"Data Revolution" for the Public Good? Mobilizing Big Data and Crowdsourcing Technologies for Climate Action

In recent years, environmental data has moved to the terrain of big data. Either through crowdsourcing initiatives, collaborative mapping, or social media, people are engaging in new models of data materialization. Big data... [ view full abstract ]

In recent years, environmental data has moved to the terrain of big data. Either through crowdsourcing initiatives, collaborative mapping, or social media, people are engaging in new models of data materialization. Big data technologies are expected to improve climate action by providing large amounts of valuable data on societies and their environments in a level of detail, volume and speed never imagined before. These technologies promise to bridge the gap between the information-rich and the information-poor countries, and between experts and lay people. They are presented as the “democratization of technological engagement,” and as a way to empower citizens to contribute to environmental risk prevention, environmental disaster management, and policy-making. But are big data technologies an appropriate technological solution to bridge the gap in environmental knowledge production between North and South? How does the adoption of these technologies shape the way in which “the environment” is communicated and constructed as a social problem? Drawing upon interviews with app developers and experts on the use of big data for sustainable development working at inter-governmental organizations, development agencies and think tanks, this article examines the adoption of big data technologies for the production of environmental data. We conclude that while big data can certainly serve as a tool to communicate climate change as a global problem, it threatens to reduce climate action to participation in digital platforms and contributions through consumer-based information systems. The adoption of these technologies is switching attention from other kinds of developing needs, helping to maintain the asymmetric knowledge/power dynamics between North and South that past environmental information systems, such as Infoterra, failed to address.