Virtual Consumption: A Second Life for Earth?

Abstract Consumption is at the root of many of the world's greatest environmental challenges, yet laws or policies that directly address consumption are rare. Virtual worlds, such as Second Life, offer the intriguing prospect of displacing a substantial amount of real-world consumption without running afoul of the political and economic obstacles that proposals to reduce consumption often face. In the interactive online reality of virtual worlds, players adopt an "avatar" and participate in an electronic world that mirrors the real world in striking ways. As this Article explains, virtual worlds offer opportunities, experiences, and pleasures that satisfy many of the basic motivations that drive modern consumption. Yet while "virtual consumption" may be a promising substitute for real consumption, virtual worlds also present dangers that require careful reflection before we wholeheartedly embrace them as a tool for protecting the environment. I. INTRODUCTION Consumption is at the root of many of the world's greatest environmental challenges, including climate change, toxic waste, pollution, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity. Laws or policies that directly address consumption, however, are few and far between. Consumption decisions reflect lifestyle choices that democratic governments are generally loath to question. The difficulty of confronting consumption head-on highlights the need for alternative approaches to address consumption and its impacts. These approaches ideally would harness or take advantage of current trends and predominant values, rather than run counter to them. Virtual worlds, such as second Life, present an important opportunity to develop one such approach. Virtual worlds are "sophisticated pieces of software that enable their users to project an identity into a generated three-dimensional reality through the use of advanced computer graphics and-through the eyes of this digital persona or avatar-interact with other players and wander though this computer-generated reality."1 In second Life and other virtual worlds-sometimes referred to as "massively multiplayer online reality games" or "MMPORGs"2-players adopt a persona and enter an electronic world where they can interact with thousands of other participants and carry out an existence that mirrors the real world in striking ways.3 These interactive experiences are not mere video games, however, nor are they science fiction. Rather, virtual worlds have real-world applications and real-world impacts. "[V]irtual worlds platforms," Professor Jack Balkin predicts, "will be adopted for commerce, for education, for professional, military and vocational training, for medical consultation and psychotherapy, and even for social and economic experimentation to test how social norms develop."4 Commentators have discussed extensively the intellectual property issues associated with virtual worlds, as well as the general role of law in these environments.5 Far less attention, however, has been directed to the relationship between virtual worlds and the natural environment. This is a tremendous oversight. Increasing numbers of people are spending significant portions of their waking hours in virtual worlds. Virtual worlds offer-at least in theory-the prospect of other "worlds" free of some of the problems and constraints of planet Earth. More importantiy, they may help to address challenges faced by planet Earth itself. This Article examines how consumption in virtual worlds might reduce human pressure on ecosystems by serving as a substitute for consumption in the real world. Such consumption-which I refer to as virtual consumption-obviously cannot address all resource limitations of the physical world. Some physical constraints are inescapable: a person participating in a virtual world continues to exist in the real world, using physical resources such as energy, oxygen, and the raw materials used to build a computer. …