Loading playerClimate change is the central theme of today's Google doodle (the design that appears in place of the classic search engine logo), dedicated to Earth Day which has been celebrated every 22 April since 1970. In particular, animation in today's doodle he refers to what Google describes as “one of the most urgent issues of our times” to ensure the protection of the planet and its inhabitants.
Through the succession of images taken from the Google Earth Timelapse function and other satellite images, the doodle shows the impact of climate change over the years or decades in four different points on the Earth: the retreat of the glacier on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and those in Greenland, the bleaching of corals around Lizard Island, in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, and the destruction of the Harz Forest, in northern Germany, due to infestations of an insect called bark beetle caused by the increase temperatures and prolonged periods of drought.
Each of the four animations will be visible for a few hours during the day on the search engine page, in rotation.
Earth Day, “Earth Day” in English, is an international event set up to provide information on the state of the environment, on how to pollute less and on how to preserve ecosystems. The date of 22 April was chosen to celebrate it because it falls one month and one day after the “traditional” spring equinox.
In recent years, in particular, Earth Day serves to remember how human activities have changed and are continuing to change the climatic and environmental balances of the planet, with serious consequences for many animal species and especially for people.
So far, human activities have contributed to an average increase in global temperatures of 1.1 ° C compared to the period before the industrial revolution, with an increase in the intensity and frequency of floods, fires and other meteorological phenomena, such as prolonged waves of great heat.
Despite the international commitments made against climate change, if global average temperatures were to increase by more than 1.5 ° C compared to the pre-industrial period – considered a reference threshold to avoid catastrophic damage – the intensity of these phenomena will increase, that the melting of the ice and the rising of the waters will continue and that many territories will become inhospitable, causing large migrations in various parts of the planet.
– Read also: Climate change, the basics
