Virtual reality games offer visceral taste of a climate-changed future

Glasco (left) showing the Adrienne Arsht–Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center virtual reality video game to a user at the COP27 UN climate talks in in Sharm el-Sheikh, in November 2022. — Adrienne Arsht–Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center/Handout via Thomson Reuters Foundation

LONDON: It’s 2040 in Miami, and a powerful hurricane has swamped the low-lying city. You stand alone under a dark, foreboding sky, chest-high waves sloshing around you, an abandoned car floating nearby one of the few objects visible in the expanse of water.

A ball-shaped robot then hovers into view, urging you to grab a computer hard drive from the car. Once you insert the drive into the robot, you’re whisked out of the harrowing scenario and back to safety.