"Skolstrejk för Klimatet" (School Strike for the Climate) is what you can read on the poster of a 16-year-old Swedish girl who travels the world by sailboat to reduce her carbon footprint by raising awareness of climate change and participating in the world's most important climate action summits. Amazon forest fires are growing in Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, Los Angeles residents are forced to flee their homes in the face of out-of-control fires, flames in New South Wales, Australia, are spreading up and down the east coast of the country, blanketing the Sydney Opera House in smoke and endangering several native species. These are just some of the climatic catastrophes that afflict the world, their frequency increasing and intensifying every year.
However, most of these phenomena are out of control, very difficult to counteract and in some cases even impossible. So what can be done about it? First of all, it is possible to reverse the climate situation through best practices, mainly by avoiding the consumption of fossil fuels and migrating to renewable energies. So-called "envirotech" (environmental technologies) reduce the environmental impact by using solar, hydro, wind, tidal, geothermal and other clean and renewable energies, technologies that ensure sustainable development. In addition, optimising energy consumption is fundamental in this path, that is, consuming efficiently. This is where IoT can play a fundamental role: measuring magnitudes in order to be able to take measured actions. For example, an inn at Ohio State University uses sensors to determine the right amount of water to use to process food waste for use as biofuel, resulting in annual savings of about $12,000. A home improvement chain in the United States saved $5 million per year in end-user water consumption with a smart irrigation system, which would have meant burning 320,000 litres of fuel.
Around 20% of the total carbon footprint belongs to building energy consumption and this is one of the most advanced sectors in energy optimisation thanks to the IoT. Today, energy magnitudes, instantaneous power, power factor, harmonic distortion, current, voltage and many more can be monitored within an electrical network and almost instantaneous action can be taken in the presence of anomalies in any of these. It is possible to check the status of electrical generators and the amount of fuel they use in the event of a prolonged power outage. Of course, all these variables can be related to temperature, humidity and other factors to obtain conclusions, more complex analyses and predictions.
The current situation is challenging. Today we consume an amount of energy that the planet cannot regenerate; the GFN (Global Footprint Network) states that we currently use the energy of 1.7 planets per year. The scenario is not sustainable, but the technological contribution is evident and presents itself as one of the few viable ways to mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure a future for all.
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