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Shocking Maps Show How Humans Have Reshaped Earth Since 1992 (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: It's no secret that humans -- noisy, messy creatures that we are -- are vastly altering Earth's environments. But it's one thing to know this in the abstract, and another to see global changes laid out in detail, as they are in comprehensive new maps published this month in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation. Developed by geoscientist Tomasz Stepinski and his team at the University of Cincinnati's Space Informatics Lab (SPI), the intricate visualizations reveal that 22 percent of Earth's total landmass was altered between 1992 and 2015, mostly by humans. The most common change was forest loss due to agricultural development, and the second most common was the reverse -- farms to forests. The swift urbanization of grasslands, forests, and farms was also reflected in the maps.
Stepinski and his colleagues used satellite data collected by the European Space Agency's Climate Change Initiative, which included geospatial maps of land cover designed to monitor climate change. The team broke these maps into 81-kilometer-squared tracts and created a legend of color-coded tiles based on nine broad types of transitions that occurred between 1992 and 2015 (agriculture gains in yellow, forest losses in maroon, etc). The tiles are shaded to reflect the degree of change, with the lightest shade corresponding to regions altered by less than 10 percent, and dark patches representing regions that shifted by 30 percent or more. On a broad scale, the maps emphasize the massive influence of human activity on the planet. But the project has also revealed granular details about specific locations.
Stepinski and his colleagues used satellite data collected by the European Space Agency's Climate Change Initiative, which included geospatial maps of land cover designed to monitor climate change. The team broke these maps into 81-kilometer-squared tracts and created a legend of color-coded tiles based on nine broad types of transitions that occurred between 1992 and 2015 (agriculture gains in yellow, forest losses in maroon, etc). The tiles are shaded to reflect the degree of change, with the lightest shade corresponding to regions altered by less than 10 percent, and dark patches representing regions that shifted by 30 percent or more. On a broad scale, the maps emphasize the massive influence of human activity on the planet. But the project has also revealed granular details about specific locations.
The team broke these maps into 81-kilometer-squared tracts
Being paid to stare at huge tracts of land all day? Where can I sign up?!
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
"The middle east today is what annual ag does." @RestorationAgD http://bit.ly/1K3otw2
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
Show how earth people have been hyping stories since they sat around the cave fire.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
The sick thing you're missing is that they see it as improvement - repair instead of damage.
Driving down the road with someone of that mindset I've heard comments like "why don't they mow that mess" when passing grassland and "when are they going to get those dead trees out" when passing forests containing damaged trees here and there. At the same time, every new forest area developed to commercial buildings and asphalt gets accolades for improvement.
Basically, this person cannot comprehend why we can't develop every square inch of the Earth. Anything left natural is unkempt and waste in their eyes.
please mod this up
Has anyone bothered to determine the shift of the albedo of the Earth according to these changes? If more energy from the Sun is retained by the Earth and not reflected away due to humans changing the surface of the Earth, such changes could be a major source of global warming.
E Proelio Veritas.
Jaw dropping?
Click-bait much?
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Just to put that into a more meaningful number 75% of the surface being water and only 25% landmass
22 percent of Earth's total landmass was altered between 1992 and 2015
Given that in 1992 the world's population was 5.5 billion and in 2015 it was 7.38 billion, that is an increase of 34%.
The article tells us that the second largest change was reverting farmland back to forests, so not all "change" was detrimental. Even if 22% of the land was altered, for a 34% increase in population, that isn't as bad as it sounds. Even taking into account that a lot of that land is so remote or desolate as to be unusable.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
This puts us ahead of the Elephants, who turned mere millions of square km of jungle into grassland.
But still well behind the cyanobacteria in changing the planet and causing mass extinction.
Is the 22% where any change has occurred, regardless how extreme? This number may be misleading given that they are breaking the map into chunks. If each chunk had only 10% alteration the total change would only be 2.2%. I understand that is a outlandish number I am only using it to illustrate my question. I do not have access to the full article to check myself.
Holy false dichotomy, Batman!
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
RhettL never advocated pastoralism. So now you're not only pushing the false dichotomy, you're even lying about what was said.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Not thoughtlessly approving of every man-made change does not make one a goat herder.
OTOH, I think maybe you don't know what Fascism is.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Put your money where you mouth is and go die in the woods where there are none. The said supermarkets and roads will have one consumer less to incentivize further expansion.
Be careful what you wish for. That's how we got the Unabomber.
Perhaps you got your face so far up your colon, you don't even recognize fascism when you espouse it.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Then explsin why underdeveloped societies have longer life expectancies.
Explain why you can transport hundreds more at three times the speed by rail than by road, with no asphalt.
Explain why you can have underground homes and hospitals that have zero footprint on the surface.
But you can't. You cannot explain these facts unless you first accept that what you have is suboptimal. And you cannot accept that without first accepting you can do without individual defective features like asphalt.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You can progress without having an increased surface footprint.
If you were to upgrade US and European rail links, such that travel averaged speeds of 175-225mph, with access to every town and village, you would greatly increase mobility for more of the people.
Rail has a more neutral albedo than tarmac and can be built to superior standards.
American roads are horribly built and getting rid of the Interstates would be massively progressive.
Of course, you need cars. The X-Prize car should be the new minimum standard. 100mph at 100mpg when carrying 2 adults, 2 children and groceries.
Hey, you want progress or not? 2000s standards should be superior to 1960s ones.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Those are demonstrations of what, exactly?
Can you cite a specific left-wing action involved in causing those cities to implode?
I doubt it. You're not interested in causes and effects, nor in the difference between social liberalism, fiscal liberalism or political liberalism. You care about a label you can call "bad" because that magically makes the tribe you belong to "good".
God, I hate tribal politics. Bloody stone age freaks screaming at each other.
Until one if you bloody well reaches civilization, don't waste my time.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
By definition, liberals do not believe that. You must choose, either they're not a liberal or they do not believe what you claim.
But, then, this cult of alternative facts means you probably think you really can make words mean what you like.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Then explsin why underdeveloped societies have longer life expectancies.
Stop right there. What 2nd or 3rd world country are you talking about that has longer life expediencies then developed societies?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Japan is an underdeveloped country?
This is probably the oddest answer of the bunch. Actually somewhat dumbfounded here.
/. who believe that to be the case (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?mobile=false&i=life+expectancy,+gdp+per+capita). This is the sort of thing you should have learnt in elementary school.
Your first point is demonstrably wrong and I am genuinely surprised that there are people on
You second point is a non sequitor. Both rail and road have their place, which is why we also use both. I don’t know of a single nation that only has rail. Even if you live in a city like Tokyo that has amazing rail connectivity, there are still roads everywhere, because you can’t supply a supermarket by carrying a day’s worth of goods from the nearest metro station.
The last point I don’t even know where to start. Bunkers aren’t exactly very efficient when it comes to energy costs and maintenance. Did you read too much Tolkien?
Shocking, just shocking !!! Shocking I tell you.
Is that title now the anti-attention grabber on tech websites. I don't care how real the article may be, but I'm not going to read it simply because the title turns me off.