Google Earth & Maps- Interactive Interfaces to Conservation Geography projects.

During the past two weeks news related to new features and examples of social networking concepts related to Google Earth has been abundant and exciting. I am especially interested in the new open source geoblogging features the Jane Goodale Institute's Gombe Chimpanzee Blog is preparing with the EarthWatchr project. Using a combination of Google Maps and Google Earth web site visitors can make comments about the interesting Blog posts. The comments will also be available to look at directly in Google Earth where the Blog was posted. Examples are already available to see how this can work. I can see how this example can be developed for many environmental, conservation, and natural resource projects in the near future. I have made contact with the webmaster for this project and will post additional comments in the near future.

Other Google Earth environmental and conservation projects that have been making headlines the past few days and weeks include the following:

Appalachian Voices - 470 mountain tops destroyed by mining.
Crisis in Darfur - Genocide prevention mapping initiative.
Eyes on Dafur - See the proof with yor own eyes.
June 10, 2007, San Francisco Chronicle article - Google to harness satellite power for an Amazon tribe.
World Wildlife Fund For Nature Projects around the world.
United Nations Environment Programme

For more information related to other new conservation geography projects that are constantly becoming available please look at the following sources.

Google Earth Blog
Ogle Earth
Juicy Geography
Where 2.0 2007 Conference
The Fifth Intenational Symposium on Digital Earth
Digital Earth Blog
Google Developer Day 2007 includes a YouTube channel to view 128 sessions taped around the world.

Also I should mention that many new Google Earth location entry projects are submitted every day to various sections of the Google Earth Community. See especially the sections on Environment and Conservation and Nature and Geography.

Of note, C/NET News.com News Blog and other sources have recently reported that Michael Jones, chief technology officer of Google Earth said "More than 200 million people worldwide have downloaded the application" and "that Google Earth, which launched two years ago, has also drawn more installations than Microsoft's Windows XP.

Encyclopedia of Life - A Semantic Web effort?

We were traveling and doing photography on river, stream and spring restoration efforts in Nevada when we heard E.O. Wilson describe the exciting effort to create the Encyclopedia of Life on the radio. When we returned to Boise I began to see many references and found a web site to this amazing collaborative networking project. For an excellent multimedia overview of the project view the flash video on the home page. A banner on this page contains the words: "Imagine an electronic page for each species of organism on Earth available everywhere by single access on command."

A brief summary of Encyclopedia of Life objectives follows:

"Ultimately, the Encyclopedia will serve as an online reference source and database for every one of the 1.8 million species that are named and known on this planet, as well as all those later discovered and described. Encyclopedia of Life will be used as both a teaching and a learning tool, helping scientists, educators, students, and the community at large gain a better understanding of this planet and all who inhabit it."

In blog posts last year in November, I wrote about concepts and development related to the Semantic Web. To me it appears that the Encyclopedia of Life will become a major contribution to the way we can find dependable deep knowledge about life and ecosystems on earth. Significantly the Encyclopedia of Life will use a Wikipedia type model with written and other content coming from a wide variety of sources. A FAQs page notes that "This material will then be authenticated by scientists, so that users will have authoritative information. As we move forward, Encyclopedia of Life and its board will work with scientists across the globe, securing the involvement of those individuals and institutions that are established experts on each species."

Shallow and deep ecological thinking

There is an interesting distinction often made between the way we humans engage in shallow and/or deep thinking about important processes that affect human beings and other life forms on earth.

I plan to study and write more in the future about these thinking processes and how they appear to influence contemporary decisions about ecology, economy, science, sociology, etc.

As a starting example related to human made global warming, it seems clear to me that an overwhelming majority of scientists worldwide are trying to think more deeply about the obvious human and ecological consequences and possible solutions to this huge and growing problem. At the same time some politicians and business corporations appear to be practicing shallow thinking about this issue and prefer to try to preserve some short term human economic gains. Representatives of this shallow thinking seem to prefer these shallow economic gains even at the expense or even the demise of other important life forms and ecosystems.

For now, I will post a few references that I have bookmarked and will add more comments about this topic in the future.

Bill McKibbon's Book -- Deep Economy

A short overview of Systems Theory and the Gaia Hypothesis

Green Economics - From Wikipedia

Deep Ecology - from Wikipedia

Deep Science

Jared Diamond Books:

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - Interesting PBS web site

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Interesting Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County web site.

Planet Green On-line Game

Today I saw a advertising link to a Planet Green Game, sponsored by Starucks Coffee Company in Collaboration with Global Green USA. The game is described as "a unique on-line game demonstrating smart climate solutions."

I played the interactive game part way through and found it quite interesting in the way it presented opportunities for my input into solutions to a number of climate problems my own community might face. The Planet Green Game also provides pages that help users learn how to Take Action, and learn About Global Warming, where you can download "10 things you can do to combat climate change," and become an e-activist.

I have seen other games that help young people and others of all ages gain a better understanding of the complex environments we live in. I am interested in knowing if anyone has compiled a list of good resources for such games that we can look at and build upon. If anyone has knowledge of such a list please comment here. Thank you.

Global Green USA is the US affiliate of Green Cross International, whose mission "is to help ensure a just, sustainable and secure future for all by fostering a value shift and cultivating a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility in humanity’s relationship with nature."

Barry Lopez Encourages Conversations

Tonight, in Boise, Barry Lopez told us about storytelling and how the words and ideas of a storyteller can, and should, have the outcome of encouraging new conversations and ideas in a community.

This Blog post gives me the opportunity to add my own comments to the story I heard Barry Lopez tell. I should note that an audience member asked Barry if the story he told tonight was written down anywhere for others to read? My interpretation of his response was that it was not written down anywhere except in the notes he held in his hand, and that we in the audience should go out and tell our own stories about what we think is important. He also said that if his talk stimulated this further conversation he had done his job. Here, tonight, I will add a few of my own initial comments to start doing my share.

Barry talked about the growing interest by individuals to participate in their communities and to take on the role of helping to solve problems and providing future opportunities that current Federal, State and local governments are not. He believes young people are especially motivated in this direction, but all of us, even older generations, can and should be integrally involved as well.

I met Barry a few times in the late 1960's when we both lived on the McKenzie River near Eugene, Oregon. He was a young writer, gaining a reputation and I was involved at the University of Oregon in a community outdoor recreation and environmental networking project that had connections in many colleges and communities in North America. For more than a decade from the early 60's until the late 70's much has been written about the tremendous citizen collaboration and community participation in environmental issues with people of all ages that helped create a positive environmental perspective on the future in America and around the world. Many people in the Boise audience tonight may have also been involved in this exhilarating and exciting process.

Somehow, this "flash" of energetic citizen involvement seems to have been diminished over the last 25 + years. I believe Barry Lopez told a story tonight about how these conversations and community involvement can be revived and that we should expect current and future generations to again imagine and shape the future in positive ways.

Barry Lopez left us tonight with a very positive message and "Hope" for the future.

There were many other parts to the story that Barry told tonight about polar bears, climate issues, and people he has met in other countries. As he writes and tells these stories I know people are encouraged to start good conversations with friends and neighbors in their own communities. And, as Barry also noted that the good storyteller fades into the background as this happens.

Thank you, Barry Lopez.

His talk and story in Boise was provided by "The Cabin Literary Center."

Very Good Google Earth Environmental Projects

Matt Fox has put together a project where some of the best Google Earth projects submitted to the Google Earth Community have been collected. This is called the Google Earth Library.

I found a reference to this project in the April 9, 2007 post on Frank Taylor's Google Earth Blog. Frank explains that "His new web site is kind of a blog focused on Google Earth content (not news, or simple placemarks), with an emphasis on education, environment, or science visualizations.... It is definitely worth browsing through his posts over the last two weeks. He has picked some really good examples of Google Earth content."

Interestingly, on April 1, among other projects, Matt chose to highlight the Jamaica Protected Areas Panorama project I had submitted the the Google Earth Community last summer and the Salmon Migration from the Pacific Ocean to Salmon River in Idaho project I submitted this winter.

To Err on the Side of Caution

To err on the side of caution are words often heard today especially when globally we are concerned about human caused global warming that appears to be already causing problems that will be long lasting and probably irreversible. Given our current knowledge and technology there are some who believe we can slow down some of these effects, especially if the governments of the major polluting countries like the U.S. and China would act now.

However, there are others who believe that human caused global warming is not enough of a problem yet that we should take measures that would affect the growth of our current global economies. Economic growth is the mantra of the industrialized world, even at the expense of the biological world, and it is difficult for individual citizens to argue against this concept.

I, like many people worldwide probably, would like to have the intellectual ability, and time alive, to understand the profound and intricate complexity of ecosystems. This study would include an understanding of all of the scientific knowledge about the complex environmental factors that support the changing life forms on earth. I believe that this knowledge would certainly make us want to make different decisions about our economic growth and the future than we are today.

We would probably be much more cautious about how we affect the ecosystems that we humans and other species depend on.

As I write this I found an article in Forbes.com written on March 8, 2007 that notes that there is an ongoing effort to catalog every living species on earth and by 2011 it is expected to reach 1.75 million species. This is approximately 750,000 more species than has been catalogued to date. The article titled "Effort to Catalog Species Tops 1 Million" by Randolph E. Schmid.

I will add more of my ideas about related issues in future blog posts.