Data, Technology & Climate Change

The 4000 page landmark @IPCC report demonstrates how human activity is changing the climate in unprecedented ways. Technology helps monitor, measure, analyse, & record climate change precisely, yet also contributes to the vast energy consumption damaging our planet.

WEDF Team

Whether sending emails or watching Netflix, the analysis & storage of data comes at great energy cost. The processing necessary to train a “large algorithm”, for instance, can require energy equivalent to nearly 5x the lifecycle emissions of a car.

Meanwhile, #data & #tech can unlock and harness the potential of clean energy, enable better understanding of climate change, and improve human behaviour in meaningful and positive ways.

However, Data is often — especially in climate change discourses — misrepresented & misused to serve agenda driven by political & monetary ambition. We must take care to ensure our data guides us correctly — as clear of bias and agenda as possible — if we are to avert disaster.

Further Reading:

The IPCC report:

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

The IPCC delivers its starkest warning about the world climate
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/the-ipcc-delivers-its-starkest-warning-about-the-worlds-climate/21803406

How can artificial intelligence help fight climate change?

https://news.trust.org/item/20210805153021-fp4sh

Our World in Data, CO2 & other greenhouse gas emissions across countries:

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions

For CO2, sea levels, Arctic sea ice, Antarctic and Greenland land ice:

http://climate.nasa.gov

For papers published on climate change during the 1970's, see Peterson, 2008

https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/89/9/2008bams2370_1.xml?tab_body=pdf