In a world overshadowed by the rapid deterioration of its climate, AI engineers are beginning to apply machine learning technology to issues of environmental justice and crisis. In California, where wildfires have ravaged over 570,000 acres of land and forced 41,000 evacuations already this summer, AI is being used to prevent and monitor forest fires throughout the state.
Since the first oil well was dug in 1859, we have been extracting carbon from the ground and pumping it into our atmosphere. Similar to the hundreds of thousands of oil wells around the world, what if we had many CCS systems capturing carbon, often in the form of oil, and injecting it back into the ground?
Illegal logging is an environmental and economic loss for tropical regions like the Amazon. Illegal logging is associated with billions of dollars of lost revenue each year in addition to depressed timber prices, yet effective strategies to curb illegal deforestation are hard to find. Harnessing AI serves as a promising innovation for enhancing the accuracy of forest monitoring, with the potential to be adapted to the Amazon basin and other tropical regions.
In recent years, we’ve witnessed the shocking imagery of Australia, the western United States, Europe, and the Amazon rainforest engulfed in flames, the unprecedented intensity, duration, and extent of the fires inflicting irreversible damage on countries, economies, ecosystems, and the atmosphere. Managing and conserving forest resources remains a top priority, but mapping and monitoring global forests are crucial to understanding how to properly manage and protect them, especially in monitoring wildfires and illegal deforestation, as well as knowing which forests to prioritize preserving. Identifying and monitoring forests with strong conservation value and high carbon stock is also a huge leverage point for targeted intervention of Artificial Intelligence.
