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Artificial Intelligence Is
A SUPER TOOL for
Creating Environmental Solutions

AI is a tool. And throughout the history of humankind, we have made tools to help us. AI is not just any old tool, but a SUPER TOOL that is uniquely suited for creating environmental solutions. When you see this book, you're going to find out why. Decades ago, environmental scientists saw into the future and knew how crucial it would be for humanity to create extensive and innovative tools for long term monitoring of our fast changing environment. Created with contributions from an international community of sixty top AI and Environmental scientists and engineers, the book has architectures and details for 16 different AI systems for sustainability, infrastructure and environment. We're running out of time but the solution is in front of our eyes: AI. If you're paying attention, you already know this. If you're building or thinking of building an AI system, you can speed things up by re-using or recycling what you find here. AI really is a SUPER TOOL. To find out why, get the E-Book on Amazon: E-ISBN 978-1-7335248-1-0

AI and
Environment book cover Cindy Mason

About the Author/Editor, Dr. C. L. Mason

If you're in a hurry to build a more sustainable human presence on the planet, want to use AI but don't want to start from scratch, this book can help. It is crammed with details of 16 AI Systems for environmental projects (listed below) that work together with people and existing environmental systems for modelling, prediction, classification, pattern recognition, decision making and query-answering, across many different scales, timelines and media. Creating AI systems is no longer just for the experts because advances in user interfaces for many tools like R, mapbox, and access to data sources like ArgoFloat, NASA, and Google Earth is possible through the internet. Unless you're solving an unsolved problem, it pays to learn about the systems in the book to speed up your own creation - ReUSE their ideas, Improve them. DISCOVER How AI is ALREADY HELPING. GOOD LUCK to US ALL!
E-Book sold on Amazon: E-ISBN 978-1-7335248-1-0

What's Inside
Part I: Boots on the Ground Part II: Data, Data Everywhere

1. Fire Fighting	10. Assembling Satellite Data	Classroom Connections at the end of
2. Flood Prediction	11. Forest Ecosystem Modelling	every chapter show key ideas of the
3. Sewage and Pollution	12. Weather Bulletins	environmental projects and the AI
4. Sustainable Forests	13. Weather Forecasting	system that addresses it. While this is
5. Water Pollution	14. Sharing Digital Resources	a technical book, details of the environmental
6. Toxic Algae Blooms	15. Biodiversity Cataloging	problems and the Q&A at the end of each chapter
7. Recycling and Resources	16. Plant Physiology and Climage	creates eye opening material accessible to
8. Arguments and Decisions		communities, educators and decision makers.
9. Monitoring Nuclear Tests

Nutshell - a 'Cliff Notes' view of the book with short descriptions of the chapters. Each of the 16 chapters has an AI blueprint for solving an environmental problem. It is a stealth collection of solutions that whispers to anyone who cares for this earth.

Foreward by Tierney Thys,
National Geographic Explorer*, Marine Biologist, Educator and Founder of oceansunfish.org

Introduction by Cindy Mason
AI Researcher, Pioneered first US and international workshops on AI and Environment/Sustainability.**

"Created by a global community of scientists, AI researchers and engineers, Artificial Intelligence and The Environment, is an AI inspiration for educators, scientists, administrators and engineers working to create a sustainable future."
Tim Foresman, Former Chief Environmental Scientist, U.N.

10_28_ai_environ_HBS_cover.in
"The book shows what environmental hackers, AI pioneers and data can teach us about solving Environmental problems."
Curt Hall, Senior Advisor, Cutter Consortium

Watch the book being created by Harvard Book Store's book making robot, Paige M. Gutenborg
movie link (11.1Mb)

More About the Book:
Artificial Intelligence and The Environment presents some of the first AI hacks on environmental problems. These AI solutions have existed for a long time, but are only revealed to the public now.   The server containing these chapters crashed, losing all the work and then, the U.S. dropped the ball on funding.   The work has been painstakingly recreated. Each chapter of the book presents an AI solution for a different environmental problem, from firefighting to algae bloom predictions to tools for global cooperation. The solutions are multi-disciplinary and many of the AI systems are hybrid solutions - combining many different kinds of AI together with numerical computing.    When you see the ways AI can be used to solve complex environmental problems you will have new hope for human kind's ability to sustain the earth for generations. The book demonstrates that AI is an essential part of Darwin’s next generation and paints a picture of how our human relationship to technology is evolving. The core message of the book is that AI provides a hopeful future in solving environmental problems.

Students at UC Santa Cruz who reviewed early versions of the book requested that each chapter have a Q & A because they wanted to study from the book. So if you want to deepen your understanding of the key ideas you will find this in the Q&A section at the end of each chapter. Together, all the Q&A's create an uber tour through tech-fueled solutions to the environmental problems we are living with today.   The book is a future manifesto that is a way of thinking about how to solve difficult problems. Administrators, decision makers and engineers can use the ideas in the book to modify or springboard solutions to similar problems.

To deal with environmental problems, you need every AI trick in the book. Creating solutions for immense scale problems, sometimes global views are needed.   Cataloging for biodiversity means connecting all kinds of media from field notes and species samples to large scale graphic data bases and simulations. Forestry management uses not only simulations but hydro, geo, and other kinds of maps plus satellite and ground data.   Sometimes the solution to a problem involves creating an ontology, a computer representation of meaning, across all the scales and types of media.   In other cases, machine learning and case based reasoning are needed together with numerical simulations and scientists all working together.   To create wide ranging views of earth, we need smart user interfaces that can help us find and integrate many kinds of satellite maps and images.    The book is crammed full of AI blueprints, tools and hybrid systems descriptions.    If you're interested in AI or curious how AI can help solve environmental problems, this book is a good place to start.

“Packed full of ideas you will have a hard time getting out of your head and that you will want to share with those around you, this important book documents the huge change we have seen over the past two decades with the advances in technology, telecommunication and how they have impacted our lives…and it prepares you, the reader, for the second and third acts to come.” Gemma Craven, Disruptive Marketing

Interesting Links: The Pioneering Communities that began work on AI and Sustainability
**The First AAAI Workshop on AI and the Environment (U.S.)
**The First IJCAI Workshop on AI and the Environment (International)
The First ECAI Workshop on AI and the Environment (E.U.)

* Fran Hodgkins. Earth Heroes: Champions of the Ocean. Dawn Publications. pp. 123–. ISBN 978-1-58469-469-4.
"National Geographic explorer Tierney Thys shines new light on ocean life - Earth Science | siliconrepublic.com - Ireland's Technology News Service". siliconrepublic.com. Retrieved 2015-06-13.