How Has The Earth Changed Over The Past 36 Years? Google Earth Shows Us With Its Timelapses.
That man is the worst enemy of himself and of the environment that welcomes him is now a fairly well-known fact. It is no coincidence that day after day, year after year, we witness a bewildering confirmation of how the thirst for power and profit, coupled with superficiality and carelessness nature, continues to drag us into an increasingly sad situation.
The climate is changing and the environment is paying the price: it is as pointless as it is impossible to deny it. So much so that even Google intervened on the subject. The American computer giant made its voice heard with a clear and unequivocal tool: satellite images. Thanks to a time-lapse function applied to Google Earth, we can now get a precise and immediate idea of the impact of man on the environment in recent decades. Looking at these images is disconcerting, to say the least.
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image credit: Google/Youtube
From 1984 to 2020, 36 years is not much if we compare them to the millennial history of our planet. And yet, in this short period of time, man has succeeded in rapidly and forever changing the face of many areas of the Earth , in an evolution that is as rapid as it is damaging and disturbing.
The time lapses that Google presented on its Google Earth tool are relentless and unequivocal. 24 million images are there, available to all, to show us how, from 1984 to today, the Planet has changed. And certainly not in a good way. Natural spaces, uncontaminated by human presence, are shrinking more and more, as well as ice, green and lush areas.
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image credit: Google/Youtube
In some cases, nature has given way to urbanization (Dubai’s growth is one of the most representative and impressive) in other cases, forests and woods have been converted into farms and villages, or the ice has retreated and never reappeared.
Climate change and the influence of man on the planet constitute a sort of destructive pairing which inexorably and forever changes the fate of the only environment which, for the moment, is capable of welcoming us.
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image credit: Google/Youtube
Google has divided its time lapses into five categories : changing forests, fragile beauty, energy sources, global warming and urban sprawl. All these elements, as the American company explains, ” are by no means abstract and distant “.
“Many people – commented Rebecca Moore, Director of Earth Engine & Outreach at Google – think the effects of climate change are far away. With our timelapses, we have a clearer picture of our changing planet.”
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image credit: Google/Youtube
“It’s a must-see feature,” Moore continues, “for all those who are sensitive to this issue, but also for those who doubt the reality of climate change.”
In front of these images, one can only be impressed by the speed with which, in the space of not even 40 years, we have changed the Earth, directly or indirectly. The hope is that these technological tools can actually be useful in improving something, or at least in raising awareness about subjects that affect us all closely.
Source: used
https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W-zPqrGQWA
Google/Youtube