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Minecraft mod adds carbon emissions

Laura Parker
By Laura Parker, Associate Editor

Minecraft mod adds carbon emissions based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change data.

Now that Minecraft has been officially released to the world, some players are taking things to the next level.

Minecraft enthusiast James Smith has created a mod that adds carbon emissions to the game. Activities like burning wood, planks, coal, tree saplings, and even cows are tracked via an in-mod tracker that instructs to an outside platform to calculate the number of emissions made, based on real Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change data.

Minecraft: now environmentally aware.

Minecraft: now environmentally aware.

Smith is an employee of AMEE, a data company that aggregates environmental and energy data to provide up-to-date numbers on greenhouse gases. The Minecraft mod uses AMEE's own data tracker--AMEEconnect--to measure the in-game emissions against those of the real world. As the carbon counter increases in the game, the mod changes the surrounding environment accordingly, dark skies and murky clouds included.

"Of course, there are also ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Plant a tree, and AMEEconnect will work out how much carbon was taken up by the tree growing, and reduce the tracker by that amount. After a long day of mining and smelting, you'll have to go plant a few trees to keep the weather nice," Smith said in his blog post about the mod.

For more on Minecraft, check out GameSpot's review.

Laura Parker
By Laura Parker, Associate Editor

Laura Parker is the Associate Editor of GameSpot Australia. She loves adventure games, sparkly stuff, Trivial Pursuit, cake, Master Chief, earthworms, and rhetorical questions. She once stole a sandwich from Peter Molyneux.

22 comments
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swmeek
swmeek like.author.displayName 1 Like

Does anybody care about this ? Isn't it high time to put another article in it's place?

Shawndox
Shawndox

@SaintWalrus You know what's really endangered? Your house.

SaintWalrus
SaintWalrus like.author.displayName 1 Like

Pretty soon they'll have a mod which adds protesters to protect the Endermen because they're an endangered species.

SaintWalrus
SaintWalrus

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

SaintWalrus
SaintWalrus

Carbon Emission pollution won't stop that griefer from burning my bakery down.

Jedilink109
Jedilink109

Interesting although I don't think I would use this in my game. You know with Gamespot covering this mod and many other different aspects of these games lately I feel like they should periodically cover just great mods of computer games. It's something I would certainly love to watch!

DeadrisingX1
DeadrisingX1

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

cyraxkilawatt
cyraxkilawatt

@SolidTy That'as a good point, I just hope my previous comment didn't give them any ideas... heh heh

beothees
beothees

Where is the major news story about the other mods, Gamespot?

aussiemuscle
aussiemuscle

how much more do we need this crap pushed down our throat? i would have set the meter off the scale when i accidentally set off a bush fire, but it was funny.

cyraxkilawatt
cyraxkilawatt

Good Grief, what's next adding a Peta Mod, and have protesters outside your home, picketing you for killing Creepers and Cows; I thought we played games to escape reality for a few hours.

cyraxkilawatt
cyraxkilawatt

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

cyraxkilawatt
cyraxkilawatt

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

MrFaiRunningman
MrFaiRunningman

Mmm, interesting. Neat idea, but I think it'll be more useful in Minecraft Adventures.

epic40k
epic40k like.author.displayName 1 Like

I'm off to batter some dragons in skyrim. They obviously dont give a **** about the environment...

parrot_of_adun
parrot_of_adun

That'd be neat if there were 7 billion minecrafters about the virtual world, but it doesn't really serve to further any lesson that hasn't already been learned (by any community that considers change a possibility, anyway). Also, how often are you actually going to burn anything but a torch?

starduke
starduke

That's actually pretty cool.

dukedafeet
dukedafeet

Very interesting concept, hopefully permission is given to add it to compilation mods.

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