The Global change game was devised in Winnipeg

Winnipeg

Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...

 in December 1991 by a group of students from the University of Manitoba

University of Manitoba

The University of Manitoba , in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, is the largest university in the province of Manitoba. It is Manitoba's most comprehensive and only research-intensive post-secondary educational institution. It was founded in 1877, making it Western Canada’s first university. It placed...

. It is a simulation that involves exploring, understanding and solving some of the issues that plague the world today.
The list is as follows:

• Hunger
  Hunger
  Hunger is the most commonly used term to describe the social condition of people who frequently experience the physical sensation of desiring food.-Malnutrition, famine, starvation:...
  
  
• Health
  Health
  Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...
  
   and Nutrition
  Nutrition
  Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....
  
  
• Sustainable Development
  Sustainable development
  Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...
  
  
• International Relations
  International relations
  International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...
  
  
• Deforestation
  Deforestation
  Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a nonforest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use....
  
  
• Desertification
  Desertification
  Desertification is the degradation of land in drylands. Caused by a variety of factors, such as climate change and human activities, desertification is one of the most significant global environmental problems.-Definitions:...
  
  
• Agricultural practices
• Resource
  Resource
  A resource is a source or supply from which benefit is produced, typically of limited availability.Resource may also refer to:* Resource , substances or objects required by a biological organism for normal maintenance, growth, and reproduction...
  
   consumption
• Population growth
  Population growth
  Population growth is the change in a population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals of any species in a population using "per unit time" for measurement....
  
  
• War
  War
  War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
  
  
• Pollution
  Pollution
  Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light...
  
  
• International trade
  International trade
  International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories. In most countries, such trade represents a significant share of gross domestic product...
  
  
• Economic disparity
• Biodiversity
  Biodiversity
  Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
  
  
• Ozone Depletion
  Ozone depletion
  Ozone depletion describes two distinct but related phenomena observed since the late 1970s: a steady decline of about 4% per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth's stratosphere , and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earth's polar regions. The latter phenomenon...
  
  
• Climate Change
  Climate change
  Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
  
  
• Energy
  Energy
  In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...
  
   alternatives
• Gender issues
• Resource Distribution
  Resource distribution
  Resource distribution refers to the distribution of resources, including land, water, minerals, fuel and wealth in general among corresponding geographic entities .-Unequal resource distribution:...
  
  
• Refugees / Immigration
  Immigration
  Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
  
  
• Geography
  Geography
  Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
  
  
• Education
  Education
  Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
  
  

Process

A large map of the world is laid out. The game involves up to 70 participants or more (depending on the size of the venue). Each participant is randomly assigned to one of the 10 regions in the world: North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

, Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, the Commonwealth of Independent States

Commonwealth of Independent States

The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union....

, Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, The Middle East, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 and the Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim

The Pacific Rim refers to places around the edge of the Pacific Ocean. The term "Pacific Basin" includes the Pacific Rim and islands in the Pacific Ocean...

. Each player represents roughly 100 million people. Each region begins with realistic assets and problems. North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim are well off, but India and Africa are in extreme poverty. Food supply, medical facilities and employment opportunity tokens are distributed accordingly based on actual figures in reality. Likewise, military strength also mirrors that of the real world. The passing of time represents the number of years. Normally the span is around 30 to 40 years.

At the beginning of the game, the three nuclear power

Nuclear power

Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...

s are asked whether they wish to disarm their nuclear armaments. Players who do not have food, health care and employment are given a black arm band; any player who receives three will be declared dead. Regions can also declare refugees, however if no other region offers them asylum

Right of asylum

Right of asylum is an ancient juridical notion, under which a person persecuted for political opinions or religious beliefs in his or her own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, a foreign country, or church sanctuaries...

, they perish into the open ocean. When the game is in play, the facilitators will move around to determine if proposals for certain problems are feasible or not and reward or punish the groups accordingly. For example, the poor management of the environment can lead to famine

Famine

A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...

, strife and pestilence

Infectious disease

Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...

. Facilitators will also announce random problems at specified intervals, ranging from ozone depletion to global warming.

Leaders are chosen in the beginning of each game to lead their respective regions; these leaders are given coats ties and hats to give them the aura of leadership. They control the finances and military strength and are allowed to pocket the wealth of their regions as they deem fit. To win, one must be the leader of a region and acquire the most wealth.

Leaders can also choose to declare war: Victory is determined by the army tokens. Once victory is achieved, the loser's territory and assets belong to the winner. If the army tokens are equal then both sides lose not only the armies but also the wealth. A victor can control the invaded territory by stationing troops in the conquered land. Nuclear war wipes out the entire earth population.

There is mention of the game in Dr. Bob Altemeyer's

Robert Altemeyer

Robert "Bob" Altemeyer is a retired Professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba.He has written extensively on authoritarianism and refined the theory into the concept of Right Wing Authoritarianism. Altemeyer's work is extensively referenced in John W. Dean's 2006 book, Conservatives...

 book, "The Authoritarian Specter" where he runs the game to determine the difference between Low Right-Wing Authoritarians and High Right-Wing Authoritarians.