lobal warming has been here for a long time and people have been trying to slow it down for a while now. But now, living in a digital era comes with
a huge advantage. We have new tools that can help us achieve things unimaginable before. If AI can revolutionize many industries, could we also use its power to avert the climate crisis that is upon us? If you were wondering the same thing, let’s dive into how AI can help in saving the planet from weather disasters.
To better understand what role AI can play in improving the current situation of our planet, we have to start with what AI can do and how it works. Artificial Intelligence (AI) enables machines to think, learn, make decisions, and improve themselves – basically exhibit capabilities that resemble the ones possessed by humans. Unlike humans, machines can analyze massive amounts of data, perform complex calculations, and, most importantly, don’t get tired. As a result of data processing, AI can come up with patterns that help with predictions of future behaviors.
When it comes to the current state of the climate, the planet continues to get warmer. Weather disasters grow in occurrence, endangered species grow in number, and food and water become less secure. The predictions for the next decades seem rather grim – the average temperature will increase by 3°C compared to the one before the beginning of industrial times.
How Can AI Help Us Tackle Climate Change?
Before coming up with AI-powered solutions for more environmentally friendly practices or methods of prevention, AI can help us with another thing. AI plays an important role in a deeper understanding of climate change – how it happens and what are the future implications. Without AI, interpreting and analyzing huge amounts of data and variables would be impossible. These exceed the capacities of the human brain.
AI is particularly good at running simulations that can give us insights into the future. Climate informatics is responsible for climate interpretation and predicting extreme weather conditions. Even more so, AI’s algorithm continues to gather data and adjust predictions accordingly. AI is a powerful collaborator that can make the work of researchers more efficient and faster.
AI is already helping avert climate change – here are three companies that use AI to bring positive change in the context of the climate crisis.
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1. Greyparrot
Recycling is essential for maintaining environmental well-being. Waste management is one of the biggest topics of discussion when it comes to reducing global waste. To help with that, Greyparrot is providing AI waste analytics. AI plays a vital role in managing waste as without it the costs of manual spot sampling would be way higher and the accuracy would be lacking. This British startup believes that there are still valuable resources that many companies decide consciously or unconsciously to throw away. Each year, an enormous amount of waste ends up in landfills out of which not all is useless. For this reason, they want to help their customers recover as much material as possible. Greyparrot uses AI to make recycling more efficient.
2. The Ocean Cleanup
Another incredible way AI helps combat climate change is by cleaning the oceans. One non-profit organization that uses AI for a greener planet is The Ocean Cleanup. They developed technologies that help clean and extract plastic from oceans. Plastic pollution is one of the biggest problems the environment faces. Over 100,000 marine mammals die each year due to plastic waste found in the oceans. But, with The Ocean Cleanup’s AI-powered plastic monitoring tool, the amount of plastic found in water can be significantly reduced. They have an ambitious goal – cleaning 90% of floating plastic.
3. Mortar IO
Everyone knows that carbon emissions are slowly poisoning our planet and are partly responsible for global warming. Mortar IO aims to reduce carbon emissions in real estate. According to statistics, more than any vehicle in the world, buildings are to be held responsible for 40% of global carbon emissions. However, most buildings will continue to stand for the next decades, so reducing the carbon emissions of already-built ones should be a priority. And it is a priority for Mortar IO. AI is used to come up with a plan to reduce those emissions. Thanks to the integration of AI, those plans have higher accuracy and propose cost-saving solutions for other organizations to use.
These are just a few companies and organizations that are using AI to improve the current situation of the planet. Other big companies such as Microsoft or Google are also looking to expand towards environmentally friendly technologies and fund new programs that harness the power of AI to save the planet.
For example, Microsoft is continually investing money in its program called AI for Earth which promises to become a game-changer for addressing environmental issues. Google already uses AI to enhance a more efficient use of energy. With the help of the AI algorithms of DeepMind, energy consumption can be significantly reduced. This not only helps reduce the costs of the energy used for cooling down processes, but it also lowers the carbon footprint.
When it comes to future potential uses of AI to help us in battling this climate crisis, we can expect more and more companies to make investments in a greener, less polluted future. With advancements in technology, AI’s tracking and predictive abilities will increase in accuracy. More and more cities will benefit from AI-powered tools so sources of pollution can be tracked more efficiently. Solutions for protecting the oceans are also on their way. By receiving information from satellites, AI can prevent and predict damage to ocean ecosystems.
If at first glance, technology seems like one of the biggest enemies of our planet’s well-being, it’s the opposite. Technology is an ally of the environment. With the help of AI, organizations all over the world are already coming up with solutions that fight climate change. We are sure that this is only the beginning, and we are waiting to see what innovations AI is going to enable.
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