Informal dispatches from COP 26

DAY 8 — “Smart” has many meanings

By Thomas Vonier
FAIA RIBA
Immediate Past President, International Union of Architects
Former President, American Institute of Architects

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We have amazing capabilities to know what’s going on with our planet. Day-to-day, and even in real-time, we can see exactly how much forest is being harvested and where. We can measure the status of coral reefs and monitor surface conditions on oceans, lakes, and rivers. We can pinpoint the location of greenhouse gas releases. And much, much more.

This all comes from satellites, which have grown in number and sophistication, while shrinking in size and cost. The Dove satellite constellation—“a fleet of nanosatellites deployed from the International Space Station to take images of Earth” (NASA)— has astonishing surveillance power.

In other contexts, you might call this power “intelligence.” But if intelligence is “the ability to understand and deal with trying situations” (Merriam-Webster), we’ve got some distance to go on the dealing side. The Climate Trace project promotes “radical transparency” in greenhouse gas emissions. Results of their observations are sobering: https://www.climatetrace.org/

The question today is not so much whether we can know reliably what’s happening on Earth—we can—but rather: Is anyone acting upon this information?

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Tom is sending DesignIntelligence daily dispatches from COP 26 and offering his seasoned insights and observations along the way.