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Some Mind-Bending Earth GIFs

2013-05-10 · Hank · watch on YouTube · Science & nature · reflection essay

Hank shares time-lapses from Google's new Earth Engine (built on NASA's Landsat) showing 25 years of human change to the planet and argues that seeing the change, not just knowing the statistics, may help us understand and act better.

What is said

00:00:00 — Google's new tool for watching 25 years of satellite time-lapse of the Earth

  • ★★ Hank's description says our impacts on the planet are huge and it is clear we are putting ourselves in a bit of a tight spot. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ Hank says Google has just released a tool, built on decades of photographing Earth from space, that lets you scan the whole world and watch the last 25 years of change. — 00:00:12 · Google

00:00:26 — Missoula and Orlando growing over 25 years

  • ★★ In the time-lapse of his hometown Missoula, Hank points out new neighborhoods and box stores going in at the edge of town. — 00:00:26 · Missoula, Montana
  • ★ Hank calls more interesting the amazing sprawl of Orlando, where he and John grew up. (hedged) — 00:00:39 · Orlando, Florida

00:00:45 — Humanity's deepest marks: mountaintop removal in Appalachia, Amazon deforestation, desert cities and irrigation, drying inland seas, Mount St. Helens recovery

  • ★★★ Hank says America's appetite for cheap coal to power its lifestyles has led to mountaintop removal mining in much of Appalachia, which he finds astounding and terrifying to watch. — 00:00:49 · United States
  • ★★ Hank acknowledges he personally benefits from this destruction, but says it is still destruction. — 00:01:14
  • ★★★ Hank says much of the Amazon rainforest has been cut down, and only watching it happen across Brazil and Bolivia shows the depth and scale. — 00:01:17
  • ★★ Hank says the time-lapses tell a story of water: Las Vegas and Dubai spreading across deserts, Saudi irrigation making deserts bloom, inland seas drying up from drought or irrigation. — 00:01:34
  • ★★ Hank says the images can also show recovery: forests retaking land destroyed by the Mount St. Helens eruption, though nearby clear-cutting was not inspiring. — 00:01:46

00:02:01 — Data and statistics do not make us understand; seeing the change might lead to better decisions; yay for NASA, Google, science and action

  • ★★★ Hank says humans have a profound and largely negative effect on the rest of the planet's life forms. — 00:02:01
  • ★★★ Hank says science has long offered these truths as data and statistics, but people are not computers and are not good at understanding what the data really mean. — 00:02:06
  • ★★ Hank says it might be a better world if all policy were based on science, but policy rests on the individual decisions and feelings of individual people. (hedged) — 00:02:21
  • ★★ Hank says watching this change over his own lifetime is intense, moving and terrifying; we have learned a lot but not acted on it, maybe because we don't really understand it. (hedged) — 00:02:31
  • ★★★ Hank hopes that looking around Google Earth Engine, based on NASA's 'fantastic' Landsat program, might give us a better understanding of our realities and so lead to better decisions. (hedged) — 00:02:48 · NASA
  • ★ Hank cheers NASA, Google, science and understanding, and hopes for action in the near future. (hedged) — 00:03:05 · NASA, Google

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