{"id":17656,"date":"2022-05-04T05:22:02","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T05:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/proskillssaudi.com\/?p=17656"},"modified":"2022-05-04T05:22:02","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T05:22:02","slug":"to-help-protect-the-planet-smithsonian-and-oracle-send-visitors-on-a-vr-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proskillssaudi.com\/tr\/to-help-protect-the-planet-smithsonian-and-oracle-send-visitors-on-a-vr-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"To help protect the planet, Smithsonian and Oracle send visitors on a VR trip"},"content":{"rendered":"

To help protect the planet, Smithsonian and Oracle send visitors on a VR trip<\/h1>\n

The \u201cFUTURE of Water\u201d is one subject of the FUTURES exhibit at the Smithsonian\u2019s Arts + Industries Building in Washington D.C. uses virtual reality (VR) to take a user from the skies above Las Vegas, down a storm drain, and all the way to the ocean.<\/p>\n

Wearing virtual reality headsets, gamers have tasks to perform along the way\u2014such as removing a \u201cfatberg\u201d from the drain wall and rescuing a turtle wrapped in plastic. \u201cYou use your hands to pull the plastic off,\u201d says Mike Ballard, vice president for Oracle Energy and Water. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely tactile, and when people come away from it, they\u2019re going to remember it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new exhibit is part of the Smithsonian\u2019s FUTURES exhibit and a follow up to the \u201cFUTURE of Energy\u201d VR experience that allows users to experience the past, present, and future of energy and understand the impact that small actions can have on our climate future.<\/p>\n

Oracle Energy and Water partnered with the FUTURES team on the two installations. The goal was ambitious\u2014to make people really feel the impact that their actions could have on the health of the planet. In a world where climate change is a real threat and 11 of the largest cities in the world are in danger of running out of water, it\u2019s critical that people begin to act now.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\u201cEven the smallest of actions, when taken by us all, can have a big impact.\u201d<\/big><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u2014Mike Ballard, Vice President, Strategy, Oracle Energy and Water<\/cite><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>The installation makes that point by showing how individual actions, when done at scale, can have an outsized impact on climate change. According to the\u00a0International Energy Agency<\/a>, more than 60 percent of the energy reduction needed to reach global net zero by 2050 will require individuals to change their behavior. Behavior change is also accessible to all and can be rapidly scaled, providing quantifiable benefits now while the grid is at its dirtiest. \u201cOur atmosphere has a limited budget of how much emissions it can absorb,\u201d says Ballard. \u201cEverything we prevent from emitting today matters\u2014and arguably matters more than what you commit to avoiding ten years from now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Users of the VR experience see home and transportation options and experience the impact of choices about when to consume water, when to consume energy, and what to buy. \u201cThere are things that people can do that cost absolutely nothing,\u201d says Ballard. \u201cThere are things that make an even larger difference that cost very little.\u201d Some will even save money\u2014for example, a 20-ounce bottle of water can cost around 2,000 times what the same amount of water coming out of the tap would cost. These actions don\u2019t require modern technology\u2014in fact, Ballard says, there really are no large-scale technological solutions to water pollution. \u201cThere\u2019s no magical solution,\u201d says Ballard. \u201cOrganizations and governments are making a start at cleaning up, but we all have a role to play to reduce pollution from entering the water in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the museum visitors are students from middle schools and high schools, offering a vital opportunity to educate young people. According to a survey from Oracle Energy and Water, 80% of millennials and 73% of Generation Z are willing to spend more for clean energy, compared to 36% of baby boomers. If he could, Ballard would take the VR experience around the world and drop it into every school. \u201cIf energy companies want to engage with a group of people who are more likely to do the things we need them to do, decarbonize, it\u2019s the under 25 group that they need to engage with,\u201d says Ballard.<\/p>\n

Virtual reality makes an impact<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A 20-ounce
\nbottle of water costs 2,279 times what the same amount of water coming out of the tap would cost.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

It\u2019s hard to measure the impact of the VR experiences, but within Future of Water and Future of Energy, visitors can give feedback about becoming part of the solution. They\u2019re asked: If you had to pick one change that you are most likely to do when you go home, which one would it be? Options ranged from switching off idle devices to installing a heat pump. Switching off devices was the most popular, with finding more sustainable methods of transportation a close second.<\/p>\n

VR can make a much stronger impact on people than seeing PowerPoints and videos. Ballard attended the opening night of the exhibit and talked with one woman who had just participated in the experience. \u201cShe was saying that this was the most impactful thing she had experienced in a long time,\u201d says Ballard. He believes that if VR is used sensitively, it can get into people\u2019s memories very effectively. \u201cWhen you\u2019re trying to put across concepts that relate to abstract things like energy, something you can\u2019t see, that just flows around you, VR can do things that you can\u2019t do in the real world,\u201d he says. \u201cEven the smallest of actions, when taken by us all, can have a big impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source:
\nhttps:\/\/blogs.oracle.com\/sustainability\/post\/prevent-climate-change-smithsonian-oracle-vr-trip<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To help protect the planet, Smithsonian and Oracle send visitors on a VR trip The \u201cFUTURE of Water\u201d is one subject of the FUTURES exhibit at the Smithsonian\u2019s Arts + Industries Building in Washington D.C. uses virtual reality (VR) to take a user from the skies above Las Vegas, down a storm drain, and all […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[730],"tags":[733,359,731,732],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proskillssaudi.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17656"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proskillssaudi.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proskillssaudi.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proskillssaudi.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proskillssaudi.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17656"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/proskillssaudi.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17658,"href":"https:\/\/proskillssaudi.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17656\/revisions\/17658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proskillssaudi.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proskillssaudi.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proskillssaudi.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proskillssaudi.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}