Innovative Approaches to Combat Climate Change: The Penn Libraries' role in sustainability

Researchers from across disciplines are working together in search of new approaches to combat the increasingly significant risks posed by climate change. Innovations in fields like renewable energy, sustainable urban planning, and clean water/sanitation are front-of-mind for many, and the Penn Libraries is working to provide resources for tackling these challenges. 

Resources supporting climate research

One such resource the Libraries offers is the Springer Earth and Environmental Science eBook Collection. From this collection, the Penn Libraries licenses over 2,700 titles, covering topics such as: 

• Sustainable development 
• Water resources 
• Urban geography 
• Geology and geophysics 
• Waste management 

Many of the titles in this collection see continuous use year after year, including Construction Materials, The Environment-Conflict Nexus, and Smart Technologies and Innovation for a Sustainable Future. 

In addition to ebooks, the Libraries subscribes to hundreds of journals related to sustainability and environmental science. These journals feature work by some of the leading authors in fields like energy policy, bioremediation (the use of microbes to clean up contaminated soil and groundwater), and climate change. 

Beyond written works, the Penn Libraries offers a wealth of resources and support related to geospatial information systems (GIS), an important application for engineering, environmental science, history, medicine, and beyond. A GIS user group, organized by the Research Data & Digital Scholarship department, meets in the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center each month. 

Also, the libraries host an annual GIS Day, in association with the Weitzman School of Design. This interdisciplinary event is focused on the various applications of GIS. In 2023, the keynote speaker for GIS Day was from Google.org — Google's philanthropic arm —  which has partnered with The Nature Conservancy and the University of Sao Paulo to create innovative approaches to large-scale environmental conservation.  

In the classroom, the Penn Libraries supports energy studies by developing focused resource guides. Geared toward engineering students, Professor Jennifer Lukes’ MEAM 0520 (Energy Engineering in Power Plants and Transportation Systems) course explores the technical aspects of energy production. Alternatively, students from a variety of disciplines regularly enroll in Professor Noam Lior’s EAS 4010/5010 (Energy and its Impacts) and EAS 4020/5020 (Renewable Energy and Its Impacts) courses, which examine the topic from not just the engineering perspective, but those of the economic, environmental, social, and public policy/governmental arenas as well. 

Additionally, Penn Libraries supports research in various academic centers on campus, including: 

• IoT4Ag, an intercollegiate NSF Engineering Research Center devoted to sustainability in agriculture 
• AESOP, a think-tank created to respond to existential issues like water resources, energy efficiency, and resource conservation 
• The Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology, devoted to meeting energy needs of the present and future 
• CLIMATE-CARE, focused on addressing problems of extreme urban heat 

Navigating AI's Role in Addressing Climate Change

As artificial intelligence continues to take hold in academia and beyond, it poses numerous challenges and opportunities. Large language models have opened new doors for research, AI-powered assistants are changing the ways we interact with the world around us, and advanced machine learning programs are speeding up advancements in fields like engineering and medicine. 

These new opportunities come with steep costs, however. Even beyond their societal and humanistic impacts, new AI tools require massive — and steadily growing — amounts of water and electricity. According to data from OpenAI, the amount of computing power required for training runs of the largest AI models has grown exponentially, doubling every 3.4 months since 2012. 

With each new tool (and each new version of an existing tool) comes an increase in carbon emissions, electronic waste, and water consumption. Annually, AI tools are responsible for thousands of tons of emissions, millions of tons of e-waste, and they use billions of gallons of water. 

At the same time, artificial intelligence is poised to address many of the grand challenges of our time, including climate change. Organizations like AI4Good exist to promote the responsible use of AI, and UNESCO has developed an ethical framework for AI which includes language about sustainability. 

In recent years, however, AI ethicists have turned their attention inward, considering not just how AI might help to address climate change, but how AI itself may become more sustainable. Leaders in the field of AI ethics like Aimee van Wynsberghe, the Alexander von Humboldt Professor for the Applied Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the University of Bonn, advocate for sustainable AI, calling on the AI community to help “confront the environmental disaster of our time head-on.” Members of the AI community are beginning to take action; in September 2024, Microsoft announced that in 2028, it would be powering its data centers using a reopened nuclear reactor on Three Mile Island. 

At Penn, interest in AI is broad and steadily growing. The School of Engineering & Applied Science has initiated new degrees in AI and dedicated Amy Gutmann Hall, a cutting-edge facility for AI and data science. The Penn Libraries has formed an AI Literacy Interest Group and published an online guide for AI use. 

Curious about an aspect of sustainability and what Penn Libraries offers to provide support? Contact us!