Fate of the World, a ground-breaking download game based on state-of-the-art climate models and input from top scientists, is set to launch on Monday 28th February 2011. Red Redemption – the Oxford-based developers of this innovative strategy game – have partnered with the global TckTckTck campaign to help garner support for climate action.

Fate of the World works on the principal that people are ‘players’ in the climate change debate and can contribute towards real-life changes. A charity edition of the game is downloadable from www.tcktcktck.org/fotwgame with a percentage of proceeds going to support the campaign.

“Playing and promoting Fate of the World means breaking new ground for the climate movement, as this is an unusual type of campaign tool with a rare mix of fun, science, strategy and action. Gamers who download Fate of the World via the tcktcktck.org website directly support climate campaigns”, said Paul Horsman, Campaign Director at the Global Campaign for Climate Action that runs TckTckTck. (ENDS)

In Fate of the World gamers must find a way to deal with Earth’s ever-depleting resources and the climate crisis, whilst reconciling the needs of a growing world population that demands more food, energy, and living space. The game seeks to increase the understanding and awareness of climate change by providing gamers with the opportunity to learn and explore the subject in ways never before available.

Fate of the World is an innovative way to reach out to people, using a new framework for discussing environmental issues and exploring contemporary policy debates. Whilst playing it, gamers engage with principles like technology development, food security and wildlife adaptation, and impose policies such as banning logging in the Amazon rainforest or making all Europe’s public transport run on electricity. They can also play a reverse scenario and destroy the planet, thus learning how possible it is, in fact, to do just that.

The PC English language version of Fate of the World will be available to download at www.tcktcktck.org/fotwgame on 28 February 2011. The game is priced at £9.90 (EUR 14), with a percentage of proceeds going to TckTckTck.

The Russian Artist Nina Nikiforova is globe-trotting with her project Turning Civilization’s Waste into Art – Without Frontiers. Her approach to art and to environmentalism takes you to one of the best books ever written and, most probably, the coolest concept in environmental literature: cradle to cradle. Just like Michael Braungart and William McDonough, Nina Nikiforova believes that using fire to fight “waste” is medieval behaviour. “It is a type of paranoia. When people feel insecure, they fall back to such behaviour. the cradle to cradle approach is to see waste as food, as nutrient for what is to come. it is about how to support the biosphere and how to support the technosphere. It is about being beneficial, about not panicking and destroying resources that we can pass onto our grandchildren and their grandchildren.”

Nikiforova embraced aesthetics in a Baudelaire-ish and figurative stance; dump, grunge or waste littered on the Black Sea’s shore became an act of art and an act of learning about the Earth. She works with students of all ages she is globe-trotting tirelessly and passes along her sensibility and skills.

For a preview of her art browse http://ninagallery.ru/gallery/. I encountered Nikiforova at the Peasant’s Museum in Bucharest, Romania during an expo organized by Belaia Loshadi Gallery from Russia and Terra Mileniul III Foundation.