Facebook users help save the environment by playing games

(2010 Facebook)

The popular trend for playing games on Facebook is being harnessed by Dosomething.org to encourage people to make environmentally beneficial changes while playing on the social networking site.

The new environmentally conscious Facebook game is called eMission and was created by the American Environmental Protection Agency and US group Dosomething.org, a cause driven organization for teenagers.

Players are placed in a coastal environment where they have to build and maintain a virtual habitat teeming with wildlife. Players can gain points and progress through the game by completing virtual challenges but the biggest rewards are given for completing environmentally friendly actions in the real world. These off-line carbon saving actions, switching to energy efficient bulbs for example, must be verified either by photographic evidence or testimonies from Facebook friends before the player can continue in the game. The eMission initiative is being promoted by Sophia Bush, a popular American actress who stars in the hit American TV series One Tree Hill.

In December, Dosomething.org plans to launch a scholarship program for people who play the game frequently and are involve in real life carbon reduction activities.

Other computer games with an environmental twist include the recently developed Fate of the World. In this game, billed as a strategy game with a conscious, players have to try and protect the world's resources and climate while simultaneously managing a growing population and increasing demands for food and energy.

More information about eMission can be found at: http://www.dosomething.org/games/emission  
For Fate of the World see: http://www.fateoftheworld.net/