Climate Change in Google Earth

Google recently released the first in a series of Google Earth tours called Climate Change in Google Earth in the lead up to the UN Conference of Parties 15 meeting in Copenhagen in December. The first tour released, Confronting Climate Change narrated by Al Gore, presents scientific data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change alongside temperature rise models, precipitation change, water stress, food scarcity, sea level rise, and much more. In the first of this series of tours, learn about the mitigation techniques and adaptation strategies people around the world are confronting.

Tropical deforestation is one of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide, and much of this is from burning down rainforests for agriculture or cattle grazing. In the next tours released as part of the series, the World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International have created Google Earth tours from two unique areas in the world where they have successfully helped local communities avoid deforestation or start reforestation projects -- in Borneo and Madagascar. Meanwhile, Greenpeace worked together with large multinational corporations in the food industry to initiate a mutually agreed-upon ban on soybean plantations, one of the primary causes of Amazon deforestation.

View the tours at www.google.com/cop15. Get involved at youtube.com/cop15.

Posted by Tanya Keen, Google Earth Outreach Team