Pigeons Write A Smog Blog. You May Be Next.
by Emily Gertz
When Beatriz da Costa releases 20 pigeons into the smoggy skies of San Jose, California in August, the flock will be writing what might be the world’s first avian blog—one offering a bird’s-eye perspective on air pollution. Each pigeon will be equipped with a tiny backpack loaded with devices that will measure pollution data and transmit the information to the web, creating a real-time air pollution index. Da Costa, an assistant professor in the graduate arts, computation and engineering program at University of California-Irvine (UCI), plans to release the pigeons twice a day during the 9-day conference of the Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts, which begins August 5th. But the “Pigeonblog” is more than a cutting-edge art project—it also points to a more egalitarian future for environmental monitoring, when the ubiquity of communications networks and increasingly small and powerful personal electronic gear will let anyone assess the quality of the air they breathe.
Though air pollution readings from the height at which the pigeons will fly—between 300 and 500 feet above the ground—won’t have immediate relevance for human health, UCI researcher Rufus Edwards thinks they may be important in conjunction with more standard air quality measures. Edwards directs the Air Pollution Laboratory at UCI’s Department of Environmental Health, Science and Policy, and he believes the data collected could be employed to truth-check the models used to determine how pollutants are dispersed in cities and communities. Typical air quality monitoring involves installing fixed equipment at sites located away from vehicular traffic and other possible point sources that could skew the results high, and then using mathematical techniques to estimate, or model, what the air pollution levels between those sites are most likely to be. “In the Los Angeles area we have 37 fixed monitoring sites that represent 19 million people,” says Edwards. But da Costa’s flock will be taking readings continuously as they fly over an urban area, which can then be compared and contrasted with the data predicted by the models. “We’ll get a good idea of what the pollution concentrations over these areas look like,” says Edwards.
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Comments
Is that picture copyrighted? It's freaking sweet.
Posted by:JMC |July 27, 2006 12:24 PM
The image was provided by pigeonblog as an example of how a pigeon would look with the equipment on.
Posted by:Rj |July 27, 2006 1:04 PM
So, umm, maybe somebody should do an experiment to determine the correlation between air polution and the proclivity of pigeons to conduct aerial bombardment.
Wouldn't you strike back?
Posted by:Grokodile |July 30, 2006 7:57 AM
yeah, the pix is sweet...wondering if the black marking on its back is of something?? i cannot figure it out.
Posted by:tlh |July 30, 2006 4:43 PM
Wow! who knew pigeons would actually be Helping humans someday! I'm very impressed that the ratbird has finally taken its place (however undeserved) in the scientific community. The idea is great, I hope it comes to Chicago soon there's plenty of pigeons here who could use some culture. I can't wait to hear the results, where can I find them? I checked the pogionblog but couldn't find them there.
Posted by:emily |July 31, 2006 7:45 PM
Do pigeons have large talons?
Posted by:Mr. Dynomite |August 1, 2006 10:13 PM
I suspect that the devotees who manage those homing pigeons would take umbrage at the moniker "ratbirds"!
Pigeons have helped humanity before. Messenger pigeons were used extensively in World War I, as well as in World War II. They were even used for emergency communications in the Indian state of Orissa as late as 2002.
Who knows what the future may bring to the rich history of pigeon/human collaboration?
Posted by:ejgertz |August 4, 2006 5:37 PM
Has anyone ever seen a baby Pigeon? I haven't... just the babies mammas.
Posted by:heyphilphil57 |August 8, 2006 9:45 PM
dear plenty, this is a wonderful background story on the pigeon smog project and i hope that everyone reads it. i like the way it talks about how the story of the art will make its way into public consciousness of the pollution and health issues and the relative cost by comparison to EPA.
i think there is a strong association between females and pigeons, us , dirty urban birds. i think i feel like one of the pigeons picking up on what's stinky in the world and what's not...one of the happily polluted!
Posted by:molly hankwitz cox |August 16, 2006 6:43 PM
this is a wonderful background story on the pigeon smog project and i hope that everyone reads it. i like the way it talks about how the story of the art will make its way into public consciousness of the pollution and health issues and the relative cost by comparison to EPA.
i think there is a strong association between females and pigeons, us , dirty urban birds. i think i feel like one of the pigeons picking up on what's stinky in the world and what's not...one of the happily polluted!
Posted by:molly hankwitz cox |August 16, 2006 6:44 PM
the picture is VERY similar to another pic used for an european media art work called "urban eyes", where pigeons were used to activate cctv cams around london. visit this link: http://project-urbaneyes.blogspot.com/
Pigeons with cameras have been already used during first world war from Prussia (Germany) to spy enemy lines, the famous bavarian pigeon corp!
Posted by:kute |August 17, 2006 7:46 AM
based on everything that i've read, including quotes by the artist, the sensor data will not signify much. this project presents a pointless spectacle, which might be a problem with new media work in general... these people seem to want to re-live the dot com era but without wires...
Posted by:sensor useless |August 22, 2006 12:22 AM
To acquire knowledge, one must habanubala; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
Posted by:Peter Dobson |September 6, 2006 4:18 PM
Very good article. A buddy of mine who is a teacher did a fundraiser with his kids that was environmentally friendly. The company is called OnePlanetFundraising.com, deffinately worth checking out!
Posted by:Anonymous |February 23, 2007 9:34 PM
Great article and pigeon thanks.
Posted by:Oyunlar |September 30, 2008 12:12 AM