A monolithic knowledge storage web site and artwork set up referred to as “Earth’s Black Box” is slated for building in Australia. Akin to a flight recorder, the machine is supposed to chronicle Earth’s journey towards environmental destruction, but it surely seemingly received’t have a lot of an affect.

The 33-foot-long (10-meter) construction will probably be constructed on a distant granite outcrop in western Tasmania, Australia’s ABC News reports. Its 3-inch-thick (7.5-centimeter) metal casing will shield inside storage drives filled with troves of “data sets, measurements and interactions relating to the health of our planet,” in keeping with the Earth’s Black Box website. This knowledge will probably be collected constantly and saved for future use.

Connected to the web, the construction will combination current measures of ocean and land temperatures, atmospheric carbon dioxide, adjustments to land use, vitality consumption, and inhabitants progress, amongst different knowledge, says ABC News. It’ll additionally seize and retailer information headlines, trending social media posts, and developments from local weather change conferences. The system may also work again in time, constructing a historic file of local weather change.

“The purpose of the device is to provide an unbiased account of the events that lead to the demise of the planet, hold accountability for future generations, and inspire urgent action,” in keeping with the web site. “How the story ends is completely up to us.”

Solar panels on the roof will present the wanted vitality, whereas batteries will retailer the backup energy. Earth’s Black Box will reportedly retailer almost half a century’s price of information, however the builders are hoping to retailer much more. Ideally, the system will protect knowledge for tons of and presumably even hundreds of years, ABC News reviews. Right now, Earth’s Black Box is merely a conceptual picture of what the finished construction will appear like. Rising up from the granite flooring, the thing’s sharp angles will present a stark distinction towards its pure environment, whereas its odd geometric proportions will make it seem in another way from each angle. As an artwork piece, it’s really fairly attention-grabbing.

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Teams from the University of Tasmania, Clemenger BBDO (a communications firm), and the Glue Society (an art collective) are taking part in this non-commercial project. Candidate sites included Malta, Norway, and Qatar, but Tasmania was ultimately selected due to its favorable geopolitical and geological stability, according to ABC News. Construction is slated to start mid-2022, but the system is already in record mode, which started during the recently concluded COP26 climate conference in Scotland.

Speaking to ABC News, Jim Curtis of Clemenger BBDO described Earth’s Black Box as a tool, but a tool that will be “built to outlive us all.” Should our planet go to crap and our civilization along with it, “this indestructible recording device will be there for whoever’s left to learn from that,” he added.

The developers are hoping to make the data decipherable to whoever should discover it in the future, whether they be from future generations or from an alien world. On that note, the team is considering a plan to transmit the collected data to space, according to ABC News.

As its name suggests, Earth’s Black Box is supposed to be like a flight recorder, but I see it more as social commentary and as a cool-looking art installation. A future civilization might find some of this data useful, but I doubt it. The message is already crystal clear: It’s the fossil fuels, stupid.

This project is reminiscent of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, but unlike the precious seeds in this northern Norwegian vault, the data to be stored within Earth’s Black Box doesn’t seem inherently useful, or at least not to me. Future climate modelers and historians may disagree, though I suspect they’ll be able to get their data from other sources. Today’s climate scientists already do, in fact, and there’s no reason to think that those sources of data would somehow be unavailable to future researchers. What’s more, the Svalbard vault is already capable of storing data, so the new project seems a bit redundant.

The project warns that “climate change and other man-made perils will cause our civilization to crash.” That second part makes the focus solely on climate data feel a bit off. I’m not dismissing the risks of unfettered fossil fuel use, but not naming the other existential threats, let alone chronicling the data for them feels shortsighted. Those perils include bioengineered viruses, molecular nanotechnology, nuclear armageddon, and artificial superintelligence. A flight recorder inherently documents whatever happens to a plane when it goes down; why wouldn’t the Earth-focused version do the same?

So while I like this project, I don’t love it. Maybe I’ve become too cynical about these things, but it’s not clear to me that this project, despite its laudable message, will actually make any sort of measurable impact, now or in the future.

More: The Cherokee Nation Becomes First US Tribe to Store Seeds in Svalbard Doomsday Vault.