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Science

Changing Planet Revealed In Atlas 150

Posted by Zonk from the icky-grossness dept.
ring writes "The United Nations Environmental Programme (Unep) has released a new atlas 'One Planet Many People: Atlas of our Changing Environment', to mark World Environment Day (WED). It compares and contrasts spectacular satellite images of the past few decades with contemporary ones." From the BBC article: "Among the transformations highlighted in the atlas are the huge growth of greenhouses in southern Spain, the rapid rise of shrimp farming in Asia and Latin America and the emergence of a giant, shadow puppet-shaped peninsula at the mouth of the Yellow River that has built up through transportation of sediment in the waters."
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Changing Planet Revealed In Atlas More

Changing Planet Revealed In Atlas

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  • Images? (Score:3)

    by ImaLamer ( 260199 ) <john.lamar@g m a i l . com> on Saturday June 04, 2005 @12:44PM (#12724341) Homepage Journal
    Where can I find more picture comparisons?

    • Re:Images? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/gg96rpt/chap7.htm l [doe.gov]

      Scroll about halfway down. There's a map showing the dramatic REforestation here in the united States.

      Enviromentalists tend to 'overlook' these sorts of images.

      • There's a map showing the dramatic REforestation here in the united States. Enviromentalists tend to 'overlook' these sorts of images.

        Doubtful... Results like that are what enviromentalists are working for. If no one draws attention to environmental problems, there are not going to be any solutions.

        I'm sure there are many satellite images of remote areas that haven't changed in the last 30 years, but that doesn't mean that looking at the changes (good or bad) isn't important.

      • Re:Images? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by thesilicate ( 140879 )
        Did you even look at your own link?

        For those who haven't, it shows tons of virgin forest spread over the US in 1620 and 1850, then a dramatic reduction by 1920, and recently some regrowth, but still only perhaps a quarter of what was here pre-massive deforestation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

        This is a great argument for the work of environmentalists.
        • For those who haven't, it shows tons of virgin forest spread over the US in 1620 and 1850, then a dramatic reduction by 1920, ...

          Huh? Where did they find satellite images from 1620, 1850 and 1920?

          Inquiring minds want to know. ;-)

          (Could they have been made by the Vogon survey crew?)

          • You don't need a sattelite to disern the forest from the trees. Historical records also show that early settlers light great forest fires that burnt continiously for ~30ys and blackened the skies of London.
      • "Forest" is land covered in trees, but the reforestation in most of the US is nothing like the original forest. It is greatly reduced in species diversity at every level, from trees, birds, mammals, and right on down to the microbiota.

        Your remark about environmentalists 'tending to "overlook" these images' is bullshit.

        As you well knew when you posted it, anonymously, and cowardly.

        - sgage (forest ecologist)
        • It is exactly the things that we can't see from the satellite that are important...

    • Re:Images? (Score:3, Informative)

      by SPeluso ( 889409 )
      Nine higher resolution samples from the book can be found at: http://www.grid.unep.ch/activities/global_change/a tlas/exemples.htm [grid.unep.ch]

      • Re:Images? (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Mirror [unc.edu]. (They'll be there for a week or so)
    • You could buy the book. It's available here [earthprint.com] for $150.
  • For a moment I thought it read: United Federation of Planets... Too bad it wasn't about the next Star Trek movie or TV series, or William Shatner's bald spot. :P

  • I think change is the result of mankind (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Geologic evidence supports that earth was in a steady state before the emergence of Homo sapiens and all change begins after that. Change has brought about all problems, and the quicker we can make things stop changing, the better.

  • But can it tell that my lawn service came today?

  • Lemna (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Espectr0 ( 577637 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @01:09PM (#12724473) Journal
    I was curious to find that 5th picture, talking about using insects to control a green swirl of something that appeared somewhere.

    I wish they could visit our lake. Last year it had a huge crop of lemna, shown here [venezolano.web.ve].

    What you see is not a tennis court but a big piece of the lake being covered in the thing. This lake is lake maracaibo in venezuela.

  • Distorted Picture (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04, 2005 @01:12PM (#12724493)
    In North America at least, the trend has been going largely in the opposite direction. We are seeing REforestation rather than DEforestation. This is in despite of an increasing population.

    It can be a little tough to find good data given all the bullshit flying around but here's a map that shows the amount of forest land in the US from 1620 onwards:

    http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/gg96rpt/chap7.htm l [doe.gov]

    The interesting things is that we are see a dramatic resurgence of forest land here in the US. A big part of the reason, apparently, is more efficient farming practices which have allowed us to restore a lot of farmland back to forests. Here's a map showing the trends from 1982 to 1997:

    http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/LandUse/Gallery/m ap1.htm [usda.gov]

    A move to more densley packed cities is also a contributing factor to reforestation.

    Article such as the one Zonk cited are a favorite of the hard left environmental movement. These 'studies' cherry pick data to paint an alarmist picture. The media usually swallow these article whole with little crtical thought. In the end, these distorted pictures don't do anything to help real environmental progress.

    • Re:Distorted Picture (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pfafrich ( 647460 ) <rich&singsurf,org> on Saturday June 04, 2005 @03:05PM (#12725029) Homepage
      One critique of these maps is that they are not comparing like with like. The forest clearing shown in http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/LandUse/Gallery/m ap1.htm [usda.gov] is happening mainly in the old growth forest in the rockies. New planting in the east is often plantations of pine trees and other commercial forestry. While it is good that total forest cover in the US is increasing an old growth forest has a much greater biodiversity than a comercial plantation. Old growth forests will have many different species of trees at a variety of different ages, they will support many sorts of wild-life, bears, wolves, rare owls, and all manner of other plant and insect life. A conifourous plantation can be close to monoculture with rows and rows of a single species, often the dense planting and the blanket of needles supresses any low growth. Thankfully there is a trend towards better forest management today, but an old growth forrest is ireplacable.
      • What's so great about old growth forests? A friend of mine from Maine is a history buff. He told me about the American invasion of Canada in 1775. Benedict Arnold (yes, the infamous Benedict Arnold) led 1100 soldiers up through Maine to Quebec. It was a disaster. Many of his soldiers died from starvation. That seemed odd to me, why didn't they just shoot some deer or other game? According to my friend, they were marching through old forests whose ecosystems supported little other than trees, and you can't e
        • According to my friend, they were marching through old forests whose ecosystems supported little other than trees, and you can't eat a tree.

          Old Growth Forests = Large Trees (like sequoias [red woods]). Those types of trees keep undergrowth (bushes, grass, etc) from forming. No undergrowth means no deer or anything else of similar size. Old growth forests are nice, but have almost no plant life. The suck for biodiversity. I'd prefer softwood forests, personally. Generally has many smaller plants an
        • I know this is a joke, but incompentant planning is not the fault of the forests. A quick search shows a great deal of edible plants and trees, or at least fruit, in the northern maine area. And the moose calls northern maine home. I think this is just another case of an arrogant traveler refusing to learn the local customs. We come, we terrorize, we kill, and then import all our food and culture, and call the native uncivilized, even though they manage to not starve in a bountiful paradise.
      • "but an old growth forrest is ireplacable." hmm that looks like a moral judgement to me...got any science to back it up??? look i don't like it when christians push thier life styles on me and on the government what makes you think you can push your life style on me and the government as well. The crazy thing that really pisses me off is cutting in national forests have for the most part stopped when you say irriplacable you mean someone elses privatly owned land.

        • "but an old growth forest is irreplaceable." hmm that looks like a moral judgement to me

          Scientifically, irreplaceable means that the habitat, once lost cannot be replaced. For which there is a lot of evidence. At its simplest it would take 180 years for the canopy to reform, and this would only happen if the land was managed with habitat recreation in mind. What is more likely is that the land will be managed as commercial forestry with perhaps a 100 year cycle, never reaching the same level of biodiver

    • Re:Distorted Picture (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      On the other hand, you could argue that a major reason for reforestation has been the environmental movement, which from its earliest stages was the first voice pointing out that we had better stop cutting down all our trees and start managing our resources properly.

      Here in Wisconsin we actually have more forest land than we did before the arrival of European immigrants, mostly because what had been prarie was carefully maintained by the Indians, and when farmers moved in they stopped the periodic fires th
    • All forests are not created equal. Old growth redwoods and ultra-dense rainforests cannot be equated to a forest that can grow between 1982 and 1997.
    • Article such as the one Zonk cited are a favorite of the hard left environmental movement.

      A big part of the reason, apparently, is more efficient farming practices which have allowed us to restore a lot of farmland back to forests

      I don't know about the hard left environmentalists or better farming, but from what I know we have the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC/3C) [cccalumni.org] to thank for a chunk of the reforestation. It was part of the "New Deal" from back during the depression. In 9 years they planted 3 bill
  • The UN estimates war, pests and salt have destroyed 14 million palms.

    All that good Rosie luvin gone. Tragic.

  • Viewing more images (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04, 2005 @01:23PM (#12724542)
    To see more photos than the BBC offers, you can either order the book here [earthprint.com] (and murder another tree), or view some of the images in these PDF reports. [unep.net]
  • I'm all for raising funds for sustainability of ventures like this however a project of this magnitude should be far more accessible to the public than having to drop $250 on the book. A significant problem beyond our negative impacts on the planet is the ignorance surrounding subjects like climate change, pollution, and toxic contamination. If people have only a vague idea that what they use is causing so much damage then limited access to usable information is certainly a problem. The biggest problem th
    • $250 is the right price for it, a lot of effort was required to doctor up the photos and point out what effects were bad and what were good: the green swirls (apparantly bad) were eliminated by introducing the appropriate pest, but "fading" indicates dead plants. There may well be dying plants in that picture, but i'll never know because it's washed out for reasons other than that (or are the dead plants making the shadows less dark too?)
      and what's wrong with the greenhouses (other than the fact that the s
  • The link in the article just goes to the press release.

    The actual book (full content for both screen and printer resolutions) is here [unep.net]

  • My brother works for http://new-chapter.com/ [new-chapter.com] - they carry medicinal mushroom products and do a lot of research in that area. There is a certain species of mushroom that releases a high level of nutrients into the soil, accelerating the growth of plants and trees growing near the mushrooms. I don't feel that it would be such a difficult task to re-forest the world if we really wanted to.

  • Science as the Ultimate Hero (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Quirk ( 36086 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @06:10PM (#12725984) Homepage Journal
    The problems we face in terms of climate change and shifts in the parameters of the biosphere are matters of conjecture. Apologists from any one camp can float an argument to support their agenda. It's reminescent of Winston Churchill's quip: "These, gentlemen, are the opinions upon which I base my facts." In a political arena opinions are as likely to take the day as are facts.

    Maybe the point to be highlighted is one of judgement. If you're crossing a rope bridge, over an abyss, and, you think it's showing signs of giving way, do you sprint for the other side or do you go gingerly, testing as you go, looking for more proof of what's happening? In the first world, the infrastructure that maintains our lifestyle is not ruggedly robust, or, highly redundant. Redundancy as a concept is, historically, only yesterday's news. The internet is an example of an infrastructure built with redundancy in mind. So, if the biosphere is showing signs of change, do we hope for benign change and/or for science to sprint to the rescue? Sir Francis Bacon [utm.edu], one of the fathers of deductive reasoning, suggested we had to wrest the secrets of life from nature, like a mythological hero wresting a prize from some monster. I think many, maybe all of us, are subject to living, in part, in the heroic age, and, I think that is the greatest danger. The ancient Greeks fostered the idea of hubris as one of mankind's greatest weaknesses. The philosophy of the heroic age doesn't hold in an indeterminate universe and science shouldn't be seen as the ultimate big stick that will beat back the threats of nature.

    Life, as we know it, is characterzed as an non-equilibrium, open-system. The sun rains down ~10^24 calories per year on the biosphere. Carbon based life forms, in the perfect mileu of water, harness this energy in various ways.But it's a system of systems and subject, as much as we know, to Systems Theory [wikipedia.org]. If we know change is in the works do we risk positive feedback [wikipedia.org] and trust in science to carry us past any threat?

    There is a strong consensus that climate change is happening. [bbc.co.uk] Will climate change force a parameter shift that will invite a runaway state? The concept of key species tells us that specific species are necessary to maintaining the ecology of an eco niche. Could climate change destroy key species and cause collapse of ecosystems. This brings on the old bogey man of the domino effect.

    Change is inevitable, so it's really a matter of placing your bet on science as the ultimate super hero, or, do we begin to exercise caution now to mitigate against change. After all there's no place like home.

    • If we don't rely on science, the only alternative is to rely on ignorance. That's guaranteed not to work.

      Perhaps you don't understand what science is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method/ [wikipedia.org]

      • "Perhaps you don't understand what science is..."

        Uhmmm... yes and no. The study of epistemology has guided my readings since grade school. I've tried to understand the philosophical idea of epistemology [wikipedia.org], in terms of understanding knowledge, and epistemology as defined as the methodology of science. Generally, I started out in grade school with B. Russell's "History of Western Philosopy", and went on from there. In terms of the methodology of science I relied alot on Medawar and Popper, especially Popper's

    • It has been argued, (even by some "capatilist pig" CEO's), that the 1st Industrial Revolution is near it's end and has already failed, the state of the environment and resource inequity is thier emprical evidence.

      The bridge analogy is a good one, I think we have two minority extreme's. One is rushing forward the other back, meanwhile most of us are "inching" or just hanging on somewhere in the middle, hoping that things won't get worse. I think the western world's "depression epidemic" is in part because

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