Why is it important to aid at-risk communities who want to stay in place in the face of climate change? This group is meant to spark a discussion and develop a community of interest on how low-cost system can fill a need for localized climate and environmental change early warning system (EWS) to protect human settlements.

The following materials: international survey, discussion papers, and digital data flowchart for an Intelligent Aide Climate (IAC) are examples of work the founder of this group have been doing toward developing a climate and environmental change, early warning system (EWS). A system that can fill needs for localized EWS platforms to protect human settlements at-risk who want to stay in place in the face of climate change. These open research papers are meant to spark a discussion and I hope develop a community of interest on how systems with the following characteristics can be developed:

Open source by: specifications; design; manufacture; and the use of free and open source software (FOSS).

Hardware designed to be rugged, lightweight, modular, scalable, and suitable for bare-base or remote field deployment with an add-on energy sustainable power module.

Circular economy thinking: reuse of common commodity computers into cluster platforms to mimic a server’s capabilities, maintain a small carbon footprint and reduce the cost to both produce and to the end-user

Deployed sensor array system should include: air (quality, weather); water (quality, contamination); soil (moisture, chemicals, contamination).

Low capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenditure (OPEX) costs for end users.

Ease of deployment and operation by local communities with a limited technical background.

Incorporation of scientific and risk-reduction software, able to answer three questions: What is happening to our climate/environment? What does it mean?, And what can we do?

Development of a Tier 1 and 2 support network by locally based groups.

The IAC platform is intended to be a stand-alone system or work in concert with other IAC Systems to expand the area of coverage, help human settlements where deployed systems are used against the ravages of climate and the accompanying environmental changes taking place around them.

If we are to develop, and then operationally deploy systems for civil defense in the age of climate change, then we need to take a long range view of how climate change will affect many generations that will follow us. A basic system that is workable now and can be added on to later as the technology and understanding about climate change develops is needed. At the same time being pragmatic on the work that needs to be done now, on how to blend both recycled low-cost PC hardware, in combination with open source software to develop a stable platform. Adding to this, is how to classify great volumes of both academic, scientific and technical open source literature by its appropriate value as targeted information to help settlements adjust to a changing environment. The use of targeted information is only one of two ways to fight climate change by hardening human settlements. The other is to encourage robust micro-climates linking all natural habitats in and around the IAC deployed system, making it a robust natural environment incorporating both native flora and fauna, and vigorously supported by the human settlements as a means of active defense against climate change.