Google Earth Compiles Satellite Images To Show What A Sad Difference People Have Made To The World (16 Pics)

Change is a natural part of life. However, what kind of change we want to see in our lives and to leave for our children and grandchildren—good or bad—is still a question that we need to answer. And if we look at what Google Earth is telling us, we have a long way to go to properly make up for what we’ve been doing to our pale blue dot, our home, Planet Earth.

Google Earth posted a series of videos over on YouTube showing how much our world’s oceans, forests, glaciers, beaches, and cities have changed from 1984 to 2020, as a way to promote climate awareness through its new timelapse feature.

Have a look below at how human activity and natural forces have changed the Earth, dear Pandas. You'll find the links to the original videos underneath each photo in this list. And remember, stopping climate change is up to us. Even if things seem grim from the four decades’ worth of video imagery we’ve seen, there’s always hope.

Natalie M. Mahowald, an American Earth scientist who is the Irving Porter Church Professor of Engineering at Cornell University, told Bored Panda that a lot of the impact that climate and environmental change have happens so slowly, it's hard for us to see.

"Revisiting different locations and seeing the change from either land use conversion or from climate change in one 30 second film, can really help humans understand the huge spatial scale of all the changes that are occurring," Professor Mahowald said about Google Earth's new timelapse feature.

Image credits: Google Earth