Source: SolveClimate
Google is putting a new spin on its global mapping program, with a goal of not just peering into locations around the world but also carefully tracking environmental changes that are under way.For a few years now, NGOs and environmental groups have been using the satellite imagery available in Google Earth to get their point across. The nonprofit group Appalachian Voices, for example, uses the tool to show the world what mountaintop removal mining has done to their homeland. Defenders of forests throughout the country have also used Google Earth to reveal illegal logging practices.
Now, the tool is poised to become an integral component of the United Nations’ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) program.
In broad strokes, REDD allows wealthy countries to pay developing countries to not cut down their trees, by placing a value on the carbon dioxide that those trees sequester and on the host of other environmental services active forests provide, such as wildlife habitats.
It has been a contentious program for a variety of reasons. Indigenous rights groups like Survival International are concerned that making the forests valuable could lead to practices that place forest protection in front of indigenous rights; policy writers worry that REDD will give countries an easy way around legislating carbon emissions; and environmentalists fret that there’s no way to really double-check whether a forest is or isn’t being protected, and that many of the forests covered by REDD were not in any danger of being cut to begin with, rendering moot the emissions reductions gained by protecting them.
Google Earth can’t resolve all of those issues, but it can fix the monitoring problem, and it can go one step further and improve scientists’ understanding of forests and other ecosystems.
At the Copenhagen climate summit late last year, Google unveiled a prototype tool that would allow scientists to run algorithms against the copious amounts of historical and real-time satellite data collected by Google Earth. While that might just sound like just some fancy new web app, it is in fact a game-changer.
Moore says the Brazilian scientists she met in 2008 when she and her team were in the country to present the Portuguese version of Google Earth (and to work with groups who could get the tool to the Amazon’s indigenous tribes) asked if Google would build a platform that could host satellite images for the Amazon, and ideally all forests and ecosystems, and provide access to cloud computing resources.
The company’s nonprofit arm, Google.org, sponsored a prototype, built with data from Brazil, Peru and a few other countries, and demonstrated it at Copenhagen.One of the Brazilian scientists Moore had initially spoken with, Carlos Souza, has used the new tool to build an alert system linked to deforestation. He gets daily satellite imagery and uses an algorithm to determine where there are currently hot spots of suspicious activity. The software then generates an alert, which could be used to mobilize people on the ground in that area, in real time, to prevent further deforestation.
The New Tool: Google Earth Engine
Called Google Earth Engine, the new tool will roll out completely by the next international climate conference planned for Mexico later this year.
In addition to the various algorithms that scientists will be able to create and use in the system, Moore says she expects REDD auditors, policy makers and journalists to be using the tool as well. REDD requires that those receiving compensation for reducing deforestation produce open, transparent and independently verifiable reports on what they are doing.
In other words, REDD recipients will be able to use the engine to produce reports, and REDD auditors will be able to use it to audit those reports.
As her role as head of Google Earth Outreach suggests, Moore is a passionate advocate of Google Earth’s potential to bring environmental and social benefits. It's a passion, she says, that stems from her own personal experiences using Google Earth images to save a redwood grove in the Los Gatos Creek Watershed, near Santa Cruz, Calif.
Now, Moore hopes the tool will help to save many more forests, as well as other ecosystems.Moore is quick to point out that Google will be providing the data and the tools necessary for analysis, but it will not be performing any analysis itself. And while Google Earth Engine will be available to the public, not everyone who uses it will opt to make their findings publicly available.
Bringing Internet Access to the Amazon
Clearly, making the tool widely available also relies on making Internet access widely available
High speed cable is making its way down both coasts of Africa, she said, and the Brazilian government’s “digital inclusion” policy is working to bring satellite Internet to some Amazon tribes and the slums of Rio.
Much more still needs to be done to ensure that as many people have access to the system as possible. Nonetheless, Moore suspects that the engine will bring to light new information about the planet.