An indestructible black box built on a granite plain on the west coast of Tasmania, Australia will record every step of humanity toward a climate disaster and will serve as data for the next civilization to learn the reasons for humanity’s demise, explains the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
This project is led by the Clemenger BBDO, a marketing communications company, and researchers from the University of Tasmania and it’s currently in the beta phase.
The box has already started collecting data at the website earthsblackbox.com.
What Kind of Structure Is the Black Box?
The black box is the size of a city bus and it’s constructed of 3-inch-thick steel and has solar panels on top. The interior has storage drives that collect data related to the climate like the levels of carbon dioxide and the temperature averages.
What’s more, through the usage of an algorithm, this box will search the web for posts, news, tweets, and headlines. According to the estimates of the developers, the storage will deplete in 30 to 50 years.
The plans for the increase of the capacity and enabling more permanent solutions are already being checked out.
However, it’s not entirely clear how this structure will be maintained and how the solar panels will be replaced prior to the civilization’s end or how will the drives hold up decades later. Another question that arises is whether the vault will be a victim of sabotage or vandalism.
The remote location is some four hours from the closest big city may help out but it’s not certain whether this will be sufficient.
Anyway, humans seem to like preparing for the end of times; if doomsday ever comes, whether caused by climate change or some other factor, there’s already a giant seed vault in the Norwegian ice and Australia has its own Noah’s Ark to avert the one-of-a-kind flora from disappearing forever.
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