<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/18/earth-black-box-climate-apocalypse-tasmania-australia>
"It was designed to survive the apocalypse, as humanity’s last testament to its
failure. But for a while it seemed the “Earth’s Black Box” hadn’t even survived
its own planning process.
Now, five years after it was announced to much fanfare, followed by years of
ominous silence, the box is back. Its creators say parts assembly is under way
and, in December, the full monolith will be installed near Queenstown on the
edge of a remote western Tasmanian airfield.
When it was first announced that an indestructible doomsday device would be
built in a remote part of Tasmania to bear witness to the climate crisis, the
news went viral around the world.
“Earth is getting a black box to record events that lead to downfall of
civilization,”
CNET declared, a headline that would later be quoted on
The
Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “We’re doomed,” he whispered to the camera.
According to the project’s website, the 16-metre long, four-metre high steel
structure – to be topped with solar panels encased behind glass – will record
“every step” humanity takes towards climate catastrophe.
“Hundreds of data sets, measurements and interactions relating to the health of
our planet will be continuously collected and safely stored for future
generations,” it says.
“How the story ends is completely up to us. Only one thing is certain, your
actions, inactions, and interactions are now being recorded.”
The project’s inspiration is an aeroplane’s flight recorder, also known as a
“black box” (despite usually being orange), which stores data within
crash-proof casing to help investigators piece together the causes of
accidents. That was also an Australian invention: the prototype was put
together at a government research lab in Melbourne in 1954.
The Earth’s Black Box was announced to coincide with the UN’s 2021 Cop26
climate talks in Glasgow.
Digital hard drives were turned on to begin recording data from the talks, to
be transferred later to the physical box."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
