Michael Stipe of REM sang, "It's the end of the world as we know it, but I'm okay"

This pre-holiday hilarious musing comes courtesy of the "Earth's Black Box" project The project, as its sibling, Live Science, explains, is an indestructible recorder on board commercial aircraft designed to record every adjustment the plane makes and explain what went wrong in the event of a crash

A black box version of the Earth would take this concept and make it a large scale one by early 2022 The idea is to record all actions taken by humanity in relation to the health of the planet and thus have "an unbiased account of the events leading to the demise of the planet"

"Unless we dramatically transform our way of life, climate change and other anthropogenic hazards will crash our civilization," the Earth's Black Box website explains, seemingly smelling of doom

The project hopes that the black box will "hold future generations accountable and inspire urgent action" Perhaps the idea that all the bad things humans have done to the Earth could be recorded and pursued by judgmental extraterrestrials might shame humans into taking more action to prevent climate disasters

One can imagine a bunch of snickering extraterrestrials making fun of the fact that people keep putting explosive liquids extracted from dead dinosaurs in their cars, or laughing at the idea of investing in billionaire space travel instead of repairing the ozone layer

It would take considerable engineering to build a box that could withstand the collapse of humanity and the end of the world But Earth's black boxes are not built to withstand, say, an asteroid impact, but rather to withstand the destructive effects of climate change

"Earth's Black Box," a joint project of the University of Tasmania, communications organization Clemenger BBDO, and art collective Glue Society, is a mix of modernist sculpture and a sensor station [The four-meter high, three-meter wide black box resembles an asymmetrical trapezoidal monolith placed horizontally Its surface is covered with solar panels that provide power for a warehouse of mass storage and communication devices

If the solar panels fail, battery backup hardware will be provided, and all technology will be protected by a 75 cm thick steel shell However, Internet connectivity will be provided to aid in data archiving

Speaking of data collection, the black box will suck up a lot of data It will collect atmospheric CO2 levels, monitor land and sea temperatures, measure ocean acidification, track species extinctions, monitor human population numbers and military actions, and even track political movements in global governance It also monitors social media posts and pulls in data and news related to climate change from the web

As for where the black boxes will be installed, the west coast of Tasmania has been requested This is due to the geological and political stability of the region

Of course, time will tell if this project will be realized early next year But with global temperatures projected to rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius if climate change is not managed, a water crisis looming, and ice sheets destabilizing, a black box to track human climate change and behavior might as well be in place sooner rather than later