Roll the Dice, Save Gotham From Climate Catastrophe!

At a training facility for Consolidated Edison workers in Queens, there is a yard with electric poles where line workers can master climbing skills, a replica of the city’s underground electric structures for practice fixing wires, and a library where employees can play the climate change board game Energetic.

A race against time — or, rather, global warming wrought by fossil fuels — the game invites four players to work together to decarbonize New York City by 2035.

The challenge is rooted in reality, said Stephen Wemple, general manager of the Utility of the Future team at Con Ed, the city’s largest utility company. Gov. Kathy Hochul has mandated that 70 percent of New York State’s energy must be renewable by 2030, and 100 percent by 2040. Currently, renewable energy percentages are in the “high 20s,” he said.

Energetic is the brainchild of Richard Reiss, a fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Cities at Hunter College and the founder of City Atlas, an online resource about New York City’s transition to green energy. He invented the game along with a group of…