I’ve been working with the Municipality of Ljubljana to establish a water level measurement infrastructure. Ljubljana is a high flood risk area, so this infrastructure will be of high value to alert people in case of danger.

This weekend, we gave a challenge to teams who attended Greenhack hackathon. The challenge was to develop prototypes of solutions using the data from our pilot measurement infrastructure.

But why is this so important for the future?

Climate change is already happening. Analysis of floods in Slovenia in the last century has shown a steady rise in both frequency and intensity of floods, especially since 1980. Projections for the future aren’t optimistic either. All around the globe, a rising trend of extreme weather events is appearing, from extreme droughts to extreme rainfall and hurricanes.

Even if we were to become carbon neutral now, we’re still in for some additional warming due to all the emissions we’ve let into the atmosphere up to now. That means that in addition to efforts to cut emissions, we also need to prepare for the inevitable consequences of everything we already screwed up.

Sometimes we just have to swallow the bitter pill and accept the consequences of our actions.

Didn’t want to sound depressing though. We’re making progress! We’re doing our best. Some of us at least. So stay positive (not Covid positive though). Stay bright!

Cheers!

Ram