“Subak allows farmers to carefully synchronize their use of water and so maximize rice production,”said Bryony Worthington, founder and board member of the new, not-for-profit climate action group. “And that is exactly what we are going to do – with data. By sharing and channeling data, we can maximize our efforts to combat carbon emissions and global warming. Data is going to be the new water, in other words.”
Subak, named after a 9th-century Indonesian water management cooperative, officially launches tomorrow, championing sharing high-tech data to address the climate crisis. The nonprofit organization has already been instrumental in backing electric car use, fine-tuning weather forecasting, and limiting the use of fossil fuels to generate energy.
Climate Activist Lady Worthington, part of the Subak team, says she came up with the idea after reading Shoshana Zuboff’s bookThe Age of Surveillance Capitalism, which focuses on how hi-tech gets rich from using personal data.
“It woke me up to the fact a whole new world of digital tools was being deployed to generate profits,” says Worthington. “I realized it would be better if those tools could be used to save the planet – to protect the global commons – and not merely to boost share value.”
One of the companies Subak has already funded is Open Climate Fix, which is focusing on applying Machine Learning (ML) to reduce GHGs.
Our approach is to search for ML (Machine Learning) problems where, if we solve a well-defined ML task, then there is likely to be a large climate impact. Then, for each of these challenges, we will:
Collate & release data, and write software tools to make it super-easy for people to consume this data.
Run a collaborative “global research project”where everyone from 16-year-olds to PhD students to corporate research labs can help solve the ML task.
Help to put good solutions into production, once the community has developed them, so we can be reducing emissions ASAP.
Another company,New AutoMotive, is observing the use of electric vehicles across England, focusing on the use of vehicles, sales data, and favored models of cars and trucks. The data they find is passed on to local authorities “to ensure charging stations, battery replacement services, and other resources are provided to maximize take-up of electric cars.
“Replacing petrol and diesel vehicles with electric versions as quickly as possible is going to be extremely important in reducing carbon emissions,” says Richard Allan. “And data about take-up rates in communities will be vital in achieving that goal.”
