While looking into the
global electric grid, I ran across this
OS Earth Global Simulation Workshop, a role-playing game engaging students in the challenges of running the planet. This is apparently a descendant of
Buckminster Fuller’s
World Game where he wanted students to aspire to...
"make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone."
Still a worthwhile goal. And with computers, the range of games and simulations accessible to all has never been greater. These games and simulations can be tremendous tools for teaching and learning as documented by MIT alums Edery & Mollick in their book,
Changing the Game. Consider the popular Sim video game series by
Will Wright at Maxis, including
SimEarth. Curiously enough, Wright's first big success,
SimCity, was based on the Urban Dynamics work of MIT Sloan Professor
Jay Forrester, creator of the
System Dynamics method. Forrester went on to build the World Dynamics models which became the basis for the
Limits to Growth family of models (and popular books).
While the intellectual battle still rages between the so-called
peaknik doomsayers and their opposites, the
cornucopian doomslayers -- both with different prognoses about what is happening and/or will happen with our Planet Earth and our role in helping or hindering things -- what we can at least agree on is the need for more data, greater transparency, sharing of underlying assumptions, opening up of the underlying models -- whether mental, econometric, system dynamic, computational, etc -- and a relentless pursuit of greater understanding and truth. Games and simulations can play a transformative role here.
In the face of challenging economic times and general doom and gloom, it's worth keeping in mind the big picture and long-term. And short of thinking about planet-wide problems or of going beyond our cradle, there are few human things bigger and more exciting than thinking of future vital cities. Such cities develop over decades -- perhaps faster or slower with economic booms and busts -- but they are enduringly valuable. I've written before about various developments in the MENACA region, including the Dubai and Abu Dhabi boom cities, the Economic Cities of Saudi Arabia, Al Noor bridging between Yemen and Djibouti, the Arabian trans-logistics network, and the Hummus network of cities in the vital Levant, including Aqaba. And courtesy of Inhabitat writer Ali Kriscenski's story City of Silk Rail Network to Link Middle East & China here we have some lovely visualizations of another emergent node in this network, Madinat al Hareer or City of Silk in north-eastern Kuwait (towards Basra), designed by CivicArts, Eric Kuhne & Associates... 
