Censorship Of Video Games

Sometimes life can throw you some strange serendipity. In that last couple of days I have been talking about censorship on television with a friend. Then today on the BBC News website was this article.

Personally I have never been that interested in video games. I am disturbed by the titles that are advertised, like Grand Theft Auto. But having not used them, I couldn't really comment on the content. However, from what I have seen I am disturbed by the casual violence and the glorification of crime that these games portray.

Now while I am in general a liberal and I do think that adults should have the freedom to choose what films they watch, the problem is that children are being allowed access to much of this material. I have experienced two examples of this; while helping out at a local school in their garden one of the children who was only about ten years old asked me if I had seen a horror film. I cant remember the title, but I knew even as I was asked it was a film that was supposed to be an adult film. I don't know if this child had parental consent to see this film, but I suspect he did from what he said, but the point is that with access so easy for children, the companies that publish films and video game need to be much more responsible.

The second example I was told about by an Education Welfare Officer, she had visited the parents of a child who was not attending school. While trying to talk to the parents, and competing for attention with the television, she realised that what the parents were watching was a Hard Core sex video. Obviously, that is an example of bad parenting.

However, even on mainstream television there are far to many examples of graphic violence. While an exposed breast at the Super bowl a few years ago, the incident that sparked my private discussions, caused such an outcry. Personally, I would rather have to explain to a child who accidentally stumbles upon nudity, or even sex on television than to try and explain acts of violence.

However there is a much wider problem with this material. It is clear that we do have a problem with violent children. While it would be far too over simplified to just blame it on videos, DVDs and Video Games, they must be having an impact. For example police officers who have to deal with the vile crime of child pornography, and have to view these images, receive psychological support as it has long been recognised that these images do disturb the viewer. Therefore an endless diet of violent images, especially on young people, must be having some effect too.

While there is no direct causal link between playing video games and the violence and crime we see on our streets, I am sure the link is there.

The piece that prompted this posting.

Our impact upon geography of our planet

I hear in the media that George W Bush has said that he is concerned about climate change and the often-stated fact that he is not is an Urban Myth. (Oh if only George W were an urban myth) But seriously, the problem with climate change is that people and politicos have taken a long time to even grasp the science of our climate, and of the way we are changing it. Further, they cant get out of the old ways of thinking, and cant get beyond the real urban myth that climate change will just mean warmer weather.

The impact of the effect upon geography of our planet was illustrated by the publication of a new edition of the Times Atlas, where two (in the reports I saw) of the largest bodies of inland water, have shrunk to ten percent of their original volume. However, as we have yet to see a clear and dramatic example of climate change in the media, people like George W can still get away with burying their head in the metaphorical sand.

Even where action is being taken such as with the creation of wind farms, it’s frequently done more for media hype and to chase the government subsidies, than as attempt to really solve the problems we face. I will write more on this once I have more facts, but briefly as the companies that are building the turbines and wind farms get tax breaks here in the UK, these farms are not being sighted in the best places, thus not producing anywhere near the levels of electricity they need to, to actually be a green source of energy. While the government trumpets this as reducing carbon emissions, it looks as if they will be Carbon Neutral at best, and because of poor placement may even have caused greater CO2 emissions from their construction than they will ever save during their lifetime of use.

The real challenge we all need to face up to is our profligate use of energy. Unfortunately, we live in a society whose whole economy is reliant upon us consuming more. Whenever there is economic news it is always illustrated by the rate that the economy has grown by. Yet this growth is at a real cost to our environment. Every new product we buy, every new gadget we use, has an environmental impact be it via the natural resources that goes into the manufacturing of it or the energy required to make it, transport it and then dispose of it.

The more we consume the more emissions we produce and the more energy is wasted. We are like children at Christmas with our consumer products; we play with them for a while then forget them as soon as the new latest wiz bang gadget comes out. The biggest difficulty is that our whole economy is built upon us consuming more and more.

Well, there is a limit to what I can consume. I spend long hours of my free time out in the countryside, and that is nearly free. I take my own rubbish (and often other peoples) home with me. If I travel I use Public Transport, or a pony belong to shanks. I try very hard not to waste energy, my electricity bill for the last quarter was twenty-six pounds my Gas costs were thirteen. I don’t waste resources like water, nor do I generate that much waste. In fact I find it impossible to fill a standard wheeled bin in four weeks. There it’s more about refusing to buy overly or heavily packaged items, and only buying enough food to use and not wasting it.

If I owned the property I lived in, I would fit Solar panels. Photo voltaic and solar heating, possibly even a small wind turbine and that way all my energy needs would be carbon free, and in time even the energy and carbon emissions of the production of my consumer goods would be removed from the equation.

Each individual action has a small effect; as can be seen in our changing climate, thus we can also collectively make a very large impact for the good.