Written by Sara Cate Galasso
The interest in renewable energy, electric vehicles, and reducing plastic waste continues to grow in popularity year over year, leading to small and incremental wins for the climate and our planet. The need for our cities to become more green and to produce less emissions is more urgent than ever, though, with some saying new adaptations need to happen quicker and in more radical ways. There’s always more that can be done to create greener cities, from the smallest act to the biggest systemic changes. Instead of despairing over the less-than-lightning pace of eco-growth, it’s much more fun (and better for our mental health!) to imagine what a better world can look like instead. Even a world of fantasy can lead to real inspiration and drive real change! Imagine what our cities would look like if our efforts to create more eco-friendly living spaces were built around Pokémon and their amazing abilities, for example! From backyard gardening to waste management and beyond, there would be no limit to the ways Pokémon could help us achieve our eco-friendly goals! Let’s take a look at how just one type of Pokémon —-the Electric Type — might aid us on our mission to make cities better for everyone, in a place we’ll call Shimmering Skyline.
Renewable energy
One of the best ways to generate renewable energy is through solar farms, giant grids of solar panels that can provide power to cities on a large scale. The sun gives us endless amounts of clean energy, but in Shimmering Skyline, there are even more ways to create renewable energy! Pikachu, the most beloved electric Pokémon, for example, are notorious for storing up huge amounts of electrical energy in their cheeks. While they sleep, the amount of energy builds even more, and is discharged once they wake up. A farm full of free-range Pikachu napping the days away could easily harness enough electricity to power a large city!
Electric Vehicle Charging
Electric Vehicles, or EVs, now make up for one fifth of all cars sold. This is great news for bettering our planet, as the less vehicles on the road that require unsustainable fossil fuels, the better. This increase in EVs has created a real need for Electric Vehicle charging stations, and cities haven’t always been able to keep up with the rate of growth. This is where Pawmot comes in! This Electric-Type Pokémon is perfect for charging electric cars: the fluffy fur on its body acts like a battery, which allows Pawmot to store up as much electricity as an electric car! Need a charge? If you lived in Shimmering Skyline, you could simply pop into a Pawmot Station and watch this fuzzy rodent-like Pokémon refill your battery in no time. Long road trips with a Pawmot as a travel companion would not only be fun, they would be a completely carbon neutral way of traveling, too!
Waste Management
We all know that food waste is a huge modern problem. One easy way to combat that is to compost your unwanted food scraps! Compost bins pair perfectly with backyard gardens, so you not only turn waste scraps into fertilizer for new crops, but you keep them out of landfills, too. If you don’t have a yard and can’t grow your own produce or easily keep a compost bin, one Pokémon could be a great solution: keep a Morpeko in your home, the short and chubby electric rodent. What’s so special about Morpeko? We all know that producing all that extra electricity uses up a lot of energy, and causes this Pokémon to become infamously hangry when it goes too long without food. Feed all your household food scraps to Morpeko and you can reduce your kitchen waste in no time! In Shimmering Skyline, Morpeko can clear food waste from an entire block in a single day. Pretty impressive! (Plus, it prevents that sudden switch to Hangry Mode, which can be a little scary to witness.)
Green Delivery
Online retail shopping has increased exponentially in the past decade, and while it can reduce our carbon footprint in some ways, like reduced car trips which mean less emissions, not all delivery vehicles have made the switch to renewable energy yet. Drones delivering packages in big cities are a recent novel idea, but aren’t necessarily sustainable on a wider scale. What if there was an easy way to make package delivery totally carbon neutral? With an Emolga, the flying electric Pokémon, it could be! Imagine ordering something online, and a mere hours later, an adorable flying Pokémon swoops right in through your window to bring your item right to your living room! It’s already a reality in Shimmering Skyline! Since the energy made in its cheeks' electric pouches is stored inside its membrane and released while it’s gliding, this is a self-powered delivery vehicle of a whole new kind, in the form of a cute, round rodent! And, a simple delivery fee of some berries for the Emolga to munch would be a great perk for shoppers, too.
Increased Accessibility
Going paperless is an essential way for businesses or civic buildings to become more green. The world of endless forms, papers and documents to submit, process, and store is quickly becoming a thing of the past, but it’s only a viable solution to go paperless if every citizen has access to the alternative way to submit paperwork: the internet. Increased access to an essential utility like the internet is a no-brainer for cities, especially if the cost is subsidized. But adding high-speed internet to every corner of a city is still not the easiest undertaking, and workers in this sector may need some help. Pachirisu is perfect for that! These squirrel-like Electric-Type Pokémon are great climbers, and could nimbly climb poles and wires that humans can’t to install cables, and greatly expand access to high quality internet, so entire cities could go paperless. In Shimmering Skyline, Pachirisu work alongside electrical workers to improve the efficiency of electrical grids, inspect telephone poles, and fix outages. There’s no better companion for an electrician than an electric-type Pokémon, who are right at home in an eco-friendly city!
Conclusion
There are a million ways that living with Pokémon could create a more sustainable future, and it’s fun to imagine what a world like Shimmering Skyline would be like . But it doesn’t have to remain simply in our imaginations: greener, more sustainable cities are more than fantasy, they are possible, and we can work every day to achieve them! Pressure big corporations to reduce emissions and waste. Ask your local town hall to make the switch to more sustainable business practices. Grow a community garden with your neighbors, and use extra food to cook meals for your community! Providing care for those in need is an easy way of improving your world right now, and creates a better city for everyone.
Not ready to stop dreaming about what it would be like to live alongside Pokémon in Shimmering Skyline? Then check out these Shimmering Skyline tabletop accessories! Store your Pokémon TCG cards in a Deck Box, PRO-Binder or pocket portfolios featuring full-color art of all five of the Electric-Type Pokémon mentioned above. The matching Deck Protector Sleeves and 2” Album keep your cards safe, and the Alcove Click Deck Box includes all the Shimmering Skyline Electric-Type Pokémon on interchangeable magnetic badges! However you play, Shimmering Skyline will light up your game!
