What it is
Half-Earth Socialism: The Game is a free browser-based strategy game based on the book by Vettese and Pendergrass. Players take the role of a planetary planner, making decisions about energy, food, land use, and industry to keep global temperature below 2 degrees C while maintaining quality of life. The game models real climate science, economic constraints, and political feedback: choose nuclear power, and face public resistance; choose veganism, and face food culture backlash; rewild land, and face food production tradeoffs.
Why we picked this
This game does what no book or documentary can: it makes you feel the tradeoffs of climate policy in real-time. Every decision has consequences that ripple through interconnected systems. Want to rewild 50% of land? Where does your food come from? Want 100% renewable energy? How do you handle intermittency? The game is deliberately difficult because the real problem is deliberately difficult. It is the most intellectually honest climate education tool available, and it is free.
Key takeaways
- The game models real climate science (carbon budgets, temperature feedback loops) and real economic constraints (food production, energy density, labor requirements).
- Most first-time players fail to meet both climate and quality-of-life targets, viscerally demonstrating the difficulty of balancing competing demands in climate policy.
- Free to play in any browser at play.half.earth, making it accessible for classroom use, workshops, and individual exploration without any technical barriers.