The Foresight and Governance Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center just released a great video Eco-Tour of Second Life which showcases how various groups are using virtual worlds to tackle real world environmental issues.   The video is part of a larger project with the Environmental Protection Agency to explore how computer and video game technologies can be applied to environmental issues. Among the projects featured in the tour:

Eolus One, a virtual world “energy management system” that monitors and manages energy usage in real world buildings via a virtual operations center in Second Life.  is reducing energy consumption in real-world buildings;

SciLands (as in, “Science Lands”), an archipelego of islands for science and technology based organizations, including the UK’s Nanotech Island and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), whose main attraction is a 3D weather visualization map that depicts real world real time weather data.

Green Islands Project, which allows Second Life landowners to offset their virtual world energy consumption.  It’s an interesting project: landowners calculate the energy used by servers to run a “sim” (aka, virtual land areas) and Green Islands Project charges owners (in Linden dollars, the in-world currency) for an equivalent quantity of renewable energy credits (RECs) which it then purchases from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation.

Etopia, an eco village showcasing real world examples of sustainable development, renewable energy,  and organic living including a magnetic levitation train, a wind-solar power generation plant and an aquaculture treatment system.

Second Chance Trees is an island that allows residents to plant trees in Second Life that are then planted in real life.  Eight different endangered rainforest indigenous trees can be purchased for 150 Lindens each; this triggers the planting of an identical species of tree in an endangered region in the real world.

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