Red, Green, and Blue

For many, the UN’s COP14 global climate talks going on in Poznan, Poland are a long way away, but for some, they are only as far away as your computer

[Editor's note: In a recent piece about the Poznan climate talks and their existence in the virtual world of 'Second Life' I ended with a plea for more information; a plea answered by journalist Richard Elen.]

Green Options readers are probably not the only people who will be struck by the irony of an intended attendee at the Poznan Climate Talks being unable to leave Stansted Airport on his decidedly anti-environmental RyanAir flight because of climate protestors closing the runway. In many ways, flying to an environmental conference makes you part of the problem, not part of the solution.

I was always very conscious, in attending the UN Climate Negotiations in the run-up to Kyoto (which were often held in Geneva) that flying to conferences was a bad idea. Even driving there, or best of all going by train where possible, was exacerbating a problem we were there to try to do something about.

In those days, some 15 years ago, however, there were few other options. Video conferencing existed but it required going to a specially-equipped location and cost a lot of money. You were limited to one small group making a presentation to another small group. And while the Internet made it much easier to get information out of a conference, it did not initially help you a great deal to get in.

>>More on UN COP14 global climate talks

Video conferencing is still around, of course, and has got better and cheaper, and you can even do quite a bit with no special equipment or additional expense at all, given a broadband connection. But even so, you are limited, essentially, to presenting a paper or lecturing, with some capability for questions. That might be the core content of a conference, but it omits the central and vital aspects of meeting, networking, chatting and exchanging views and information.

The advent of so-called “Web 2.0″, in which a variety of internet-based applications – such as social networking, on-line gaming-style 3D graphics, instant messaging and the Web – are brought together under one umbrella, opens up whole new possibilities. The most important of these, I would argue, are virtual worlds.

The Metaverse of ‘Second Life’

The most popular virtual world, or “metaverse” as they are also known, by far is Second Life, simply known as “SL” (as opposed to “RL” or “real life”), now five years old and with millions of inhabitants, or “residents” on its books (though only a percentage of those are actually active: there are generally around 50-70,000 people “in-world” at a time). You create an account – free of charge unless you want to “own” virtual real estate in-world – and then go on to create your “avatar”: your representative in-world whom you model, design, clothe and through which you express yourself. Residents can create and manipulate a wide variety of objects, limited primarily by their “typist’s” creativity; and buy and sell their creations in shops, art galleries and other communal locations, using an in-world currency convertible to US$. In addition there is in many areas a very strong sense of community, based around like-minded individuals getting together to co-create a virtual environment.

Corporates were quick to jump on what they saw as a new marketing opportunity in SL, but few took the time and effort to see what the in-world community was looking for or even who they were and thus often failed to reach the poorly-understood goals they had set themselves. SL residents average mid-thirties in age and tend to be creative professionals and entrepreneurs, and while businesses created in-world have flourished and often rapidly surpassed the ill-conceived efforts of the corporates, the organisations that have found Second Life particularly useful and fruitful are in the educational and non-profit sectors. Second Life incarnations of charities such as Relay For Life have raised significant real-world amounts in-world and libraries and universities have been particularly quick to see the benefits of “accidental learning”, where residents can come to understand a topic more fully by modelling and experiencing it virtually.

It’s easy to dismiss activities like virtual worlds as some kind of game that distracts participants from the real world and solving its problems, but nothing could be further from the truth. In SL you can meet like-minded individuals from all over the world – remember, behind every avatar is a living, breathing human sitting at their computer – and generate ideas, plans, and solve problems in discussion. Not only is thinking of an environment like SL as a game counter-productive, it’s about as meaningful as saying the same about email or the web.

Unlike the typical video conferencing tool, holding a virtual conference in-world can include all the elements of a real-world event with none of the travel-related emissions (though of course there are emissions associated with running the servers, computers and the internet access to them): you are not merely limited to making presentations. People – represented by their avatars – can meet, talk, discuss topics one-to-one or in a group, or show each other examples, models or multimedia. Typically organisers will rent an area of virtual land in-world and set up an auditorium with a large video screen, meeting and exhibition areas and all the usual accoutrements of a conference – but in the virtual world. At present the tendency is to run virtual conferences in tandem with a real-world conference (as is the case with Poznan), allowing information to feed both ways, but as time goes by we are beginning to see more and more stand-alone virtual events.

An increasing number of non-profits have a permanent presence in-world and have built extensive information and exploration areas to help people understand their subjects. One example is OneClimate. You can get a basic introduction to their activities by watching this video:

As time goes by, the possibilities of virtual worlds like Second Life will become more and more advanced and it will be possible to create more elaborate and effective on-line meetings, information centres and immersive educational experiences. The technology is developing extremely rapidly and in an age where we may be seeing the last of cheap international travel, meeting in virtual worlds, particularly those, like SL, where you can co-create almost anything you like (not all virtual worlds allow the same degree of flexibility) is an increasingly attractive option – an option where almost anything is possible if you have the will to create it.

Image: Pathfinder Linden via flickr under a Creative Commons License

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