This “Black Box” Is Dedicated to Helping Avoid Future Climate Crises

In the Australian state of Tasmania, an imposing steel structure will record data regarding the climate crisis to help future generations understand how humankind dealt with it and to influence current leaders to be even more proactive.

“The [Earth’s Black Box] will act as an indestructible and independent ledger of the ‘health’ of our planet,” says Jonathan Kneebone, artist, and director of the artistic collective Glue Society involved with the project. “And we hope it will hold leaders to account and inspire action and reaction in the broader population.”

The citybus-sized steel structure powered by solar panels is meant to outlive humans. Indestructible to the climate crisis, the monolith will store climate-related information, such as land and sea temperature changes, the amount of greenhouse emitted in the atmosphere, human population, military spendings, and policy changes. It could store data for the next three to five decades. “How the story ends is completely up to us,” write the developers. “Only one thing is certain, your actions, inactions, and interactions are now being recorded.”