(Photo Source: usgamer.net)
Climate change awareness through Pokémon
Climate change is such a real thing that even the latest generation of Corsola in Pokémon Sword and Shield is a “ghost” type that was “wiped out” due to sudden global warming.
Corsola first appeared in the 1999 generation of Pokémon flagship games and has since appeared in various versions ever since. But this month’s highly anticipated Pokémon Sword and Shield features a new variation of the creature.
Specific to the Galar region in the Pokémon world, Corsola is bleached white, has a frown and is now a “ghost”-type Pokémon.
“Sudden climate change wiped out this ancient kind of Corsola,” a description of the Pokémon reads. “This Pokémon absorbs others’ life-force through its branches.”
The Pokémon Co. International is known for coming up with strange creatures with links to real-world animals and situations, but this inclusion of a coral Pokémon based on an actually endangered species has taken things to a whole new level.
As one Twitter user put it, it’s basically a “reminder from Pokémon that our planet is dying.”
According to a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the oceans are heating up so much that the planet is changing in “unprecedented ways,” and as much as half of the world’s coral has disappeared since 1980.
By: Maytinee Kramer
