'SustainableSims' is dedicated to creating Sims content that considers how The Sims 4 can be used as a tool to combat the climate crisis.
The climate crisis affects the entire planet. This human-caused crisis is irreversible on a timescale of a single lifetime, and will still worsen. Combatting this crisis will require social change driven by new socialtechnological imaginaries. Not only do we need to develop new societal goals, we need to design new societal, economic, and cultural structures. The climate crisis arose from a network of interwoven issues from processes such as capitalism, classism, and colonialism. Fighting the climate crisis is thus inherently a political act.
Video games can help facilitate combatting this crisis through the communication (meta)practices they make possible. They help us question the way we live, and then let us propose new alternatives. Using this angle, The Sims can be an ecocritical tool to consider new imaginaries.
Tara
Open to requests!
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Sources:
Ghosh, Amitav. “Amitav Ghosh: where is the fiction about climate change?” The Guardian, October 28, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/28/amitav-ghosh-where-is-the-fiction-about-climate-change-.
López, Antonio. Ecomedia Literacy: Integrating Ecology into Media Education (New York, London: Routledge,
2021).
Huber, Matt T. “Ecological Politics for the Working Class,” Catalyst 3, no. 1 (Spring 2019). https://catalystjournal.com/2019/07/ecological-politics-for-the-working-class.
Werning, Stefan. “Understanding and Communicating the Climate Crisis through Ecomodding.” Communication +1 8, no. 1 (October 2021).
NASA. “The Effects of Climate Change.” Accessed January 11, 2022, https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/.