“If you show somebody the consequences of their actions in virtual reality, it makes them rethink their physical behavior.”

That’s the theory behind Stanford University’s project in the Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL), according to its founder Jeremy Bailenson. Virtual reality, with a purpose thus far confined to entertainment and military training, can not only change hearts, but actually affect human behaviors that negatively impact the environment, Bailenson said.

The VHIL put subjects in a situation, like cutting down a tree, and found that their behavior afterward was affected by the experience, like reducing real-world paper use. Other situations include taking a long hot shower and exploring a dying coral reef.

Destroying the environment in the virtual world, it seems, just might save our physical world.