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World

Methuselah

Date Palm from a2,000 year old date seed. Is this a method for “de-extinction”?

Untold Story of Google Earth

20 years old now. Google Earth was/is a game changer. FWIW I tried to get Microsoft to buy Keyhole a year before Google bought Keyhole. Obviously I failed. To be fair, we did not get how to monetize it, and the capital expense was going to be high. Giving it away for free, as part of Search, was Google’s true genius was being able to connect it to their business model. After Google bought it, Bill moved MapPoint to Bing.

Global Inequality

An interesting site with data and analysis of Global Inequality.

The Global Inequality Project was created to make research and data on imperialism and global inequality accessible to a broader audience.

Google AlphaEarth Foundations

I saw a demonstration of this and it was literally mind-blowing. Huge game-changer for Earth Observation, analysis, and monitoring. I watched them demo the classification and mapping of global mangroves at 10 meter resolution in seconds with a single line of python. Live. In milliseconds.

New AI model integrates petabytes of Earth observation data to generate a unified data representation that revolutionizes global mapping and monitoring

Antarctic Sea Floor Mapping

Scientists map Antarctic seafloor canyons to help predict climate breakdown This article is more than 5 months old Study suggests the underwater valleys have a major impact on ice loss and ocean circulation

An overview of the Antarctic canyon survey area. The seafloor valleys can be 4,000 metres deep. Illustration: Marine Geology.


Japan

Out of Eden Walk - The Geography of Loneliness

Paul Salopek’s epic walking-recreation of the journey of humans out of Africa. It’s a monumental quest and he’s such a good writer. This episode is when he’s walking through Japan.

Atlas of Oblique Maps

Quite stunning.

McAtlas

Chris Arnade has an interesting substack documenting his walks around the world. He often stops to rest and write in many of the world’s McDonald’s. It’s an interesting perspective. Here, he interviews Gary He, author of McAtlas - an atlas of McDonald’s.

Library of Lost Maps

This looks interesting but I haven’t read it yet.

“Digging into the dusty archives of an old map library at UCL, James Cheshire unearths stories of explorers and imagined landscapes, WWII intrigue, geopolitics and social change – in this astonishingly fresh and insightful perspective into history and geography. A triumph.” — Alice Roberts

Vermeer

“Vermeer’s “The Geographer” is probably my favorite painting: globe, compass, atlas, rolled up maps… And then this truncated map that is displayed on the wall on the right.”

LGND Geo Embeddings

Embeddings of Geographic Data are going to change how a significant portion of geographic analysis is done. Especially with our surfeit of EOS data.

World Stress Map

Here’s a global DB of tectonic stress.

Africa Tectonics

Rift Valleys indeed.

Snow Mistake

Correcting Myths in the Mapping of Cholera

Tectonic Plate maps

Great Story Maps

Personal Overshoot Day

Calculating your personal ecological footprint.

Whale Migration Worldwide

A platform to track whale migration.

Earth’s Changing Oceans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrqd3qqyX0I

Largest Seagrass Meadow

Well, the national geographic societies seem to be competing with “largest ever” seagrass articles.

Isn’t it Moronic?

Elections have planetary consequences. Bill McKibben has a good article on the consequences for the planet. To paraphrase Alanis

And isn’t it moronic? Don’t you think? A little too moronic. And yeah, I really do think.

Let me state it plainly: we are rushing into the most dangerous period in human history, and the Trump administration seems determined that we do it blindly. It’s inconceivably stupid, and it’s entirely real. And the planet doesn’t care: physics will not cut us any slack because we elected a moron.

State of Climate Change Soutwest Pacific

Visa https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg9750vvwxo.amp

Spilhaus Projection Sea Surface Temperature

Interesting visualization in a projection you don’t see too often. Or ever. Maybe because the equator is so important in temperature related visualizations and it is a curve in this one.

Darkening of the Global Ocean

21% of ocean surface waters have experienced a significan decline in light penetration. That seems concerning. I saw this through a planet activist post and the Voice for Blue article is a bit hyperbolic. I would say the change is significant but the impacts are as yet unknown. For example, the study was mostly accurate in less turbid, deep ocean, water. It was far less accurate in coastal waters. Which is where corals are. Yet, there is an immediate linkage with coral decline. That may be the case but it is not supported by any evidence - yet.

Key Climate Tipping Points

A nice summary.

Measuring Thermal Discomfort

Where to plant trees in urban areas.

Demographics

Japan’s Demographic Time-bomb

An interesting Financial Times video on Japan’s demographics.

Changes in Chile and Beyond

Changing demographics in Chile, South America, may foreshadow US changes in demographics. Bring it on. More education, less reliance on religion, changing economics, all are pushing populations to have fewer children. It’s what the earth needs. Fewer humans. The US is uniquely positioned to thrive in this changing demographic world precisely because of the bogeyman of the Trump administraiton - immigration. One of the few countries in the world with a strong and successful history of migrants it can thrive - if we let it. I’m happy to control the borders for more regulated flow, but it needs to be combined with a sane migration policy that both allows the migrants we need and treats all humans with dignity and respect. Which is currently not the case.

In many ways, Chile’s rapid demographic shift mirrors, and possibly foreshadows, population trends and the growing debate over birthrates emerging in the U.S.

Economic Geography

Maddison Project Database


Historical Economic Statistics over a very long period. Like GDP for 1,000+ years.

Islands map

https://shadedrelief.com/island-se-asia/#download

Human Diffusion

Literally a human diffusion model for Neanderthal’s.

Rewilding News

After 500 years the beaver is back in Portugal.

Daupiné Alps

Latest addition to the European Rewilding effort.

Rewilding in Academia

World’s first MSc in Nature Recovery, Restoration and Rewilding.

1667 Shaded Relief of Zurich Canton

Karte des Kantons Zürich, vollendet 1667. David Rumsey collection.


By Hans Conrad Gyger. Incredibly early for an overhead terrain map. It is probably Eduard Imhof’s copy that is in the Rumsey collection. He was a professor of cartography in Zurich. So there’s an interesting text from Imhof on Cartographic Relief and a bit about him as well. Image: Issue-63-Zurich.png

Ecuador

Pre-Incan Water Management

Historian discovers pre-Incan water management and storage then revived it for modern day.

Related story on ancient water managment techniques from Erik (thanks Erik!)