Why is Ichigo Bloom writing about a video game? Because earlier this month, our founder Stéfan Le Dû took the stage at Nerd Nite Tokyo to talk about climate change, not through graphs or policy reports, but through one of the world’s most iconic strategy games: Civilization. The talk explored how this long-running franchise has represented pollution, energy, and climate systems over more than three decades, and what that says about how society’s awareness has evolved in parallel.
A game that evolved with society
When Civilization I came out in 1991, climate change was barely part of public debate. And yet, even then, the game included pollution and global warming. As your cities industrialized, dark icons appeared on the map. If too many piled up, random tiles turned into desert or swamp, a basic but surprisingly early take on environmental degradation and the link between local pollution and global consequences.
By Civilization III (2001), the concept had matured: pollution events fed into a hidden global pollution pool, and when the total passed a threshold, global warming started. Local cleanup helped, but the overall damage was irreversible. The game had quietly adopted the idea that local actions add up to irreversible global consequences, a powerful shift in both gameplay and message.
In Civilization IV (2005), pollution began affecting citizens’ health, linking environmental degradation to human wellbeing. Forests became natural “cures,” showing that protecting ecosystems could stabilize society, an early representation of what we now call nature-based solutions.
But Civilization V (2010) dropped the topic entirely. The focus shifted to strategic resources like coal, oil, and uranium, presented as the ingredients of industrial progress, without any environmental consequences. While the real world debated carbon emissions and prepared for the Paris Agreement, Civ was busy optimizing production.
Then, almost a decade later, Civilization VI: Gathering Storm (2019) brought climate change roaring back. For the first time, every civilization had a visible CO₂ counter, tracking emissions and showing who polluted most. Climate change unfolded in clear phases, bringing stronger storms, droughts, floods, and rising sea levels. Coastal tiles could disappear forever. Players could mitigate by switching to renewables or investing in carbon capture, or adapt by building dams, flood barriers, or “seasteads.” And climate diplomacy became part of the game – you could even earn victory points for cutting emissions.
It was both educational and symbolic: a mainstream video game teaching millions of players that climate change is global, collective, and full of trade-offs.
At the time of writing, the newly released Civilization VII has chosen a simpler design and, for now, left climate change out. But as Stéfan writes in his article on Medium, that gap is striking, and raises important questions about how game designers balance accessibility, realism, and responsibility.
- Read the full article here → From Local Pollution to Planetary Crisis: 30 Years of Climate Change in the Civilization Games
Why this matters to Ichigo Bloom
At Ichigo Bloom, we believe sustainability education works best when it’s interactive, emotional, and collaborative. Whether through a science-based workshop or an unexpected example like Civilization, our goal is the same: helping people feel how systems interact, and see how small actions lead to large-scale consequences.
That’s why we use participatory formats such as the Climate Fresk, Biodiversity Collage, Planetary Boundaries Fresco, and Digital Collage: workshops that transform climate data into playful conversation and collective insight. We also design custom talks and learning experiences connecting sustainability with business, policy, design, and culture, just like this exploration of video games and climate awareness at Nerd Nite Tokyo.
Our approach is simple: combine credible science with human creativity, and make sustainability something people want to experience, not just understand. Contact us to know more!
Ichigo Bloom offers climate and biodiversity collaborative workshops such as the Climate Fresk and the Biodiversity Collage, to raise awareness and ignite change within organizations in Japan.
