About a month ago, a few of us got together to play Daybreak, a brand new game about responding to climate change. The goal of the game is to cooperatively reach a point of “drawdown,” a future threshold when levels of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline. This event won’t happen on its own, and if the game is any indication, it won’t be easy for human beings to bring it about either.

The challenge in the game is that we aren’t starting from a clean slate. Daybreak begins from an approximation of current reality, where there are technologies and behaviors in place that gradually increase the global temperature. In addition to embracing new innovations and adopting new practices, players have to address the ongoing harm caused by existing conditions.

It’s a complicated game. And we didn’t win it on that first play through. But we learned a lot from losing a game.

For instance, given all conceivable new technologies and practices, we can only meaningfully focus on a few. We don’t have the resources to do everything possible. If we allocate our resources haphazardly or inconsistently, we wind up with an ineffective response to the challenges before us.

We also learned that we have to do more than just address the immediate problems. Unforeseen issues will arise, and one turn’s actions have ramifications on future turns. Reacting only to what’s right in front of us with no plan for the future means that we’re less likely to even have a future.

The setup of Daybreak is also telling. Players are not acting at the level of individuals or neighborhood collectives, or even major metropolitan areas. The players represent China, Europe, the U.S., and the Majority World. It’s as if the creators of the game assume that consistent, mindful decisions have to happen at the highest level of political power in order to have a meaningful effect on the climate crisis.

I suppose players could conceive of this in at least a few different ways. We could consider that these powers are making unilateral decisions that dictate the priorities of their entire citizenship. That’s a real way that power happens in some spaces. It isn’t the way Unitarian Universalists choose, though. Instead, we intend for democratic processes to create ever-widening circles of solidarity and mutual respect.

So, maybe representing major political powers in a game about climate change implies that citizens are aligned in solidarity toward specific technologies and practices, with a common, intentional, future-focused mindset. Is that what reaching drawdown requires of humanity? Maybe it’s only one path toward resolving our climate crisis.

Rather than arguing with the implications of the game, though, I wonder what transferable lessons Daybreak offers for a community. Do we invite solidarity and mutual respect in how we allocate our resources? Or do we do things haphazardly and impulsively? Are our decisions sourced by a compelling and hopeful vision for the future? Or are our decisions reacting to whatever dumpster fire du jour happens to be right in front of us at the moment?

I imagine that a lot of organizations struggle with these kinds of questions. It’s very human to debate so intensely that we forget to honor the inherent worthiness of the people we’re debating. And it’s very human to debate for so long that we never take meaningful action.

Still, what would it be like to co-create a community committed in solidarity to specific practices that flow from a common, intentional, future-focused mindset?

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