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Second Life climate talks on Second Nature – no air travel required

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Starting today, Second Nature — the Second Life space for all things Nature — hosts a series of climate change talks to coincide with the UN conference in Bali. Avatars can attend with a carbon-clean conscience.


From the press release:

Three speakers are already confirmed, with more sessions expected to be announced in the coming days on Nature Network, NPG’s social networking website (https://network.nature.com/blogs/user/joannascott). The confirmed programme includes:

Tues 4th Dec, 6pm GMT, 10am PST, SLT

Tara LaForce, Lecturer at Imperial College London, on her research into carbon capture and storage

Tues 11th Dec, 6pm GMT, 10am PST, SLT

Dr Simon Buckle, Director of Climate Change Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change

Thur 13th Dec, 5pm GMT, 9am PST, SLT

George Monbiot, Guardian Columnist and author of Heat: How we can stop the planet burning

All events are free and open to all. Second Life avatars can teleport to Second Nature via https://slurl.com/secondlife/SecondNature/218/213/28. For those who can’t make the events, all talks will be recorded and made available retrospectively online.

A debate has been raging about the carbon footprint of avatars in Second Life, currently calculated as approximately 75kWh per avatar per year[i], or less than the average American household would use in just three days[ii]. Estimates suggest that 75kWh of electricity produces just over 39kg of carbon dioxide (CO2)[iii], compared to over 1,200kg of CO2 per passenger generated by a round trip flight from London to New York[iv]. Joining the debate on Second Nature is certainly more environmentally sound than jumping on a plane to the Indonesian island where the official conference is taking place.

[i] https://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/12/avatars_consume.php

[ii] The average household in the US consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to Department of Energy figures. https://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs/recs2001/enduse2001/enduse2001.html

[iii] and [iv] Formula and information taken from: https://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/envrp/pdf/conversion-factors.pdf

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