They have a solution, though
Can The Internet Be More Resilient To Climate Change? Some Are Banking On It
Data has replaced oil as the world’s most valuable resource. But increasingly, our data is stored remotely “in the cloud†and climate change — challenging the resilience of the internet — puts access to our data at risk.
Urban planner Duane Verner learned just how vulnerable our data are in the climate-changing world.
When the COVID-19 pandemic closed his office in Lemont, Illinois, in March 2019, Verner was fortunate to already be working from home.
Unfortunately, what was not working was his internet connection.
“I had horrible issues with reliability with my own internet at my own house,” Verner recalled. “We spent countless hours with support people.”
Finally, he said, a senior technician was able to diagnose the problem: it was flooding. Unusually heavy winter snow, ice and spring rains disrupted the fiber optic box on his street, which connected Verner and his neighbors to the internet.
Wait, heavy snow and ice? A doomed warming world causes that? Nope, not a cult at all.
Ironically, Verner deals with disaster planning and infrastructure resiliency at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Lab in Illinois, where he manages the group in charge of critical infrastructure protection. That includes the internet.
Ironically, or, they went looking for a climate cultist?
The solution was designed by David Theodore, cofounder of Cohasset-based Climate Resilient Internet.
“Somebody had to solve this problem where the digital age is meeting the fury of climate change,” Theodore said. “It’s not even new technology.”
Theodore’s solution to make the internet resilient to climate change will use this old technology in a new way. He said wireless backup of data, stored remotely in the cloud, could bypass the physical internet links that climate change could potentially disrupt.
Wait, storing stuff in the cloud? Having backups? Holy Cow, that’s brilliant!
