Minecraft players have used the game’s sandbox to create a world of different creations. Since the game’s release about a decade ago, players have mastered Minecraft’s systems and been able to recreate almost anything in the game. In the latest example of this creative flexibility, one player showed off what the United States would look like if all the ice in the world melted.
Minecraft and similar games let players manipulate and alter the world almost without restrictions. This shocking Minecraft post adapts a well-known thought experiment from National Geographic, in which they calculated how much volume would be added to the ocean if all of the ice on Earth melted.
In this Minecraft version of the worst case scenario when it comes to climate change, u/burgerking_foot perfectly recreates the continental United States with a much higher sea level. Minecraft players have made a number of map creations, but this one takes almost the entire country and replicates it. This new version of one of the world's largest countries is notably missing quite a lot of land from the southeast. In particular, the states of Florida and Louisiana are almost completely underwater, while most of the eastern seaboard has been significantly pushed back. This sea level increase also has wiped out quite a lot of land in central California.
While this post can be found on the Minecraft subreddit, it is quite an intimidating map that highlights a serious topic. After all, the complete melting of all ice on Earth would completely reshape the look of the world. Many major cities would be completely underwater in this version of Earth, and u/burgerking_foot's map conveys this accurately. Though the in-game map is incredibly large in Minecraft, this creation's scale is just as impressive.
This map of the partially submerged continental United States does shows the different ways that players can use sandbox games like Minecraft in a meaningful way. By bringing this thought experiment to the most successful video game of all time, u/burgerking_foot potentially opens up discussion to a whole new audience.
Then again, it is quite hard to tell how this map was made in Minecraft. And, because it is completely zoomed out, it can be hard to fully appreciate the magnitude of this rise in sea level. Either way, though, this map does a solid job of warning people what could potentially happen in the future through an interesting medium.
Minecraft is available now on Mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
Source: National Geographic