Wide Angle: Will the Internet Say "I Told You So"?
May 08, 2009
Ever since learning that the Internet came from efforts to maintain military communications in case of nuclear attack, I've been amazed by its power. Now the Internet is being eyed as a way to warn us about ecological catastrophe.
Researchers from Stockholm University and the University of East Anglia recently published an article entitled "Can Web Crawlers Revolutionize Ecological Monitoring?" in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. Their idea: our current ecological monitoring systems just aren't fast enough--looking for key words and patterns online from scientists, government officials, and casual observers could be faster and more effective. The crawlers could monitor a variety of factors, such as the price of a certain fish species or incidents of bleached coral.
Considering that the World Health Organization got the first warning about H1N1/swine flu from a Web crawler, I think the researchers are onto something. Before such a system can be a canary in our coalmine, partnerships with data visualization experts need to form, an alliance of people to manage the information must be finalized, and pilot projects will need to be funded and completed. The challenges to such an uber-early warning system are enormous. But so is the Internet itself.
Speaking of tracking and the Internet, now you can follow me on Twitter: @adanigelis. Yes, I succumbed.
Image: Classic graph of the Internet from 2005. Credit: The Opte Project.
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