WILL THE EARTH'S BLACK BOX RECORD OUR END?

 

 

"Unless we dramatically transform our way of life climate change and other man-made perils will cause our civilization to crash," these words are written in the Earth's Black Box (see website)   and they appear as a worrying and dramatic warning for us and for all mankind before it is too late.

It seems an exaggeration but there are those who really think so: in Australia, for example, where at the beginning of the New Year they will build the Earth BlackBox, the black box that will record the end of the Anthropocene.

 

What is this Earth's Black Box?

 

It is a big giant granite box, a monolith of 10 square meters, protected by 8 centimetres of thick-steel, powered by solar panels and with an algorithm that will collect climate-change material from the internet.  This big black box is being built in Tasmania by Australian scientists and will be finished by 2022. It should record all data about climate change to protect them after the end of the world as it happens with the aircraft black box. It would preserve and record ocean acidification data, pollution data, temperature measurements, military spending, energy consumption and human population growth, laws adopted about our history and man environmental impact on the Earth.

 

Why are they building an Earth Black Box?

The increase of temperature also in South Pole until 18 C°, the increase of the frequency of   hurricanes, floods, fires and other extreme meteorological phenomena that have been haunting our planet in the last years, led someone to seriously  think that human civilization is heading towards extinction. They probably consider the efforts to get out of the pandemic and save us from the climate catastrophe futile: we might as well make a precise and detailed chronicle of our destruction and leave everything to those who will come later, in the hope that the next inhabitants of the Earth will learn from our mistakes.

“The idea is if the Earth does crash as a result of climate change, this indestructible recording device will be there for whoever's left to learn from that," Jim Curtis, executive creative director at marketing agency Clemenger BBDO, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

This project, which is a collaboration between the University of Tasmania, a communications firm called Clemenger BBDO, and an art collective called the Glue Society,  is slated to begin construction in early 2022, but the box systems are already partially active, as they are 'live recording' environmental updates in a beta test.

What is its goal?

The goal of the scientists is not only to record the probably apocalyptical end of the world but also to warn the political leaders and business men about their responsibilities. The estimated 2.7 degree rise in temperature by 2100 is worrying,  the signals are there for all to see and the Earth Black Box will record everything.  “The only thing certain is that your actions, inactions and interactions are now being recorded” we can read on the website of the project. Those responsible for the project emphasize that “how this story ends is entirely up to us.” 

 Agnese, 3sc