History Main / GreenAesop

** ''Superman For Earth'', a 1990s Earth Day comic printed entirely on recycled paper, shows Superman trying to clean up Earth by himself before realziing it's too big for even him when he has a nightmare where Metropolis springs up out of natural surroundings and chokes everything. Notable for not always having easy answers; when Superman takes all the garbage away, one of the people protesting the landfill thinks "But where ''will'' it go?"

** ''Superboy #171'' revolves around a teamup with the future Aquaman, who lamented an irresponsible oil company killing his dolphin friends with spill and nearly died to it himself. He and Superboy team up to take the fight to the oil companies when peacefully petitioning doesn't work, but the end narration notes that there's still a long way to go before the threat is extinguished for good.

** ''Superman For Earth'', a 1990s Earth Day comic printed entirely on recycled paper. Notable for not always having easy answers; when Superman takes all the garbage away, one of the people protesting the landfill thinks "But where ''will'' it go?"

* The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E8ForceOfNature Force of Nature]]" has two alien scientists showing evidence that starships' warp drives are damaging the fabric of spacetime in highly traveled areas and creating dangerous anomalies, some of which threaten their planet. (The parallel to pollution from modern-day vehicles is clear.) It results in the Federation banning starships from exceeding warp 5 except in emergencies.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants''' had a two-minute short called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlkprv-Upco "The Endless Summer"]], which was originally made for ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_to_America_(TV_special) Earth to America]]'', and later a half-hour special called "[=SpongeBob's=] Last Stand", which was about him and Patrick doing everything they could to stop a super highway from being built through Jellyfish Fields. Everyone approves of the project and no sooner was the pavement put down that the grass dies and the air becomes dingy. Also, [=SpongeBob's=] livelihood is ruined since the highway baricades the Krusty Krab restaurant. Just as Mr. Krabs is about to shut down his restaurant and give Plankton the secret recipe, a swarm of jellyfish, being hardy and adaptable animals, and with Jellyfish Fields gone, they need to find a new home and become descend on Bikini Bottom and become a major nuisance.

** Creator/JamesCameron even followed the movie with some environmental campaigns - to the point that the ''Avatar'' DVD includes "A Message from Pandora", which follows Cameron's visits to the Amazon and protests against [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belo_Monte_Dam a local dam which is yet to be built]].

* ''Film/TwoBrothers'' ends with a message about the endangerment of tigers do to habitat destruction and hunting.

* ''WesternAnimation/HowToTrainYourDragon'' is clearly about humanity's co-existence with animals (in its case, dragons) and learning how to work with them instead of eliminating them. The SequelSeries ''WesternAnimation/DragonsRidersOfBerk'' goes further as many episodes are centered around RealLife issues in a fantasy setting. Examples of this include destruction of the eco-system, animal fightings and the use of animals for hard labor.

* Music/{{REM}}'s 1986 album ''Lifes Rich Pageant'' features the song "Cuyahoga", about [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the Cuyahoga River incident]] mentioned above, and "Fall On Me", which was originally about acid rain.

* ''VideoGame/PotionPermit'': While they had good intentions, the Medical Association's research teams realized too late that they carelessly destroyed Moonbury's environment when they studied it to improve their medicine [[spoiler:and try saving the Drake Aloe from a severe plant disease]]. They left behind recipes for potions that can remove the toxic waste they made, and it's your job to brew them so you can restore Moonbury's natural areas.

* In ''VideoGame/PotionPermit'', the Medical Association's research teams realized too late that they carelessly destroyed Moonbury's environment when they studied it to improve their medicine. They left behind recipes for potions that can remove the toxic waste they made, and it's your job to brew them so you can restore Moonbury's natural areas.

* ''The Solar Film''

* ''VideoGame/{{Beecarbonize}}'' is a card game where you have to manage four sectors: the Industry, Ecosystems, People, and Science, in order to control the amount of greenhouse emissions until you can achieve carbon neutrality. Some cards generate resources fast but emit a lot of greenhouse gases, while others are slow but emit fewer greenhouse gases. If you accumulate too much emissions, natural disasters worsen due to climate change until they become unmanageable, resulting in a game over.

* The FunnyAnimal platformer ''Camp California'' is about a group of friends trying to [[SavingTheOrphanage save their beach from being made into a messy power plant]], who constantly talk about how important it is to save the environment. They even need to collect litter to convert into fuel for the car they use to drive around the world map.

* ''VideoGame/SimEarth'': They don't come much more {{Anvilicious}} than...
--> '''Gaia:''' ''This pollution is bad.''
** In terms of gameplay, pollution will cause global warming and mass extinctions to occur. This can easily be averted by adjusting the civilization sliders to favor greener energy.

* ''VideoGame/AwesomePossumKicksDrMachinosButt'': Awesome Possum collects discarded cans and light bulbs to gain 1-Ups, destroys robots that are wielding chainsaws or mining for oil, and at the end of every level, you have to answer a question that usually involves conservation to gain 10,000 points. The GameOver screen features an over-polluted world, and Awesome Possum's catchphrase is "I'm gonna clean up this world yet!"
* The ''VideoGame/DancingLine'' level "The Earth" is either this or [[BrokenAesop "all this wanton construction and pollution is fine as long as a pretty park is built!"]]
* ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'':
** While not as {{Anvilicious}} as other contemporary examples, the series used to revolve around this, with Sonic functioning as a nomadic NatureHero of sorts. The basic plot of the original games involves Sonic rescuing other animals from Dr. Eggman's machines, levels such as Chemical Plant Zone, Scrap Brain Zone, and Oil Ocean Zone are over-industrialized hellholes. Unlike most examples of the latter trope, he is quick to utilize technology to fulfil any tasks he needs to do, but he still seems to carry disdain for Eggman's wanton environmental destruction.
** This is taken to its apex in ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD Sonic CD]]'', where Sonic has the ability to prevent Eggman from turning the future into a post-apocalyptic, mechanized hell by destroying robot teleporters in the past. Despite this, the game [[AvertedTrope averts]] and [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructs]] the ScienceIsBad trope by showing that, if utilized properly, technology could help the environment as in [[SolarPunk the Good Futures]]. These depict an utopian world in which, as technology became more advanced, rather than competing with nature, the two forces combined and benefited from each other, leading to [[SceneryPorn lusher environments]] and a better quality of life. Since there's no visible pollution, it's safe to say that this combination has repaired any damage done to the planet's ecosystems in the past by pollution, and is now working to prevent it from ever happening again.
%% ** Every continent you visit in ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' is [[SceneryPorn beautiful]]... then you get to [[ThatOneLevel Egg]][[NightmareFuel man]][[{{Cyberpunk}} Land]].
* In ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'', Lady Deirdre Skye, who leads a faction called Gaia's Stepdaughters, is probably closest to being the moral exemplar among the faction leaders. Guess what her agenda is? On the other hand, in ''Alien Crossfire'', the expansion, one of the seven new factions is even greener than Deirdre... and is presented as much more of a KnightTemplar. Of course, his determination to preserve Planet even if the cost is humanity's extinction helps. And to be fair, ''every'' faction leader in the series has at least a bit of KnightTemplar in them...if you so much as ''build'' a Planet Buster at higher difficulty levels, for example, Deirdre will hammer your ass.
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'' is one of the best examples of this in video games, using fantasy analogues to tell a story about man vs. nature in general, with the final battle actually being waged over conservationism [[note]]specifically, geo-engineering[[/note]] vs. preservationism. In fact, the Adephagos can be seen as a metaphor for pollution since it threatens the world. And it's not brought about by malice or intention, like a lot of environmental disasters in life, it was brought out by accident and carelessness. Like in real life, the [[spoiler:Krytians and Alexei]] simply didn't know any better. Though this ends up being combined with the game's other aesop about vigilantism, since the second BigBad, Duke, is an EcoTerrorist who wants to wipe out humanity to prevent them from destroying the planet with aer usage.

* Chapter 5 of ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' ends with the cavepeople-like Cragnons learning not to pollute the rivers; by doing so, they were ruining the water source of a race of plant-people, who got pissed off and started kidnapping and brainwashing the Cragnons in retaliation. When they figured out why the plants were raiding their villages, they stopped polluting and peace returned between the two races.
** Although, they crossed deep into being {{Anvilicious}} with this line.
--> "I mean come on! Water is ''easily'' one of our most precious natural resources!"
** The aesop is lost just a little bit when you consider that, according to the plant people's testimony, ''they never just told the Cragnons to stop polluting their water''. They went immediately from discovering that they were polluting their drinking water to enslaving them to mine for gems. Probably because the waste dumping caused the plant leader to suffer from a bout of temporary insanity.
* ''VideoGame/DisgaeaHourOfDarkness'' tosses one in.
--> '''Laharl:''' Earth is that planet where humans foolishly pollute their own environment, right? [[BystanderSyndrome Why would I be interested in that?]]
* The obscure Game Boy RPG ''VideoGame/GreatGreed'' hits this pretty hard, as the evil forces are literally powered by pollution.

* This is seen in ''Gaia'', one of the most famous user-created levels for the freeware game ''VideoGame/KnyttStories'', especially when visiting the past or the future.
* In ''VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle'', all of the problems persistent stem from Dr. Fred polluting a stream with a machine named the Sludge-o-Matic. It's played with however, because the Sludge-o-Matic's was purposefully made for creating and discharging toxic goop, for the sake of Dr. Fred's reputation and self-esteem.
-->'''Dr. Fred''': You can't have a lab like this and not spew poisonous filth! All the other evil scientists would laugh!
* ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Advance Wars: Dual Strike]]''. The BigBad's plot is to [[spoiler:turn a continent into a wasteland so he can retain the youth of himself and a select group of underlings]]. The arguments used by both armies are typical [[StrawCharacter Straw Political]] excuses (claiming it's the same as eating, vague and misguided references to natural selection, etc.).
* In ''VideoGame/MetalWalker'', [=NPCs=] will tell you the land has become terribly polluted following the disaster 50 years ago. A couple area names are Muddy Lake and Acid Lake. For the most part, though, it's fairly subtle; you don't ''have'' to talk to the citizens. [[spoiler: There is one area in the entire game with trees and grass, aptly named Ever Green]].
* ''VideoGame/JettRocket'' has a mild one. The bad guys, the Power Plant Posse, exist only to suck energy and use up resources--but after the opening story sequence, this isn't really mentioned again.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' doesn't go up-front about it unless you do a few quests, and even then, there's room for GrayAndGreyMorality there. The Night Elves often view the Horde as a scourge upon the environment, when this isn't entirely true given that most of the Horde is Shamanistic and it's likely that they are just clashing over natural resources but don't want to strip Azeroth down to its core. The Night Elves can also be viewed as too overprotective...and they're also siding with Gnomes, Dwarves, and humans, who don't ''entirely'' have a clean record with the environment themselves. (''ESPECIALLY'' Gnomes) The Draenei also are clearly well aware of their alien radiation mutating the environment (Only around their starting islands, though, which arguably act as a quarantine for such things) It can get complicated, especially given that Goblins are joining the fray and are often portrayed as most businesses who never cared 'bout the environment unless it gave them a few dollars.
** A few quests also come across as this. While it's rather obvious that the Horde vs. Alliance in terms of the environment is rather gray, the obvious black are the Burning Legion, Venture Co and the Scourge. They're even ''more'' destructive to the environment (and their employees!) than the gnomes or most undead ever ''will'' be, unless the gnomes suddenly detonate a nuclear bomb in the Burning Steppes or the undead do an organic equivalent in Lordaeron.
** The Burning Legion and the Scourge can easily be interpreted as a parallel to pollution, while Venture Co is pretty much the polluting MegaCorp who doesn't care. Many quests involving Venture Co involve either stopping them from polluting, strip-mining, or polluting the world. Many quests in Felwood involve cleaning up the heavily polluted mess in the region. As for the scourge...well take ''one'' look around the plaguelands and most of Northrend to get it. The Avatar of Freya in Scholozar Basin pretty much charges you with the duty of keeping the scourge from ''ruining'' that tropical paradise in freezing Northrend.

* ''VideoGame/EndlessOcean'' and its sequel ''Blue World'' can be pretty heavy-handed, the latter moreso than the former thanks to its wider variety of missions. You're paid to: relocate fish found outside of their natural habitat, cure them of unnamed illnesses, display them in a large aquarium equipped with tanks suitable for all specimens, and sell off the salvage items you find on the ocean floor. Also, several cutscenes talk about how various species are endangered and what human acts are causing them, with one supporting character getting more pissed at humans before calming down after assisting some people saving a family of beaching whales.
** The trivia sections of a lot of the fish in the encyclopedia point out how many of them are endangered and their habitats disrupted.
* ''VideoGame/SamAndMaxHitTheRoad'' where the problems are solved by going on frequent and [[MoonLogicPuzzle dubiously necessary]] road trips to various tourist destinations and a SpaceWhaleAesop since the reason given for loving the Earth and not cutting down trees is so bigfoots can flourish. Considering the bigfoot they spend the game chasing reacts by saying he's headed to Vegas if the "weird tree crap hasn't ruined it", it's pretty assuredly a SpoofAesop.
* Pretty-much the entire point of ''VideoGame/FateOfTheWorld'' is to deliver one and give the player an idea of [[NintendoHard just how difficult a task]] fixing climate change really is.
* A fairly subtle one occurs in ''VideoGame/MajinAndTheForsakenKingdom''. There are a few offhand comments from animals about the old kingdom cutting down forests, etc. Then in one of the Majin's recovered memory flashbacks, it's mentioned that the evil [[TheCorruption Darkness]] that destroyed the old kingdom was [[spoiler: a waste product produced by their technology, which they had been dumping into the earth for years]]. This also makes it a SpaceWhaleAesop. Thankfully the game isn't [[{{Anvilicious}} heavy-handed]] about it.
* ''VideoGame/MOTHER3'' had this to some degree; the game begins with the Pigmasks burning down a forest. Not to mention utterly ruining most of the world's animal life. Even the logo of the game shows wood and greenery meshed with metallic technology; [[spoiler: at the end, the logo is shown again, now completely wood.]]
* ''VideoGame/AsurasWrath'' has probably one of the strangest examples of this. Apparently, when [[KiManipulation Mantra]] was discovered to be used as a power source, it made technology advance at an insane rate and caused the population to swell up too fast. So, [[GaiasVengeance in retaliation]], the Will of The Planet mutated all of the worlds animals into monsters to kill humanity to preserve balance. So remember, no Overpopulation and Pollution people, or [[SpaceWhaleAesop else a monster from the inside of the planet earth made of magma will kill everyone.]]
** This trope winds up subverted in the true ending, [[spoiler: since Vlitra was directly created by Chakravartin to find a worthy successor on Gaia, its existence wasn't natural in the least bit.]]
* ''VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire'' has the villainous teams, Aqua and Magma, learning that [[WellIntentionedExtremist taking drastic measures to change the environment for the "better"]] is '''not''' a good idea. Turns out, global flooding and/or drought is actually bad for all sorts of ecosystems. It's an odd case, however: Team Aqua, who wanted to expand the oceans, knew that Kyogre would cause massive floods, and Team Magma, who wanted to expand the continents, knew that Groudon would cause massive droughts. But neither of those teams were repentant up until they awakened and freed them. Only after that, when it's too late, do they learn that they had severely underestimated the capabilities of those Legendary Pokémon, and that their actions [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone may very well lead to the end of all life in the world]].
** The [[OurFairiesAreDifferent Fairy-type]]'s weaknesses, in addition to propping up the offensive effectiveness of Poison and Steel, also demonstrate one of these. Fairies in folklore are generally associated with plants, nature, and the Earth, while Steel and Poison serve as analogues to heavy industry and the resulting pollution, respectively, encroaching on and destroying nature.
* ''VideoGame/EcoFighters'', a ShootEmUp by Capcom, is a rather {{Anvilicious}} example. It's in the name.

* ''VideoGame/ForzaMotorsport 4'' includes hybrids like the dreaded [[JokeCharacter Toyota Prius]] and electric cars such as the Nissan Leaf, which are in the same game as fire-breathing muscle cars, 3 ton [[HummerDinger SUVs]], turbocharged [[RiceBurner Honda Civics]], and Italian [[CoolCar supercars]]. Driving 1,000 miles on one of the hybrid or electric vehicles gives you a [[AndYourRewardIsClothes badge and a title]], "Eco-Friendly". In the "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvimE0aNFOg Endangered Species]]" trailer, [[Series/TopGearUK Jeremy Clarkson]] laments about the rise of the Green Aesop in the automotive industry, with powerful cars been phased out for bland hybrids. The hybrids and electric cars are almost exclusively {{Joke Character}}s due to a [[DesignItYourselfEquipment lack of upgrades for them]] and excessive weight.
** This usually backfires. You put hybrid cars in a game and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCipu-j184s the first thing gamers will do is use it for target practice.]]
* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'':
** Seems to be the point of the Kremkroc Industries, Inc. area from ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry1'', with there being an entire level full of nasty green water.
** In ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest'', the Kremlings' home island also shown to be all polluted and grimdark.
** Done again in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble'' but to a lesser extent, with K. Rool messing with the lush, Canadian-inspired Northern Kremsphere.
* The first ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClank2002'' sees Chairman Drek attempting to create a new world for his people because the old one is terribly polluted and overcrowded. When you reach the Blargian homeworld Orxon, it clearly resembles Ratchet's home of Veldin with several layers of sludge: cragy mountains with [[GiantFlyer pterodactyls]] and deep valleys filled with either serene mist (Veldin) or toxic goo (Orxon). Veldin is even stated to be at the perfect distance from the sun for Blargian comfort, strengthening the parallels between the two. [[spoiler:When you learn that Drek ''intentionally polluted the world and intends to do it again'', it becomes even more obvious.]] Future installments tend to drop a small nugget or two of Green Aesop, as well, but they're not as central to the plot.
* By the end of ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsCompact3'', Emma wonders what they'll do about the Conquestor with Judo noting that they can't just attack the planet Ganimede since it's so far away. Ryusuke note that if they can get rid of the pollution and damage to their world; that should be fine with Mika also noting that if they can keep their planet clean and green, the Conquestor hopefully wouldn't attack again. Noin note that that sounds a lot like a new battle for them with Zechs noting that it's one without fighting this time to which Duo says that he's up for it. Heero note that it's also a war in which they will not need their Gundams and Quatre says that they should let their Gundam rest from now on.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'', unintentionally or not, does this by virtue of [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructing]] the DieselPunk ''and'' AtomPunk genre; set in an alternate version of our world where culturally the world never left the Fifties and the computer transistor was never invented, as such atomic and fossil fuel energy remained the de facto way of the world all the way up to the ''2070s.'' [[ForegoneConclusion Given the whole setting is set]] AfterTheEnd, this obviously proves unsustainable as all the oil in the world is soon drained out, teetering the nations of the world to fight over the last scraps of oil; the European Union dissolves, the Middle East gets torn apart, and the United States annexes Canada while China invades Alaska for America's last bits of oil. It all comes crashing down in 2077, where [[GreatOffscreenWar the Great War]] triggers total nuclear proliferation between both superpowers, ending the world in nuclear fire [[GaiasLament and causing irrevocable damage to the ecosystem]]. Becomes even more depressing when you remember that the whole nature of the setting even ''having'' another chapter beyond being doused in nuclear fire is an ''optimistic'' idea of what a nuclear war's aftermath would look like.
* ''VideoGame/{{Factorio}}'' uses pollution as a way to prevent overexpansion. Almost every piece of machinery used in your factory generates pollution, which agitates the planet's natives, a race of BigCreepyCrawlies. Pollution causes their nests to become denser and expand, and the bug forms to evolve. If you expand your factory too quickly and clear-cut forests, [[GaiasVengeance you'll quickly find your factories being overrun by building-sized bugs]]. Luckily, there's plenty of military tech to research - PoweredArmor, personal defense robots, laser cannons, etc - so you can eventually become a ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanet'' villain and gleefully burn down forests with napalm while bugs charge to their death at your reinforced turret grids guarded by mines and [[CarFu train battering rams]]
* It turns out that ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'' is [[EarthAllAlong set on a future Earth tweleve millenia from now]]. Rising sea levels drove the human race to extinction, and marine invertebrates evolved to became [[ApparentlyHumanMerfolk the Inklings and Octarians]], who reclaimed the land and built their cities over the ruins of the old human ones. Particularly biting is the fact that apparently several scientists warned world leaders that this would happen, and they chose to do nothing about it. Sound familiar, eh?
* The "protect the environment" lesson is brought up in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'' by Poison Ivy. She points out how the construction of Gotham City has buried an unlimited population of plants underneath and how they're slowly dying due to man's pollution. This actually comes up as a plot point in the game as well, since Batman [[spoiler: [[EnemyMine helps Ivy]] revive her plants in order for the two to form a way to attack the Arkham Knight's militia with giant killer plants]].
* The ultimate conflict of ''VideoGame/GameOfThronesTelltale'' revolves around two rivaling families disputing over a forest of trees that make incredibly strong wood for shields called Ironwood. One family, known as the [[MeaningfulName Whitehill]] family, caused their own forest reserves to be deforested because of irrational business decisions and desire House Forrester's supply of trees as a replacement. The Forrester's correctly point out how the Whitehill's could've avoided entering war with them if they had simply strategized how to manage their own forest. [[spoiler: Ironically, the war between both houses destroy the only remaining forest.]]
* Parodied in Triangle Service's ''Shmups skill test'', which has a MiniGame that features a trash can and the text "Save the earth -- Keep clean." Then the game tells you that "Empty cans go in the trash" and you have the objective of shooting beverage cans so that they fall into the trash can for points.
* The whole point of the ''VideoGame/EcoQuest'' series is to fire one Green Aesop after another at the young target demographic.
** The first game deals with the oceans, and contains Green Aesops about oil spills, littering, radioactive waste dumping, the impact of outboard motors on marine life, and whaling.
** The second game takes place in the deep jungles of South America, and actually has an in-game device that can scan for nearby ecological violations, cataloguing over a dozen different ones throughout the game. They include poaching, river runoffs, logging, exotic animal trade, and destruction of native tribes, among others.
* ''VideoGame/{{Submerged}}'' takes place in a drowned city after climate change has flooded the world.
* It may be unintentional, but there is a ''subtle'' one in ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}} V'': desert cities can build a solar power plant instead of a nuclear plant, but they [[MutuallyExclusivePowerups can't have both]]. The two plants have the exact same effect, but nuclear plants consume Uranium and solar plants don't -- meaning that building solar plants helps you save limited resources. (Astute tropers will notice that said resources will be devoted to [[NukeEm bombing other Civs]]. Well, we said ''green'' aesop, not ''pacifist'' aesop).
* The primary theme of the ''VideoGame/{{Oddworld}}'' series. The game shows in very nasty detail how destructive the Magog Cartel is, overhunting entire species to extinction and polluting the environment into inhospitable wastelands. Atypical for this trope, though, is the games also show the plight of sapient species: a reoccuring plot element is the player characters being members of critically endangered species who became endangered due to overindustrialization.
* Fairly subtly done in ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'', but your exploring science ships have a disturbing habit of discovering dead planets that used to be home to thriving civilizations until they destroyed themselves through rampant, self-made climate change. Or total nuclear war, but that's another aesop already.
* The villain of ''VideoGame/JumpStartAdventures6thGradeMissionEarthquest'' is [[AIIsACrapshoot an insane supercomputer]] bent on destroying the Earth, [[TakeOverTheWorld apparently with the aim of conquering it]]. There is one token mission about saving ancient monuments, but mostly you're fighting against deliberate pollution, deforestation, etc.
* ''VideoGame/TheOregonTrail'' is a rare example of the Aesop coming on ''too subtle''. If you kill too many of the same animal in the hunting minigame, that animal will go extinct. The game doesn't actually tell you what happened, so most players ended up thinking that buffalo just always stop appearing after a certain point.
* In ''VideoGame/StardewValley'', there's a heavy vibe about pollution caused by big corporations, as well as sustainable farming. There's next to nothing on your farm that can't be used for something else, and even a recycling machine that makes useful materials out of fished-up trash.
* The freeware game ''Plasticity'' is a short puzzle-platformer where a young girl named Noa explores a series of scenes in [[TrashOfTheTitans a heavily-polluted future Earth ruined by excessive and wasteful use of plastic]], trying to make her way to her late mother's childhood home of Avalon Island. Though if [[VideoGameCaringPotential you stop to help others and clean up along the way]], [[MultipleEndings the game ends on a hopeful note]] when Noa is inspired by her mother's parting words ("It's never too late to do the right thing") to work towards a cleaner, SolarPunk future.
* ''VideoGame/OxygenNotIncluded'' is ultimately about ''sustainability''. Early-game water purification and power generation is simple enough, but you better think of the recycling process for the waste products. And most important in the long-run is temperature management. Failing to plan for temperature management will lead to increasing ambient temperature, leading to failing crops, overheating machines and Duplicants, and eventually doom. [[GlobalWarming Sounds familiar?]]
* ''Bee Good - Buzz into Action'' is a mobile game that encourages people to help our planet with daily missions. The player is sent missions by a cartoon bee, and by completing each one they score points (which can be traded for real-world items), but if they don't play for three weeks in a row, the agent dies and the player has to start from the beginning.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':

This was especially common in many kids' cartoons in the 70's and later in the 90's. Older examples tended to focus on pollution, newer ones on global warming, as the particular nature of society's environmental fears changes. In any case, however, the antagonists of the story will likely be [[EvilPoacher Evil Poachers]], {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s (who likely work for ToxicInc) or just ObviouslyEvil supervillains who pollute the earth ForTheEvulz. More subtle and nuanced Green Aesops also exist, however, as many of the examples seen below indicate.

** And of course, the Wheel of Morality [[LampshadeHanging hung a giant lampshade on the Aesop]] with a fractured quote from "Blowin' in the Wind".