How a Video Game Prepared Me to Fight Heat Waves

This year’s Climate and Society class is out in the field (or lab or office) completing a summer internship or thesis. They’ll be documenting their experiences one blog post at a time. Read on to see what they’re up to.

By Jade Payne, C+S ’18

Sunset in the city of Udaipur in the northern state of Rajasthan, India where a heat wave caused temperatures to rise to over 45°C in spring 2018. (Source: fabulousfabs/Flickr)

I’ve loved video games my entire life. Role-playing, survival, platform, strategy, sports—if it’s playable, I’m (virtually) there. Video games are often considered a distraction from the real world, but they may have more in common with life on this side of the screen than you think.

Take the game I’m obsessed with right now, Fortnite: Battle Royale. It’s basically a game that consists of 100 players being dropped onto a huge island and battling amongst one another until there’s one player remaining. There’s a catch, though.

Every few minutes, a deadly storm surrounding the island will shrink the playing field, forcing players who may hide at the edge to enter the fray. My strategy entails spending the majority of my time preparing for battle. This involves stocking up on resources, finding weapons, and gathering medical supplies just in case disaster strikes. This leaves me fairly well-prepared for most scenarios near the end of the game when I need to come out on top.

A large number of people in a small area, all trying to prepare for the same incoming threat sounds eerily similar to the urban areas across the globe that are increasingly realizing they are in a similar scenario with impending heat waves. The strategy involved is essentially the same: it’s all about preparation.  en

While interning with the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, I’ve learned about how crucial preparation is when dealing with heat wave disasters. Seventy-five percent of the world’s population may be exposed to deadly heat by the end of the century. However, there are ways that we can help today. Rapid action in response to forecasts of extreme temperatures could reduce risks for two-thirds of humanity. That means that as soon as climate scientists inform us that there may be a heat wave lurking, which during this century we know will happen more frequently than before, we need to act.

That’s right folks, the Fortnite storm is just like a heat wave, and we need to be the players who can’t hesitate in taking action by gathering supplies and preparing for the inevitable.

The Climate Centre’s mission is “to help the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and its partners reduce the impacts of climate change and extreme-weather events on vulnerable people.” Many of the vulnerable people who will be most at risk for negative impacts from heat waves currently live in urban areas in developing nations, and more people are on their way. Upwards of two-thirds of the world’s population is projected to be living in urban areas by 2050. That’s a lot of people, and governments and NGOs who focus on disaster management don’t always consider heat waves, as they’re often the overlooked natural disaster. Governments must work on allocating funding for heat wave disasters beforehand, as it’s a major tool countries need in their arsenal of supplies. It’s essentially like running into a Fortnite battle without any building resources to protect you against an opponent: you’re putting yourself at a major disadvantage.

I’ve spent my summer analyzing how heat wave financing is being done in countries around the world. Humanitarian financing for risk reduction and response to heat related emergencies wasn’t always a priority when many disaster management laws were being written. Now, retroactively reviewing them to find the barriers to accessing financing for heat waves is the task at hand for the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. Once we find the barriers, we can advocate for the opportunities to improve access and improve the ability for vulnerable people to make the proper preparations.

The May 2015 heat wave in India showed just how deadly heat waves can be without proper preparations. Temperatures soared past 110 degrees Fahrenheit—hot enough to make pavement melt in New Delhi—and more than 2,500 people died. Children, the elderly, and the homeless were among the most vulnerable groups that were affected, and even simple measures may have prevented such extreme losses. Air conditioning, water pumps, and a surplus of appropriate medical supplies could have helped combat heat exhaustion, heat stroke and dehydration. At the same time, it could have increased the risk of power outages by putting more strain on the grid, increasing heat-related health risks when relief doesn’t come from lower nighttime temperatures.

In hindsight, it’s easier to see what was needed and the potential consequences, but we need to have the foresight to prepare for the worst now. This means making the proper financing available to create safer cities for the people living in them now and the influx of people soon to join.

Compared to what we face in the real world, preparing for the storm in Fortnite is easy. emMoney isn’t an issue, and it’s even easier when each player has direct control over their own strategy. Real life is harder, and the stakes are much higher.

Heat waves aren’t often seen as a natural disaster by the general public, how to reduce risk isn’t as straightforward, and everyone can’t just move pick up and move out of the way. However, as a society we can do our best to increase our chances of winning together by creating laws that allow us to do so, and that allow us to help one another. In the end, Fortnite and the real world have one key difference. In the real world, it’s not about just one player surviving, it’s about all of us thriving as one.