Blog Action Day 2009 - climate change

The topic for blog action day 2009 is “climate change”. I’ve been thinking about what to write for most of the week and I’m surprised to find that climate change doesn’t strike me as particularly relevant to the archival world. Extreme weather will obviously threaten our buildings and infrastructure. Worst case scenario sees the archive slide away in an earthquake induced mud-slide. Lest worst case sees our air-conditioning bills rise.

Archives will become more important, I think, once the damage is done. After the world has frozen over and then thawed out, or been swallowed by the sea and then re-emerged, whoever remains will be able to trace the growth and effect of climate change on the earth and on human society. Provided we have our collecting policies in order. Post-end-of-the-world researchers will certainly have an advantage over current day climate change researchers. For starters they’ll have a much larger body of documentary records to consult such as science reports on fossil and rock samples, adverts for green light bulbs and washing machines, debates on the causes of climate change, campaign material aimed at limiting the devastating effects on poorer countries, etc. Let’s hope the surviving people can read and that the computer servers etc still work.

Perhaps climate change won't be apocalyptic. In either case, archives and libraries should be accumulating a wide diverstiy of resources related to climate change and to the debate, reaction, controversy, etc that surrounds it.