Through the headset, the user sees the shores of the Duwamish River, first with large conifers and then with small buildings in the foreground and today’s South Park Bridge in the distance. University of Washington/The Seattle Public Library The Duwamish River in the 1700s, left, and a simplified version of the current site, right, with the South Park Bridge in the background. It extends the timeline to a future in which the riverfront is clean but rising sea levels lead to more flooding of coastal and lowland areas. The VR experience builds on a Seattle Public Library project that used historical photos, maps and artifacts to show the history of the Duwamish River - from times when the Duwamish Tribe used the waterway for transportation, through the industrial pollution of the 1900s, to today’s ongoing cleanup effort. The Seattle Public Library is looking at more ways to make the experiences available to the public. The headsets and accompanying booklet are available as of this spring for checkout by community groups, such as Boys and Girls Clubs, youth groups or 4-H Clubs, which agree to take responsibility for the equipment. “Creative, interactive communication tools like virtual reality experiences offer a powerful way to spark conversations and action around climate change by helping show how a global-scale issue shows up in a very real way in our own communities,” said project leader Heidi Roop, who began the effort at the UW Climate Impacts Group and is now at the University of Minnesota. ![]() The Our Future Duwamish project, available to community groups through The Seattle Public Library, uses Oculus Quest 2 goggles to help viewers imagine rising seas from a vantage point along the South Seattle waterway. University of Washington/The Seattle Public LibraryĪ new project uses virtual reality to help communicate what climate models are predicting: Greenhouse gas emissions are increasing Earth’s temperature, melting glaciers that could create many feet of global sea level rise by the end of this century. Later in the experience the narrator explains how glaciers in Antarctica, right, contribute to rising seas. The user can hold up a magnifying glass that makes Earth’s atmosphere appear blue. ![]() The VR experience begins by explaining how gases like carbon dioxide create an invisible blanket around Earth, trapping solar radiation.
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