Al Gore launches AI tool for air pollution tracking

Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States, has developed a new tool that makes it harder for polluters to operate in secrecy. The nonprofit organization Climate Trace, which he co-founded, has recently introduced an innovative instrument that uses artificial intelligence to monitor the spread of fine particulate matter from over 660 million sources worldwide. While many people know that burning fossil fuels warms the Earth, it is less known that this also causes millions of deaths annually. Al Gore explained that it has been difficult to obtain accurate information about inhaled pollution and its origins. Climate Trace was originally launched to track greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Work on the new tool began following Gore's involvement in Memphis, Tennessee, where a community opposed the construction of an oil pipeline. Impressed by the visibly clear impacts of pollution, he asked if his organization could track such pollutants globally. Now the new technology allows people access to raw data on major pollution sources as well as visual representations of how PM2.5 pollution drifts near major cities. These plume visualizations are intended to be globally available in the future. In collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, Climate Trace succeeded in shaping global data into a comprehensible and robust overall picture. Gore emphasizes that without the remarkable capabilities of AI, it would have been impossible to tackle such a task. The reported health impacts of fine particulates, ranging from lung cancer to Alzheimer's, highlight the urgency of this issue. Al Gore hopes that the increased awareness of the health impacts of fossil fuels will bolster support for a transition to less emission-intensive technologies. He sees this development as an opportunity to adjust the political framework in favor of a more sustainable future.