FAQS

What the hell is the Climate Games?

We realise it might seem a bit cryptic. Climate Games is not an action itself but a TOOL to support acts of creative disobedience on the streets, in public space and in cyberspace. Using online mapping technology it will crowdsource information to help teams plan and take effective action In Real Life (IRL). Using the internet, players will be able to upload recon of playing fields, reports of their actions as well as see the positions of the blue team – all anonymously and in real time. It’s simply a new instrument for resistance.

What is a Team?

A team is a group of friends (new or old) who have decided to work together to plan and carry out an adventure that helps dismantle the Mesh. Your team might share a local habitat, the issues you want to take action on, the tactics you want to use, a particular skill you have to offer (e.g., wild dancing or action medics), or a mixture of all of these.
Form a team of two to two hundred, work non-hierarchically and autonomously, and support each other in every stage of the adventure. But remember, 10 groups of 10 people can often achieve more than 100 people acting en masse (for more info on team formation check out this great resource). We encourage teams to register here (everything will be anonymous).  Provide your team name, profile and avatar and start to play. 

None of my friends want to make up a team, how do I join one?

Many of us begin our journey towards political action alone; it’s normal, unless you have the good fortune of being born into a family of ready-made radicals. For this reason the movements are organising trainings in the months leading up to Paris where you can meet like-minded playful rebels. During the COP21 itself in Paris there will be some speed dating events, where you will be trained in creative resistance, meet fellow rebels and join teams taking on "secret missions" to be performed across Paris. A speed dating is already planned for 5-6th December but others will be scheduled.

I want to play solo. Can I still join the Games?

Like a rich ecosystem which is resilient and less susceptible to disruption due to its numerous interconnections, teams with more than one player will be able to support each other before, during and after the action. However, there are some actions where you might not want to have companions and where being a Team gets in the way – such as reporting manifestations of the Mesh onto the map, insider leaks and electronic disobedience.

Do I have to come to Paris?

Not at all. The Climate Games are global. You can play in your own habitat, city, town, village, valley, field or forest. However the emphasis is that Round 1 is decentralised and Round 2 gets as many bodies onto the streets of Paris as possible. Whilst a lot of the actions will occur in Paris, the aim is to dismantle the Mesh everywhere.

I want to come to Paris but where can I stay?

The Coalition Climat21 website provides details of the many lodging options that will be available in Paris surrounding COP21. Self-organized groups will also be setting up autonomous spaces for before and during the COP, where players can eat, sleep, live, organize, and prefigure the future we are striving to create.

What kind of adventures and actions make up the Games?

Anyone can play as long as your move respects life. Teams will be taking all sorts of adventures to unravel the Mesh – think about magpies building eye-catching nests in unexpected places, beavers that block the flows around them to make something useful, mushrooms establishing underground communications systems. From banner drops to inflatable barricades, culture jamming to innovative disruptions, virtual and otherwise--think creative disobedience of every kind.  And if all this sounds a bit abstract, then take a look at this excellent toolbox for action ideas. Effective, beautiful trouble is what will win you awards.

What is Team Blue?

Team Blue is the Mesh’s sidekick. Made up of police, gendarmes, security personnel and secret services, it’ll be working hard to thwart the effectiveness of the Games. The more we know their movements and whereabouts, the more we can avoid and confuse them. Every time you spot them capture them on the map, but be specific: How many? Are they moving or stationary? What mood are they in? etc.… No need to cause unnecessary panic! Do this well and you get the Copcop Spotters Badge.

I really want to support the Climate Games but don’t want to risk any run-in with Team Blue—can I still participate?

Absolutely – the Games still need you. Ecosystems flourish through cooperation, building connections, and relying on relationships of mutual support of all kinds and in all forms. There are a range of roles (with or without a team) that someone could undertake to support the Games while steering clear of Team Blue: Cooking meals, healing and nurturing others, working on communications, providing legal support, helping create the awards ceremony, building giant inflatables to help teams carry out their adventures, designing dazzling costumes, documenting teams’ actions. Together we make up an ecology of disobedience.

I have heard that the "Climate Games" are just for "radicals" is this true?

The word "radical" has the same root as the word "radish," which simply means "root." To be a radical is to deal with the root causes of a problem rather than simply its symptoms or consequences. Climate Games would agree with Kevin Anderson, a leading world climate scientist, when he says that remaining at a safe level of CO2 "demands revolutionary change to the political and economic hegemony." Naomi Klein, who supports the Climate Games, maintains that "our economic system and our planetary system are now at war." Everyone knows that it’s system change, not climate change, we need. The people playing the Climate Games come from all walks of life, with diverse life experiences and political orientations. We see the Climate Games within the tradition of the civil rights movement’s bus boycotts, Gandhi’s Salt March, the Larzac peasants’ occupation of a courtroom with sheep, and the recent Ende Gelände shut down of Europe’s largest emitter of CO2 – the German lignite coal mines. We believe we need acts of resistance that are proportionate to the scale of the emergency, which in this case is an emergency the size of the land, sea and sky combined. If that’s radical, then "yes," so are the Climate Games.

I don’t have a smart phone, can I play?

Of course. There are numerous ways you can play without a phone. The key to the Games is that acts of disobedience are effective either on the street with your bodies or online with electronic disobedience. The mobile version of the site is simply a way to communicate these acts to the world and to enable people to map the positions of the Mesh and its sidekick – Team Blue. You can upload reports and look at the map on any computer connected to the internet. Or if you have a vintage phone you can upload reports via sms (+33684218348) or send them by email to report@climategames.net. See the Player Guide for security advice.

Smartphones are one of the paralysing weapons of mass distraction of the Mesh, used to trace and exploit us. How can you justify using them?

People with access to a smartphone or tablets spend nearly 3 hours a day staring at its screen, which now exceeds the time we lovingly spend with our erstwhile favorite screen – TV. The pervasive electrocution of our senses and cognitive activity and the intricate surveillance this affords can only be ignored at our peril. However, Climate Games is not blindly overlooking this social reality, but instead seeks to re-purpose the tools of the dominant system against itself, creating movement tools and cartographies that can expand beyond the Games. Phones enable real-time forms of networked communication and cooperation across space to dismantle the Mesh that is not otherwise possible. It can be put to great effect if used with caution, mindful of its overall enslaving rather than liberating tendencies. As philosopher Deleuze said, "There’s no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons." The pen can be mightier than the sword, and our interconnected electronic tools cut through the Mesh’s desire to control information, allowing new commons to flourish.

The central logic of the Mesh is competition and measurement. You have points and awards. Does that mean the Climate Games teams are working against each other?

We are painfully aware of the prevailing logic of neoliberalism that wants to govern everything and produces hypercompetitive subjects, entrepreneurs of the self, little freelance machines for making money, what Foucault called "homo economicus ." We agree that sowing competitiveness into all threads of the social fabric is one of contemporary capitalism’s defining characteristics. But we aim to use the best part of games and their playfulness to subvert this tendency, not reinforce it. Teams are not competing against each other, but instead are cooperating to achieve a collective goal – the securing of our collective future on a livable planet. The individual accolades and badges teams earn are given with a wink and a smile, and the points awarded to teams are shared in common.

How secure/anonymous is your site really? I am fretful….

Security and anonymity is of our utmost concern. The website and its mobile version are encrypted, and we will not store emails or other information from users (e.g., no cookies, etc.). We will moderate reports teams submit to scrub them of metadata and to remove any inadvertent identifying information. We are doing everything on our side that we can to ensure the security of teams, but, of course, we encourage teams to take precautions as well. Team Blue can see that a particular internet connection is communicating with the Climate Games' website, but they cannot see the content of that communication. Tor can be used by teams to confuse Team Blue further and prevent them from tracking communications with the website. We are working with a great gaggle of geeks to enable teams to make their moves and play as securely as possible.

What are these "manifestations of the Mesh" that need to be mapped?

The Climate Games relies on collective intelligence; the playing field can only be made visible if people upload photos and reports of the many manifestations of the Mesh onto the map. Unfortunately, the Mesh is everywhere. It mesmerises and soothes us into obedience. But it also instantiates itself in many nodes and material forms: maybe a corporate HQ or coal mine, a refugee detention centre or shopping mall, a factory farm or a multinational bank. In December in Paris it might take the specific form of fossil fuel lobbyists’ hotels, corporate events promoting non-existent solutions, and toxic greenwash advertising. It’s your job to monitor and detect its movements, to light up wherever it lurks, and to fill the playing field with potential adventures.

The climate catastrophe is no joke. Why are you playing games?

Reports tell us that climate chaos could lead to 100 million deaths in the next 18 years, mostly of those living in the global South and producing very little CO2—no wonder some call it a Climate Holocaust. The only way out of this trajectory is to build a broad and radical climate justice movement that takes effective direct action to keep the fossil fuels in the ground. Catastrophic images and visions of apocalyptic futures do not motivate people and have a tendency to lead to authoritarian politics. We need new forms of creative action and organising that make disobedience irresistible, effective and fun. Through using games and play, Climate Games hopes to be more accessible than dour and depressive statistics and slogans about the extinction of humanity. Paris has a long tradition of merging play and political action. The infamous art activist group, Situationists, whose ideas influenced decades of creative resistance movements from May '68 to Banksy, via Punk and Reclaim the Streets, recognised that the best tool of politics is radical play and that the best game move is wrong footing the enemy: “play…must invade the whole of life,” they wrote.