Last year, a dedicated group of digital stewardship professionals formed the Climate Watch Working Group. Our mission is to raise awareness of the threats that climate change presents to preserving cultural heritage materials, especially those in digital form.

We are excited to announce the publication of our Climate Watch Substack. 

Global warming and climate change are currently wreaking havoc on the world. As digital stewardship professionals, it is our responsibility to mitigate threats that impede our ability to manage digital materials through time. Climate change not only jeopardizes our data through more frequent and more severe weather disasters, but also through reductions in food supply, mass migrations, economic contraction, and political upheaval. 

Climate change reports and publications are published frequently and can be hard to keep on top of. Our objective is to curate the most relevant articles ensuring that we stay informed about the current state of the climate. We hope these resources will help make the case for appropriate long-term planning so that our field can begin proactive adaptation efforts.

We aim to publish quarterly updates reviewing climate change-related news, articles, reports, and publications. Each brief review will highlight key points from the publication and relate it back to why it is relevant to digital preservation specifically, or cultural heritage overall. Additionally, we will also maintain a list of Foundational Resources for digital stewardship colleagues that seek to become more familiar with climate scholarship, climate risks, and how these risks will impact our work, our workforce, and the collections we steward.

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