The U.S. Department of Defense is spending millions of dollars to better understand the potential effects of climate change. For those of the public who don’t get their news from Info-Wars or Epoch Times, climate change is understood to be a serious threat. Yet even informed people might expect climate change to politely unfold in some neat, predictable order. Not so! It will hit us like a series of sucker punches—different levels of chaos, in different places, at random times. And that’s not just an environmental issue; it’s a social, political, and military crisis cocktail waiting to blow up in our faces.
To communicate the planet-sized risks and uncertainties of climate change to military planners trying to figure out if the world will even be habitable in 20 years, the RAND Corporation made the bold, logical decision…to make a card game. Because if there’s one thing that says “life-threatening climate crisis,” it’s sitting around a conference table, drawing cards and saying, “Ooooh, I drew the ‘Massive Flood’ card! Guess we lose a base!”
The game, specifically developed for the Pentagon, is set in the thrilling world of 2040 South Asia, where players draw from a deck of 31 cards, each representing a climate disaster waiting to ruin someone’s day. Each card showcases a little slice of future South Asian doom in the 2040s. Draw a card, any card! You might get “Terrifying Deluges” or “Our Wells Run Dry”—you know, the new normal. But wait, there’s more! Food shortages impacting millions, collapsing infrastructure, and just maybe a little tension between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan. Each new card just stacks disaster on top of disaster. There’s no word if a home version will be available, but if you’re a Millennial or Gen Z, just be patient.
The details can be found at the Rand website’s article:
