OPINION: Embracing the technology of tomorrow to address climate change

Published 10:40 am Monday, December 23, 2024

Oregonians face an urgent wakeup call with the rising costs of climate change, exemplified by Gov. Tina Kotek’s special session to address $350 million in wildfire costs.

Each year, conditions grow hotter and drier, with fires starting earlier, lasting longer, and causing increasing devastation.

In 2024, wildfires destroyed dozens of homes, damaged ecosystems, and burned record-breaking acreage, alongside indirect costs like lost tourism and severe health impacts from polluted air, especially for our most vulnerable populations. These challenges highlight the existential and financial threats climate change poses as well as the urgent need to adopt innovative tools and strategies to address it.

Wildfires present the most urgent call for action but our state faces a multitude of adverse climate related impacts. On the coast, sea-level rise and toxic algal blooms threaten to destroy miles of coastline and harm the aquatic populations like oysters and clams that people cherish and rely on. Severe drought is becoming the norm in many parts of the state, depriving crops and harming salmon runs with increased water temperatures.

The magnitude of these concurrent challenges warrants a clear need to act. We are fortunate to live in a state where the debate is centered on identifying solutions to best mitigate climate risks versus time and resources wasted debating whether they exist in the first place.

Despite real regional and political differences, Oregonians hold in common a reverence for our greatest asset – our state’s biodiversity and awe-inspiring natural beauty. Coupled with a deeply embedded culture of innovation and collaboration, there is perhaps no place positioned to take the actions necessary to preserve our special way of life.

As a former aspiring field biologist and co-founder of Synaptiq, a small Oregon AI strategy solutions business, I am especially excited about the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to combat climate change. While many see AI as a technology of tomorrow, Oregon sits at the forefront of its deployment.

Already AI is being used to comprehend vast swaths of data in hopes of optimizing energy distribution across electric grids more efficiently, and reducing waste and greenhouse gas emissions from its production. AI models trained on weather patterns, soil moisture, and crop water requirements are conserving water for heavy water-use industries, like agriculture, are lowering their water and fertilizer use and improving their efficiency.

The same is true for other resource-intensive industries, including manufacturing, which are leveraging AI to do more with less, helping them match the shifting consumer demand towards low-carbon products.

Beyond helping to mitigate climate change and reduce its severity in the years to come, AI is also being employed to help adapt to the effects we feel today. As more climate change-related natural disasters occur, AI is helping early warning systems be faster and more accurate – giving residents and first responders more time to plan and prepare for crises.

The University of Oregon is already demonstrating how AI is revolutionizing detection and prevention of forest fires by giving first responders early signals, allowing them to identify precise locations and deploy resources before a fire grows out of control.

Similarly, we worked on AI-enabled stratospheric balloons that are being piloted to collect and analyze heat signature data from above to detect fires in remote places. We’ve also worked on applying AI to monitor the growth, health, and cleanliness of coral microfragments in an effort to accelerate the restoration of threatened coral reefs around the world.

These examples mark only the beginning of what AI is capable of, and if we continue to embrace and explore its potential, we are bound to find new applications that help secure a future we, and our children, can all look forward to. Synaptiq is dedicated to finding these new beneficial applications and partnering with experts, government leaders, academics, and more to wield them to prevent and adapt to climate change.

The application of AI to address historically intractable challenges is still in its infancy. I urge our leaders in Salem now that they have secured one-time emergency funds to retire this wildfire season’s debts, to eagerly seek out and foster a regulatory environment that continues to foster the evolution of AI as an essential tool to better mitigate future fires and accelerate quantifiable progress toward meeting Oregon’s climate action goals.

Stephen Sklarew is the co-founder of Synaptiq, a Beaverton-based company that helps organizations define their AI strategies and execute on them with impactful AI solutions.