OOC: Apologies for the formatting of the email headers. Unfortunately, the wiki's decided it's just going to blatantly ignore any line break formatting I put in. So I just have to double space it.
From: sander.haakonsen@opec.org
To: thechadster@geo.org
Congratulations on your promotion, Chad
. I'm sure you know from your time in BP how important emerging markets are to future growth. So your brief is simple. According to our projections, it will be necessary to maintain a HDI of at least 0.7 in all regions of the world in order to maintain the sort of economic growth forecasts necessary to keep the important stakeholders happy.
Your job is to do the sort of touchy-feely environmental PR necessary to make sure the policies head in a direction that encourages, rather than restricts economic growth. We all know that if the Greenpeace set get their way then the rich parts of the world will switch over to renewables, the poor parts of the world will be too mired in poverty and we'll be left without a market worth a damn.
Make sure that doesn't happen.
Sander H
GEO PRESS RELEASE: Stability means Sustainability.
One of the big keys to saving the environment is reducing waste. And what could be more wasteful than war? Huge resources amassed into building elaborate machinery which is then blown to pieces. At the Global Environmental Organisation, we believe a key part of a sustainable future lies in furthering efforts to foster world peace, ending the waste in resources, human lives and human potential characterised by war.
Look in the news and you'll see GEO representatives taking an active role in peace processes in regions such as North and South Africa, the Middle East and India
. Because we believe a peaceful future is a sustainable future.
INDIA BEAT - GEO SETS UP SHOP IN INDIA
An extensive ministerial delegation, including Prime Minister Andrea Singh were out to greed playboy philanthropist Chad Winnington for the official opening of the GEO world headquarters today. As part of his welcoming speech, Mr Winnington revealed his previously undisclosed family ties to India, saying "I think one of my Dad's great, great grandparents was, like, in the Raj or something and he married an Indian woman and stuff. It was, like, totally progressive. I like to think I take after him". Commerce Minister Ibrahim Malik also emphasised the positive effects of such a large global organisation on local employment, saying as many as 200 locals would be employed by the office directly and many more indirectly by GEO initiatives. When asked about rumors that GEO was lobbying the government to impose a one child policy, all present declined to comment.
GEO PRESS RELEASE: THE ONE CHILD POLICY AND YOU.
Hi, I'm Chad Winnington. And if there's one thing I know about, it's winning.
I was an only child, and I think that's why I'm so successful today. My parents were able to put everything they had behind me to succeed. Because of that, I had so many more opportunities than if they'd have to split their scarce resources between three or four children.
It's important that your children be able to look after you in your old age, but one child earning five times as much because they have an education and a good job is going to have way more disposable income to help you out than five children who are barely able to feed themselves.
We're providing educational assistance for families with only one child to help them reach their full potential. We'll also be rolling out medical aid programs to help ease the burden of aged care
, with extra incentives towards families with only one child.
NEW YORK TIMES - THE COAL CURSE:
IS OIL OUR SALVATION AFTER ALL?
Coal was once thought to be the most plentiful of all the non-renewable energy sources. And yet in the past few years it seems we can't get enough of it.
After a spate of high profile accidents killing thousands of workers across the globe, countries have been imposing harsh reforms on the coal industry to clean up its act with regards to worker safety. Unions have taken advantage of the situation and pressing for harsh demands. And even in the poorer parts of the world, people are afraid to work in coal mines, as they gained a reputation as a death sentence.
Environmental organisations have largely been hyping up rumors that coal mine accidents are gaia's wrath against this most pollutive of fossil fuels, although some, such as GEO President Chad Winnington, have been calling for calm in this instance.
From: thechadster@geo.org.in
To: sander.haakonsen@opec.org
Come on, guys. Knock it off with this "Coal Curse" bullshit. I know they're competition but this is getting ridiculous.
From: sander.haakonsen@opec.org
To: thechadster@geo.org.in
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Sander H
From: thechadster@geo.org.in
To: sander.haakonsen@opec.org
Fine, be that way. But now I need to bring a whole
bunch
of
developing
economies
onto renewable energy, ahead of schedule in order to avoid a total economic buttfucking.
From: sander.haakonsen@opec.org
To: thechadster@geo.org.in
Boy, that's going to have a devastating impact on the share prices of coal miners. That would be a shame.
OOC: I'd like to remark at this point what a load of total, unmitigated horseshit coal production peaking at 2060 is. It's pretty much the one fossil fuel nobody is worried about running out of in the foreseeable future. Unless you're the programmers of this game, and feel the need to throw a spanner in the works of a player who is doing too good a job of keeping the world peaceful and prosperous. As an extra little "Fuck You" there's no alternative methods of coal extraction to fall back on. Because it's not supposed to run out (unless the developers feel like being dicks).
In any case, I won the scenario overall pretty handily
. Although failing to pay attention to China almost cost me the win, as the combination of peak coal and runaway population growth sent the HDI there into a tailspin. The Middle East was suffering from pretty bad population bloat as well, but they were able to coast by on big fat barrels of oil money.
The game did take time to remind me that I was a horrible person, of course
. Just to rub it in, thanks to my disinterest in wildlife preservation, a couple of large
, marketable
animal species ended up dying out at the last moment.
Although the game isn't Anvilicious about it, it's got a cunning way of promoting its Green Aesop. Basically, cultures with a "Consumerist" outlook are programmed to be ungrateful, insufferable assholes who will punish your approval rating if you do anything that actually helps their problems. The more strongly materialist they are, the more irritating they will be. North America and Japan in particular seem to be designed to infuriate the player unless their outlook is brought more in the "Green" direction.
Also, the Malthusianism. The programmers of this game have a hard-on for population reduction so large I suspect it can be seen on Google Maps satellite view.
Comments
