Google Earth and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Wednesday that Google is developing a tool to map out disturbing scenarios of how California can be affected by climate change.
The project comes out of a collaboration with the California Natural Resources Agency, Schwarzenegger, and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), an organization funded by the California Energy Commission and Google.org.
"There is a serious bottleneck in delivering relevant information, much of which is map-based, to decisionmakers in a manner that allows them to turn climate change research results into effective climate change adaptation decisions and policies," according to a statement from SEI.
The CalAdapt Google Earth tool, which will allow individuals to view how their specific community would be changed, will not be ready for public use until September 2010. But on Wednesday, Google.org released two related videos narrated by Schwarzenegger. Both the three-minute video (see below) and seven-minute video demonstrate the kind of data the Google Earth CalAdapt tool will make more palatable. The extended version additionally highlights Schwarzenegger's concerns and political initiatives.
CalAdapt visually demonstrates the effects of climate change as determined by the current scientific data available to the state of California. It includes past data regarding temperature change and water shortages. It includes data modeling what will happen if, for example, the Sierra snow pack disappears at the various rates predicted. It also includes data on which parts of the state's shoreline would be most effected due to storms and rising sea levels.
Certainly, it's a teaching tool to show average folks what scientists believe will happen to the California climate in the coming years. But it also happens to dovetail into Schwarzenegger's executive order that the state develop a "Climate Adaptation Strategy" on everything from agriculture to commercial land development.
It's not the first time, organizations have turned to the Google Earth platform to give the public a tool for avoiding land misuse or harrowing legal battles.
In April Google Earth released the Path to Green Energy tool. Those layers, developed in conjunction with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Audubon Society, show which lands in the greater western U.S. are prohibited from commercial development, awaiting approval for inclusion into the federal wilderness system, or considered natural habitats for endangered species among other categories.
It's intended to be a preemptive offering to commercial developers who may rather shy away from the hassle of an environmental fight if there are adequate lands available for their needs elsewhere.
A new set of layers for Google Earth is trying to make it easier for solar and wind farm developers to figure out where they are least and most likely to be challenged.
The Path to Green Energy, as the Google Earth tool is called, provides information on lands legally prohibited from commercial development, on natural habitats of endangered species, and on lands proposed for inclusion into the federal wilderness system.
The tool was developed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Audubon Society with sponsorship from Google.org's Geo Challenge Grants. The grants program provides nonprofits with money to develop Google Earth tools. Each group receives a $25,000 grant to gather and organize data from within its own organization and from government agencies, including wildlife, game, and fish commissions.
The Path to Green Energy tool, which went live Wednesday, is freely available to the public and currently covers the Western states and the Dakotas.
The tool shows 14 types of areas within three main categories of land protection. Layers can be turned on individually or seen in merged views.
Path to Green Energy tool breaks land protections into three main categories: prohibited, restricted, and "should be avoided."
(Credit: Google Earth)Representatives from the groups said in a teleconference Wednesday that they see the Path to Green Energy maps as a proactive step in reaching out to energy developers before disputes arise over sensitive areas.
Locating environmentally responsible sites "will expedite rather than delay proposals (and) help gain widespread support for a project. It makes good business sense where your chances of getting approval quicker are better," said Johanna Wald, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Environmentalists, too, want to see renewable energy projects like solar and wind farms go up quickly, and don't want to be tied up in legal battles or prevent progress any more than developers do, according to Wald.
"It will minimize permitting periods, conflict, and oppositions, which in turn will get us where we need to go: more renewable energy in people's homes," said Brian Rutledge, executive director of Audubon Wyoming.
The maps are timely since Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is putting together a federal task force to investigate which public lands could be used for renewable energy generation and transmission. On March 11, Salazar said that the Bureau of Land Management had identified 21 million acres of public land with wind energy potential in Western states, 29 million acres in Southwestern states with solar energy potential, and 140 million acres in Western states and Alaska with geothermal resource potential.
Wald said the Path to Green Energy tool might be useful for researching that task.
After years of confusion and controversy between developers and environmentalists throughout Wyoming, for example, a pilot version of the tool was used to identify habitats of the Greater Sage Grouse population. A current layer in Google now shows the lands that were signed into protection by Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal's executive order last August, while another shows grouse breeding density./p>
"In terms of the potential cost savings, they will be enormous. Anyone who is in the transmission or renewable energy business talks about cost in terms of money, time, and getting these approvals. Sometimes that can take far longer than the build-out process. So if we can streamline that process, it can help enormously," said David Bercovich, program manager at Google.org.
Path to Green Energy tool in Google Earth showing grouse breeding density and lands protected by the Wyoming governor's executive order.
(Credit: Google Earth)
Companies seeking to establish solar power farms around protected wildlife areas can face a long, byzantine government permitting process. Why not set up utility-scale, renewable energy in polluted zones instead?
That's what the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing. Its map for Google Earth show the potential for solar, wind, and biomass plants across 480,000 sites marred by toxic industrial waste and mining.
Interactive EPA maps for Google Earth expand on the data shown here.
(Credit: EPA)The agency says 850,000 acres it has cleaned up, among 15 million contaminated acres total, are exceptional destinations for clean-power companies, in part due to the low cost and existing infrastructure there. Plus, brownfields, former mines, and Superfund sites are unattractive for most commercial and residential development, especially in rural areas.
Demand for cleaner forms of energy will expand by 31 percent over the next quarter-century, according to the Department of Energy. Its National Renewable Energy Laboratory worked with the EPA to suggest destinations for green-energy projects.
However, the Christian Science Monitor and others voice concern about the safety of workers who would build and staff these renewable-energy plants.
Early in 2007 the EPA made data about toxic wastelands available for the public to map with Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth. Data from the U.S. Geological Survey is also online, in formats including XML and RSS.
The Met Office Hadely Center, British Antarctic Survey, and the U.K. government on Monday introduced a Google Earth application that visualizes the anticipated temperatures changes from climate change over the next 100 years.
The Northern hemisphere today in 2008. Click on the image to download the animation
(Credit: Google Earth)
The animation uses a color scheme to show the differences in temperatures layed over a Google Earth image.
People can also click on icons on the image to get more on how the data was compiled, stories from people affected by climate change, and information on the projected regional impact of climate change.
The initiative was launched by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the Google Zeitgeist conference on Monday.
A projection from the same perspective 50 years from now, showing the highest temperature change (red) in the Arctic.
(Credit: Google Earth)vnunet quoted British Environment Secretary Hilary Benn saying that the collaboration was done to help people understand climate change better.
"This project shows the reality of climate change using estimates of the change in the average temperature where they live, and the impact it will have on people's lives all over the world, including here in Britain," he said, according to the vnunet report.
"By helping people to understand what climate change means for them and for the world we can mobilize the commitment we need to avoid the worst effects by taking action now."
Updated on May 21 5:00 am PT with correct gender for Hilary Benn.
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