
Forecasting Climate Risk with Geospatial AI: Sarah Russell of X , the Moonshot Factory at Alphabet
Climate RisingShow Notes
This episode, part of the Climate Rising series on climate resilience, features Sarah Russell, General Manager of Project Bellwether at X, The Moonshot Factory at Alphabet (formerly Google X). Sarah shares how geospatial data and artificial intelligence can help communities and businesses anticipate and respond to climate risks. Sarah shares insights from her work building predictive wildfire risk models using satellite imagery, AI, and systems design to enable more targeted insurance underwriting and disaster preparedness.
She also explains how Bellwether is creating geospatial AI infrastructure and tools to support natural disaster response by the National Guard. Sarah also shares how emerging foundational geospatial models will transform adaptation, and she offers career advice for those in climate tech and applied AI.
More from Climate Rising
Large corporations play a critical role in addressing climate change—but transforming complex global supply chains is no small task.
Permitting reform has become one of the most consequential—and controversial—topics in U.S. climate and energy policy. As electricity demand rises due to AI, data centers, electrification, and economic growth, many argue that the country’s permitting, transmission, and interconnection processes are too slow to support the clean energy transition.
How can companies make sustainability information useful to consumers at the moment they make a purchase?
Climate action requires more than technology, policy, and capital. It also requires communication.
Carbon labeling has become one of the most visible ways climate actions enter everyday consumer decisions.