How Al Gore Harnessed AI to Track 660 Million Polluters

Al Gore’s newest initiative offers polluters no avenues for escape.

On Wednesday, Climate Trace, a nonprofit co-founded by Gore, introduced an innovative tool that leverages AI to track fine particulate pollution from over 660 million sources around the globe.

While it’s widely acknowledged that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change, not as many are aware that this process releases fine particulate matter linked to nearly 10 million fatalities each year.

“I’ve been pushing for greater awareness regarding the public health crisis associated with what some label conventional air pollution, or PM2.5,” Gore told TechCrunch. “Acquiring precise data on the pollution we breathe, where it comes from, and its levels has proven difficult for many.”

Climate Trace was launched as a non-governmental effort to track global greenhouse gas emissions. The team started developing this new tool after Gore observed local residents in Memphis, Tennessee, striving to prevent a crude oil pipeline’s construction that could jeopardize their drinking water source. His research highlighted pollution from a nearby refinery affecting local communities.

“I urged our Climate Trace coalition to explore whether we could monitor these pollutants on a global scale,” he remarked.

The resulting tool offers users access to both raw data on leading polluters and visual representations of PM2.5 pollution dispersing near prominent urban centers. Gore mentioned that these plume visualizations will soon be made available worldwide.

Although the detrimental effects of soot have long been recognized, it was only recently that Climate Trace and its partners at Carnegie Mellon University successfully assembled global data on this issue into a clear and dependable format.

“The idea of monitoring 662 million locations globally would have seemed impossible without AI,” he remarked. “Yet, as we’ve seen in recent years, AI can achieve remarkable feats.”

Researchers have only begun to understand the extensive health impacts of fine particulate pollution. While its links to lung cancer and heart disease have been established for some time, research over the past decade has disclosed associations with various other serious conditions, such as low birth weight, kidney disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, dementia, type 2 diabetes, and more. Even within permissible limits, fine particulate pollution contributes to tens of thousands of additional deaths in the U.S. annually.

Trailblazing research on the health impacts of PM2.5 was led by Joel Schwartz, whose work decades ago helped lead to the ban on leaded gasoline. Gore hopes that increased awareness of the health consequences of fossil fuels will inspire broader action, similar to the movement against leaded gasoline.

“I believe it sets the stage and provides incentives that could greatly improve the chances of accelerating the transition away from carbon-heavy facilities,” he asserted. “This is more likely to generate political backing for upgrading these facilities to technologies that emit far less.”