Profitting from Climate Change: Cap and Trade, Who Says You Can't Make a Virtual Market?

Profiting from climate change cap and trade? Why not? One year ago I was managing a team to start up a company that would aid renewable energy research and projects. The experience of entrepreneurship enticed me into a way of thinking where ideas can grow to drastically change the world, in a better way. Another business idea to benefit the planet: a Cap and Trade video game.

$26,500 is how much David Storey, a 27 year old from Sydney Australia paid for an online virtual island in a video game (Forbes.com, 2010). And it has paid off. Annually, Storey can gross $100,000. How does he do it? He taxes players that hunt on his virtual island, called Amethra Treasure Island, which is part of the virtual world Entropia. Storey states, "I thought it would be cool to own an island, and I knew I could run it and be able to pay for my play.... Entropia continually evolves, so you have to constantly be watching for new developments. It's sort of like real life."

Although Storey's story is an outlier and an uncommon success, virtual goods being sold has created a market in the U.S. that is estimated to reach $1.6 billion this year; $1 billion was the market in 2009 (according to Inside Networks, a research firm). Globally, some experts place the market value at $10 billion, with considerable draws from China and Korea. Games do not have to be as expansive as Entropia, which is a massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). One addicting social game from the Facebook platform, Farmville, shares the same strategy to success. Farmville offers virtual goods to be bought and sold for real cash in order to enhance progress in the game, in this case to raise a better virtual farm. The virtual goods industry claims as much $10 to $20 is hauled in per player per year.

Simply put, people will pay to win. With a Cap and Trade video game, people will pay to win while also learning about climate change, the various renewable energy technologies, politics, business and science. The point of the Cap and Trade online video game will be to get a city or a country off of fossil fuels by trading for carbon permits. Players would need to develop skills in order to win. They would need skills in economics to decide which is the most cost effective strategy; diplomatic skills to trade for materials, labor, and technology from other cities or countries; and they would need technical knowledge to choose the right solutions. Any member of any generation could come together to learn about climate change, cap and trade, and even make a real life profit.

Photo Credit: Smithsonian Institution