Changing Planet Revealed In Atlas

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."

Comments

Re:Not enough evidence

[TiberSeptm]

I'm a nuclear engineer and physicist and I can tell you we're quite a long way from developing profitable and useful fusion power. We've made amazing leaps in the last few years, but getting the technology anywhere will take decades.

"I want to see this happening on a global scale"

This shows a fundamental lack of understanding.

Lemna

[Espectr0]

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.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

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

[pfafrich]

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 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.

Re:Not enough evidence

[Aphrika]

I think common sense is evidence enough. This is happening on a world scale, unless you can point out areas of the planet's surface that have been devoid of human interaction over the last 20-30 years. As far as seasons go, the effects that the study concentrates on tend to be long-term rather than seasonal, so seasonal evidence would be pointless.

Look at the basic facts; we are on a planet with finite resources. World population is growing, and human consumption of resources is growing.

Long term, the math doesn't work out. It's not a case of if we screw up this planet, it's a case of when, and more people equals acceleration towards that point, more space used, more fuels used, more products consumed.

The main problem is that as a planet, we all have to act to make it a sustainable environment. This means actually reducing what we use, not slowing down, or keeping it the same, but actually reducing the amount of resources we use. If one country *cough* decides to ignore this fact, it undermines the point of the exercise.

As far as your comment about hippies who want the developing countries to starve to death; well, they already do starve. But if world poverty was wiped out tomorrow the world over, the developed world would have to change its consumptive habits overnight for the world to sustain itself.

At the end of the day, everything on this planet is not okay, and all of our eggs are in one basket.

Viewing more images

[Anonymous Coward]

To see more photos than the BBC offers, you can either order the book here (and murder another tree), or view some of the images in these PDF reports.

Re:Images?

[SPeluso]

Nine higher resolution samples from the book can be found at: http://www.grid.unep.ch/activities/global_change/a tlas/exemples.htm

Re:Same with you!

[micheas]

Corp Watch has an article that has a couple of interesting points about water in India and World Environment day's premire sponsor, Coke

All of the cities in India that have a Coke plant blame part of their water shortage on Coke.

Coke in India has toxins in it.

Coke's defence is, well it is a drought, and the USDA doesn't have a problem with what we are selling. They have never challenged (to the best of my research) the fact that their is lead in the soft drinks, just the fact that it is unsafe

Coke is trucking water into the villages that it has plants, as a good will gesture

Coke offered Coke as fertilizer to farmers, but it turned out to have lead in it that made the land unfit for farming.

How can we "use up" the earth's water? It all remains here doesn't it?

We don't use up the water. We contaminate it. and while extracting plutonium from water is fairly stright forward, it is very expensive due to the fact that you really do have to get essentially all of it not 99% of it.

Most farmers vote on a single issue. Water rights.

So yes we will not run out of water, but we may well wind up with far less potable water than there is demand for.

As a bit of indirectg evidence that Humans are the problem. The only place on the planet that has a healthy eco system of large mammals is in the areas of Cambodia that have so many land mines that pochers refuse to go, and large crocs only exist in the war torn regions of Africa.

The statement that there are enough resources for humans, falls apart if you asume that we are to be living in an ecosystem and not trying to manufacture everything we need.

Back to water. Have you noticed the number of public drinking fountains lately? They were everywhere thirty years ago. Now They are almost extinct. Do you pay a water bill? Have you pulled on up from twenty years ago?

Why do you think that Intel recycles 3 million gallons of water a day, and puts it on their website?

I am not someone who is anti-development. 500,000 people are going to move to California next year, and I am one of those lobbying that we should be building housing for these people, and that the new housing should be near the city centers.

Yes, many of the Indians that are objecting to Coke are Marxists, and Coke is doing a lot to sanitize thier image. But, that does not change the fact that their is a big fight over potable water, indicating the potable water is indicating that it is a limited resource.

Re:Images?

[thesilicate]

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.

The problem lies deeper

[Portal1]

Hi, may I react on this, as i think i know where i am talking of.

I am wanting to preserve some 50 square KM, yes KM of forrest down in the chaco Paraguay.
However everyone calls me a nut.

The problem is that it is almost impossible to control. to get there is a 2 to 3 day travel. up and down a week.
It is not people in paraguay cutting there but bolivians and yes your beloved argentinians stealing the trees. As they have good roads on the other side of the borders. (check the maps)
A big problem is that the border ad forest police is so coccupt and it is very easy to steal trees.

Then there are the farmers without earth. That always claim new land. Funny that they alwas claim a forest and never an empty farm land. Well if it is not cut while they are present there, it is very fast cut after they got their will and then they are gone again. A better name would be farmers without trees
Luckely the politics here are slowly shifting their position on these matters

I even thought of hiring several of these farmers to replant trees, but they rather don't it takes effort.

Then there is another maybe bigger problem
Soja delivers a 10 times higher profit then forest, meat (cows) a 5 times. Unless people will pay the real price for wooden it will be cut and not replanted

Well so if you are not going to invest from ideology, likely loosing your investment anyway through stealing, having a lot of headacke yes i have to agree with them, I would be a nut.

One way to balance the cost would be payment for greenhouse reduction, but polluting countries see saving trees not as a way of reducing greenhouse gasses. (I do monitor the COP Conference of Partys on these issues)

But if you have a 100.000$ laying around be my guest and save the world, yes 50 square KM of naitive forrest is likely cheaper then your house you are living in.

Do your calculus

geetings

ing. John van der Pol

If people want more info feel free to reply and i will answer