empty space forever
if you make the mistake of jumping off a space station that would not be fun.

~~~
deadbunny
I don't know, there is a small but noticeable audience for permadeath hard as
nails games.

------
emsenn
Really surprised I haven't seen Eco[0] mentioned anywhere here in the
comments. It's a Minecraft-like built to focus on ecology and environment
stuff.

[0]
[https://www.strangeloopgames.com/eco/](https://www.strangeloopgames.com/eco/)

------
zaarn
That's quite an interesting plugin.

Rather annoying it won't work with Forge, would be interesting to have to deal
with this when your base runs on gigantic coal boilers from some of the Tech
mods or using Magic to offset your CO2 footprint.

I might setup a server with this and limit resources to see how it turns out
with a couple players (build a wall around 0x0, 256 by 256 blocks long, delete
everything else) once some resources turn scarce.

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guscost
This is pretty cool. And it could be the first of other climate changing
effects, like changing albedo based on reflectiveness of the landscape, or
humidity and atmospheric dynamics leading to clouds, leading to more
scattering/trapping/etc. I guess it might get hard to compute at some point,
since the serious climate models don’t run on cellphones, and they don’t even
try to run at “Minecraft block” resolution, but still.

------
crankylinuxuser
Wow. I can see a few other things to increase the scariness..

1\. Boreal forests catch fire on hotter/higher CO2 (like they are in
California now)

2\. Temperate areas get terraformed to deserts if possible

3\. Health heals slower, or not at all on high CO2 due to environmental
effects

4\. Sources of fire increase their sparking distance in which flammable things
catch on fire easier. Encourages easier spread of forest fires and player-
crafted fires.

5\. Water turns acidic, and deals slow damage. (Like the coral reefs)

~~~
nsporillo
I appreciate the ideas, I will definitely look to incorporate them!

One of my current challenges is coming up with a balanced model, since I dont
have any real server player data to analyze. Of course it will be
configurable, but i'd like for the default models not spiral to a destroyed
world quickly...

------
thetwentyone
Really like the diagram[1] (which I found the source in [2]. Another one on
Wikipedia[3]. What's not clear is how is this changing over time? Given the
greenhouse gas narrative (which I accept), how has the "back radiation"
changed over time? Over the last century is it +0.1%, +1%?

1:
[https://camo.githubusercontent.com/55b611b5709a0e90b7e9ee319...](https://camo.githubusercontent.com/55b611b5709a0e90b7e9ee319dff739107939c11/68747470733a2f2f692e696d6775722e636f6d2f6148644a7858632e706e67)

2:
[http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/trenberth.papers/BAMS...](http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/trenbert/trenberth.papers/BAMSmarTrenberth.pdf)

3:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#/media...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#/media/File:The-
NASA-Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-
radiation-fluxes.jpg)

------
oxryly1
[https://www.strangeloopgames.com/eco/](https://www.strangeloopgames.com/eco/)

------
explorigin
I'm not sure I like the concept of carbon offsets. In the real world, someone
has to plant the trees, not just buy perri-air.

~~~
nsporillo
Yeah I think a good way to keep things realistic is for the offsets to be
fulfilled by other players. If someone is too busy generating in-game
currency, they can just pay newer players or those looking for money to plant
lots of trees.

~~~
explorigin
That'd be better. Now you have a currency and an economy. :-)

------
jbattle
It's been a few years since I played, but IIRC it is trivial to quickly or
instantly (?) grow trees with bonemeal. I'd expect you could pretty easily
sequester enormous amounts of carbon in chests full of logs (or maybe even
toss the logs into lava). Sounds like a fun + ambitious project!

~~~
nsporillo
Preventing industrial farm abuse is an outstanding issue. I think penalizing
bonemeal usage might work, since keeping track of all planted trees and
calculating their footprint is a very expensive task. If players have to sit
and let the sapling grow on it's own, I think industrial farms might not be
overpowering.

~~~
driverdan
Eliminate the growth effect of bonemeal on trees. It would require more land
to have a tree farm. When you plant a large tree farm you eliminate the need
for bonemeal anyway. The probability of one sapling growing each second
approaches 1.

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sandworm101
So the first step in reducing co2 is to cut down all the trees?

I understand the why, but limiting it to new growth breaks from reality. Co2
reduction farms will be barren fields of saplings, atop mob grinders to create
feralizer.

~~~
divanvisagie
First bug report. Haha, I did look at the screen funny when it said saplings
reduce carbon immediately.

~~~
sandworm101
Better answer: eliminate coal. All furnaces run on wood. Carbon neutral.
People can now grow and sell wood. But wont be many trees around. Ya, green
energy!

------
bcheung
This sounds exactly like Factorio's pollution dynamic. It's a good system
actually. Makes you balance production in your factories vs enemies coming and
attacking you.

~~~
Aardwolf
Nothing 4-8 laser towers with walls around them can't handle though :)

~~~
cjslep
I agree. Factorio pollution only really matters early game pre-military
science even on death worlds.

I wish survival was more of a challenge.

------
ajsharp
This is incredibly cool and makes me want to play minecraft again.

------
GuB-42
Acid rain?

AFAIK acid rain and global warming are separate things. Global warming is
caused mostly by CO2, while acid rains are caused mostly by SO2 and NOx.

SO2 and NOx are very nasty due to their tendency to form sulfuric and nitric
acid, hence acid rains. However, they also cause global cooling by reflecting
incoming radiation.

It looks like that mod is not really about global warming but pollution in
general, which is fine, but calling it "global warming" does more harm than
good IMHO.

~~~
nsporillo
Acid Rain was more of less one of the suggestions I've gotten from players on
the server I frequent.

You are right though, we should keep things entirely factually accurate. I
removed the acid rain section and scratched the plans to implement it.

~~~
hwillis
Nitrogen oxides are naturally caused by combustion (and volcanism), so it
makes sense to me to have it. It's dependent only on the heat of the burn so
wood and coal fires create quite a lot. Coal also produces a lot of sulfur
oxides.

Hydrogen-heavy fuels like light oil and natural gas are the only fuels that
burn cool enough to not produce significant amounts of acid.

------
em3rgent0rdr
"Imagine Earth" [1] is a game about competing firms engaging in colonization
of a shared planet which heavily incorporates pollution and global warming
into the gameplay...I've sunk many hours. Players need to balance economic
development with reducing emissions, and have to pay an emission fee if they
exceed a limit.

[1] [https://www.imagineearth.info/](https://www.imagineearth.info/)

------
Terr_
I'm trying to think of ways to "destroy" CO2 that aren't ruled out by the
readme-description, ex:

1\. Burn a tree in-place.

2\. Harvest wood blocks, and destroy them (lava, fire, cactus, TNT or
creepers, abandoned until disappear.)

3\. Same as above, but throwing stacks of wood-derived items like sticks,
doors, boats, etc.

4\. A wood-derived item which is _placed_ and then destroyed by item-specific
mechanics (boat crash, tool breakage)

~~~
nsporillo
Yeah I think sequestering carbon in decoration, blocks, or items is okay.

Burning a tree however should incur some penalty, after all - wildfires are a
positive feedback loop in reality and it'd be trivial to detect.

Might have to deviate from the idea that the global carbon score is the sum of
everyones individual carbon score, since there will certainly be lots of
events which contribute CO2 without player intervention.

Thanks!

~~~
Terr_
Always happy to nitpick :P

In terms of minimizing exploits, perhaps the easiest approach is to pre-
compute a carbon score for all blocks and items, and then focus on catching
all the situations where those blocks/items can be destroyed. By default,
assume 100% of the carbon goes back into the biosphere, and then write
special-case logic for stuff like boats breaking into wood.

A few more what-ifs:

* If players toss wood-bits into the deep sea to disappear (as opposed to letting them disappear on land) should that count as sequestering it? Or would that almost be too easy?

* I forgot about trades -- if a villager provides/accepts wood, perhaps it is best to assume it was just freshly grown or is about to be burnt.

* Other dimensions. What should happen if players make a gate into a room in the Nether and do all their smelting there? Alas, we don't have that option in real life :P

------
lapnitnelav
There's actually a whole minecraft-esque game being built with sustainability
/ human footprint in mind.

It's much more complex than this mod I believe but still in early release.

[http://www.strangeloopgames.com/how-to-save-the-
environment-...](http://www.strangeloopgames.com/how-to-save-the-environment-
by-letting-kids-destroy-it/)

------
cbHXBY1D
It would be great if one of the "climate damages" that takes place at 14.5° C
(and a little more at each higher temp) was desertification. I think grassland
turning into desert would be one of the more visible effects of global
warming.

~~~
nsporillo
That is certainly an option we'd like to support. The temperature thresholds
and effects will be configurable, loaded from a file into memory.

The sample damages I provided are mostly for illustration so development can
have some guidance.

------
theyinwhy
> Allow players to purchase "carbon offsets" which instantly reduce their
> personal carbon score

I'd prefer buying carbon offsets doing exactly nothing as in real life. It is
a cheat that's not benefiting anyone.

~~~
0xCMP
They do something, but I think it's not correct in Minecraft. In real life it
increases costs which means lowering that cost has a benefit to the bottom
line (i.e. a well meaning employee can justify this to people measured by
profits/costs/etc.).

However, in MC where is the profit and does a carbon credit actually encourage
players to try to __do something __seems interesting thing to see.

~~~
bostik
Well, one could make them arbitrarily unfair. Purchasing a carbon credit could
reduce a player's own emission score but increase a random opponent's score by
the same amount.

------
jimmcslim
Planned Features list seems to omit the opportunity to integrate climate
change deniers as a gameplay element...

~~~
Fnoord
Does this game even exist?

~~~
js8
Democracy 3? You can have green policies and there is a "motorists" interest
group which opposes them.

------
Kiro
For another game where you need to deal with CO2 pollution in a very
interesting way see Oxygen Not Included.

------
netule
I'm not sure if I'm missing it here, but what are the negative environmental
effects in-game?

~~~
drspacemonkey
From way down at the bottom:

14.0 C - No effects [Baseline]

14.5 C - | Minor changes |

15.0 C - | Localized Acid Rain | Some mobs spawn less | Some mobs spawn more |

16.0 C - | +1 Sea Level Rise | Tropical fish die |

17.0 C - |Global Acid Rain | Some trees no longer grow | +1 Sea Level Rise |
Coral Reefs die |

18.0 C - |Noxious Area Potion Effect Clouds | Farm yields decrease | +2 Sea
Level Rise | All Snow/Ice melts |

19.0 C - | All fish die | Random Forest Fires | Slower Health Regen |

20.0 C - "Devastation".. Highly polluted chunks get permanent severe area
potion effects, forest fires, etc

~~~
netule
Thanks, I didn't notice it tucked into the bottom there.

~~~
nsporillo
Yeah that was hastily put together. I updated the readme with a real table for
readability.

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poisonarena
I like how pollution is handled in factorio

~~~
make3
how is it handled?

~~~
unimpressive
Looks like it attracts larger numbers of aliens to attack you:
[https://wiki.factorio.com/Pollution](https://wiki.factorio.com/Pollution)

This seems...not quite the right message to send people. (Though it's not
exactly _wrong_ when you take into account climate refugees and resource wars)

------
sjilo
I love this

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jojokoko
This is how i dream to do!

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dsere
I really liked the idea and encouraged me to look into Minecraft Plugin
development as well. Cool Project!

