A tech giant’s electronic waste floats to the bottom of the ocean, several fish species consume its metal and chemical remnants and nearby flora wither in its wake. Knowing this pollution is happening is different from seeing it firsthand. Would the impact of climate change be more tangible if virtual reality (VR) helped people visualize it? This development could inspire a new generation of advocates.
How Is VR Being Used to Talk About Climate Change?
Countless people feel climate apathy or anxiety, redirecting their attention to less stressful thoughts and activities instead of solutions. Facing real-time climate change head-on is often inaccessible – traveling to the deforested Amazon or pollutant-infested Pacific is impractical for most. These obstacles make it easy to create excuses to ignore climate activism.
However, VR makes climate education convenient and immersive with curated exhibitions, films and experiences to incite productive discourse. Lifelong learners can explore game-changing facilities like the Audubon Nature Institute or stand on Greenland’s melting ice caps. Here are a few examples of innovative projects in the VR space:
- The Crystal Reef: An exploration of ocean acidification from Stanford that compares coral reefs before and after climate change.
- BBC’s Earth: Life in VR: A journey through California and its waters encouraging joyful adventuring and animal interactions.
- Tree: An experience where the player turns into a rainforest tree in a climate determined to destroy it.
- The Infinite: An exhibit that puts viewers in space in an attempt to replicate the overview effect felt by astronauts.
- Gondwana VR: A deep-dive into the Daintree Rainforest in Australia, showing viewers how it will look every year up to 2090.
VR has enough novelty that it has the opportunity to grip viewers on topics they never heard or cared about before. While going underwater and seeing exotic animals elicits a compassionate response, VR may also allow humans to see through the eyes of others worldwide living with climate impacts daily. VR is an ideal space to expand perspectives on environmental issues, even if only for a few minutes.
What Are the Potential Advantages of VR Eco-Experiences?
The hope is VR will raise awareness about climate issues, leading to action. Environmental destruction is a terrifying phenomenon, but it must be met with climate optimism, which VR can provide. What other benefits and feelings could VR incite in viewers?
- Enhanced understanding of complex natural topics
- Amplified empathy for all species
- More well-rounded worldview
- Higher sense of self-efficacy to tackle climate change
However, VR‘s advantage over other forms of activism, such as lectures or journalism, is it has a higher chance of influencing behavior.
Even if the travel experience is only digital, it positively impacts natural connectedness, making visitors feel more intertwined with narrative engagement and stimuli. People will feel part of something influential when they respond physiologically and psychologically as if they were truly there.
How Could VR Impact Ecotourism?
Ecotourism is a complexly layered aspect of sustainable activism. Growing awareness is making the sector’s projected worth skyrocket to $374.2 billion by 2028. People want to visit regions where climate change may permanently alter them.
They also want to learn more about how they can help fix ecosystems by seeing the damage in person. While these experiences may be invaluable, habitats and species may be too delicate to deal with an influx of human interactivity.
VR could be the sweet spot for allowing people to learn and live in these areas with the lowest impact possible – especially for those primarily there to sight-see and not learn for activism’s sake.
It also allows humans to be in potentially dangerous circumstances around predators or toxic plants, while appreciating it instead of developing a fear-induced mindset. Viewing the world in its present beauty may be enough to make people stand up for it now.
Appealing to the Senses
Climate change is often a nebulous concept. VR gives people a way to witness the changing world and what they can do to help protect it. It will inspire innovation and passion, igniting climate action the world desperately needs to reach its decarbonization goals by 2040.
The post Can Virtual Reality Help People Feel Engaged With the Climate Crisis? appeared first on Datafloq.
