Human beings have had a massive impact on this planet, and Google Earth is launch of a new time-lapse function to show everyone exactly what it looks like.
Whether it is climate change, deforestation, desertification or anything else, the severity of human activity can be impossible to understand until you see it alone. The new Google Earth feature, called Timelapse, will allow you to do just that – and in addition, it’s already available to try.
Timelapse was developed using 24 million satellite images taken between 1984 and 2020 to create a complete 4.4 mosaic video therapy. This makes it the biggest update to Google Earth since 2017.
Since Google was not in the 1980s and Google Earth did not exist until 2001, the company worked with several agencies, including NASA, the US Geological Survey, the European Commission and the European Space Agency to gather the images they needed. .
The idea behind the update is to help people understand the causes of the Earth’s change and how they can be used to create some positive change. Rebecca Moore, director of Google Earth and Google Earth Outreach, said: “It’s best for a panoramic view of our world. It’s not about magnification. It’s about shrinking. It’s about taking the big step back. We need to see how our only house works. ”
Try it for yourself and you may not like what you see. Following the Timelapse is a rather shocking experience, especially in areas such as the Amazon rainforest, where unspeakable devastation occurs as land is cleared and rebuilt for agriculture. Seeing how much ice melts in places like Antarctica and Alaska is just as depressing.
Of course, Google will update Timelapse every year from now on and promises to keep it updated for at least another decade. In this way, we will be able to continue to see how our planet is changing and what human beings are doing to continually confuse the whole place.
How to use Google Earth Timelapse
All you have to do is head to Google Earth or open the mobile app version (Google Play / Apple App Store) and tap Voyager button, which looks like the wheel of a ship. This will take you to a menu with several different options.
By clicking on Time interval the option allows you to look at the entire planet and see how much a certain area has changed between 1985 and 2020. The search bar will allow you to go wherever you want, and the time interval itself will show you how the areas have changed. the year the year. Just press the play button and let the app do its job.
Alternatively, you can click manually using the timeline on the right side of the page (on mobile, it appears below the image window). That way, you can get the right look every year before moving on to what followed.
Of course, Google has already selected a few examples to show people how things have changed in different areas. They can be accessed from the Voyager menu as before or in the sidebar below Fairy tales and Recommended locations files.
There aren’t many stories to choose from, but each one will allow you to go through several locations around the world and tell yourself what’s going on in each. Deforestation is the one in the image above and there are 11 different case studies you can go through.
Recommended locations are exactly what the name describes: Google provides examples of changing locations in 10 different categories, allowing you to see how things have changed in the last 35 years. But unlike Stories, there is no background information out there, so it’s up to you to find out what you’re looking at.
You could spend hours looking at how the world has changed, but make sure you remove the important message: change is inevitable, but much of it is our fault. It’s time to start doing something serious.