Humans are puny creatures but we have impacted the earth and the environment more than some people can fathom. People who deny climate change is caused mainly by humans are a disappearing breed, but they are still out there. This video puts things in perspective and announces the arrival of Google Earth’s new COP15 Youtube channel and the introduction of Google Earth’s new Climate Change features.
Google Earth also announced on their blog that they have launched a series of Google Earth layers and tours to allow you to explore the potential impacts of climate change on our planet. These will allow users to look at possible future climate change scenarios that depend on our actions now. The new tools were launched this Tuesday. The main Google Earth tool helps users to examine the potential impacts of climate change, but additional tools also help users to evaluate ways of adapting to climate change.
One new layer is a guided tour of potential climate change effects narrated by Al Gore. (In my opinion, he sounds much too placid and relaxed. In fact, the soundtrack sounds like a relaxation recording meant to put you to sleep. What they need to do is have someone who sounds a lot more forceful and alarmed to narrate future videos. Still, it’s very well done.) The video is called “Confronting Climate Change“. (The long version will be posted here next). Google worked with data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The other layers show climate projections, including temperature and precipitation changes, in a low emissions scenario and a high emissions scenario. In the next few weeks, Google plans on adding layers that show solutions for dealing with these changes.
New human impacts are being discovered every day. Now the IPCC scientists have put out an updated report on how fast global warming is occurring. It is speeding up, they report. (See the next post.)
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