I think it’s safe to say everyone loves Google Earth. But Google Earth is not just cool and useful, it can provide visuals to illuminate problems we hear about but rarely see. The other day, Rich told me how shocked he was to look at aerial images of the Amazon rainforest so I decided to take a look for myself:

The Amazon lost an area about 10 times the size of New York City in the 2008 up to July (Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research), and unfortunately deforestation from logging and slash-and-burn agriculture increased this year for the first time since 2004.

There was some recent good news on this front, however– Brazil says it will cut the annual loss of Amazon rainforest by more than half, double reforestation efforts, and clamp down on illegal logging by adding 3,000 officers. Maintaining healthy rainforests and forests is crucial if we are going to reach safe levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and combat climate change. So, this is great news from the home of the world’s largest rainforest.
–Carolyn