Showing posts from category Eye On.
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An Island of Peace in a Sea of Conflict: The Jordan River Peace Park
›Saleem Ali filmed this video on his visit to the “peace island” between Jordan and Israel, which Friends of the Earth Middle East (FOEME) is working to convert into an international peace park.
FOEME co-Director Gidon Bromberg will be at the Wilson Center today to discuss the peace park and other FOEME water cooperation initiatives in more detail as a panelist participating in “Pathways to Peace: Stories of Environment, Health, and Conflict,” an event discussing field-based lessons for addressing environment, health, development, and conflict.
Video: Filmed by Saleem H. Ali (University of Vermont, editor of the MIT Press book Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution) with commentary by Elizabeth Ya’ari (FOEME), January 2010. -
2010: Worldwide Year of the Census
›To kick-off the New Year, we’re highlighting CensusInfo 2010—an initiative to help countries distribute their census data in a format that is free, flexible, and customizable to meet diverse public needs. For us, it’s a new tool to access and visualize census data from around the globe.
The CensusInfo software(the program must be downloaded and installed) allows users to create tables, graphs, and color-coded maps depicting indicators such as population density, fertility rate, and sex ratio. The data’s resolution—national, regional, district, or smaller—is up to the user, but limited by the information reported by each country’s census bureau. When older data is available, users can also view trends over time.
The heart of CensusInfo is data presentation. Robust options include: capacity to import new datasets, compatibility with Google Earth and NASA’s World Wind technologies, and the ability to download visualizations as images, “animated flipbooks,” and videos.
Aside from the relatively steep learning curve to master each of its functions, the software is principally limited by the small number of countries in its database: only 10 countries are included in the software’s pre-installed dataset. That number, however, could increase in the near future.
In what CensusInfo 2010 hopes will be a trend, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, as of August 2009, became the first National Office of Statistics to independently incorporate its data into CensusInfo. While a powerful piece of software, CensusInfo’s potential rests on whether others follow suit.
Photo Credit: CensusInfo’s output of population density in India. -
Google’s Fight Against Climate Change
›After erroneous reports last January that “two Google searches generate the same carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea,” Google is making environmental news for the right reasons, with the launch of its Google Earth-integrated climate change “tours.”
Narrated by the “Governator” himself, the most recent tour combines stunning graphics, images, and data to illustrate how climate change will impact California over the next century and outlines current and future mitigation and adaptation efforts.
Other Google Earth tours delve into how climate change projections work; climate and health connections in Africa; and projects to reduce deforestation in Borneo, the Amazon, and Madagascar.
In addition, Google has partnered with CNN to create a COP15 YouTube Channel where users can explore behind-the-scenes videos from the Copenhagen summit and watch highlights from a December 15 debate featuring world leaders, climate activists, and user-generated questions.
For up to the minute information on Google’s environmental work and initiatives, check out the following sites:- Google’s Official Blog: Sorted by the “green” tag for all news on Google tools, events, and technology related to the environment
- Google Earth Outreach Showcase: Home to Google Earth tools and tours created by third-party organizations working on climate, the environment, disease, and other issues
- The Unofficial Google Earth Blog: A source for all things Google Earth, with a dedicated section to the environment.
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NATO Says Don’t Fight the Planet
›Climate and security are under discussion today in Copenhagen at the Danish government’s side event, which brings together heavyweights such as NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, African Union Chair Jean Ping, and Danish Foreign Minister Peter Stig Møller.
Fogh Rasmussen, the former prime minister of Denmark, delivered his remarks the new-fashioned way: today’s Huffington Post. He says NATO is ready to “do its part” by lowering its own carbon bootprint and responding to the increasing humanitarian challenges of a warmer world. He suggests the threat of climate change does not allow powerful institutions like NATO the luxury of sitting on the sidelines.
The post even includes this embedded “Climate Change and NATO” video with an unfortunate screen grab that reads “Fighting the Planet.” Not exactly a reassuring message for those who argue that framing climate change as a security issue will militarize the environment rather than green security (to paraphrase an excellent 1994 edited volume by Finn Jyrki Kakonen).
The video’s actual message is that some security threats can be fought and others shouldn’t be. Climate change will present a security threat, but “Fight the planet and we all lose,” says NATO. Even when the video makes all the right points, those pesky screen grabs can undermine your case! -
Water Conflicts Enter the Fourth Dimension
›The Pacific Institute has just released an updated version of its renowned Water Conflict Chronology in a new interactive form. The online map depicts water conflicts from the Biblical flood to this year’s December 3 protest in Mumbai, pinpointing their location and chronological order. Pop-up text boxes provide the date, parties involved, basis for conflict, and hyperlinked references.
Since its founding in 1987, the project has continuously collected water conflict data “in an ongoing effort to understand the connections between water resources, water systems, and international security and conflict,” writes Pacific Institute President Peter Gleick in the San Francisco Chronicle.
But now, the data can also be visualized and manipulated in a table with citations, interactive timeline, or Google Earth map. Also of note is the project’s robust water and conflict bibliography search engine.
The Pacific Institute publishes The World’s Water, which offers a broad analysis of water resource trends, from conflict and scarcity, to implications for health and the impacts of climate change. At the Wilson Center launch of The World’s Water, Gleick talked to ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko about “peak water” (video). -
Interactive U.S. Map Shows Population, Energy, and Climate Data by State
›A new interactive map, developed by the Center for Environment and Population (CEP) and Clean Air-Cool Planet (CACP), lists state-level data on population, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and vehicle-miles traveled. Accompanying the U.S. Population, Energy, & Climate Change report, the map depicts the sub-national, local level analysis necessary to help policymakers focus on the areas with the potential for the greatest gains.
Highlights:- New York has the “lowest state per-capita energy consumption, CO2 emissions, electricity consumption, and vehicle miles traveled,” and “it’s the only U.S. city where over half (about 75 percent) of the households don’t own a car.”
- Idaho “ranks fifth in growing population,” but “state per-capita CO2 emissions and electricity consumption are among the lowest in nation.” Most improved of all U.S. states in energy efficiency, Idaho “ranks fifth in renewable energy production and consumption per-capita.”
- Louisiana “ranked tenth in renewable energy production and consumption per-capita,” but still ranked “among [the] top ten states in energy consumption and CO2 emissions per-capita.” The state has a shrinking population and “is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise and severe coastal weather events.”
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New Tool Maps Deforestation
›A new tool from the Center for Global Development, Forest Monitoring for Action (FORMA) tool, uses satellite data to monitor tropical deforestation on a monthly basis. Using publicly available feeds from NASA and other sources, FORMA detects the spread of deforestation in areas as small as 1 square kilometer. The video above uses FORMA to animate the rapidly growing damage in Indonesia over the last four years.
CGD hopes FORMA will help countries monitor the success of forest preservation efforts, as well as verify that those receiving payments to maintain forest cover are, in fact, doing so. Currently limited to Indonesia, FORMA will soon cover the rest of the global tropics.
The tool can be combined with third-party content, such as overlay maps of demographic and forest carbon content data, for additional applications.
