14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that people have started thinking "green" in the past years, with the demonstration against forest reclamation and against cars that consume a man's weight in liters of fuel every day. Hybrid cars are starting to catch on, solar panels have been widely accepted as an alternative, recycling is starting to be taken seriously by more and more people every day.
Governments are really starting to be interested in the way things revolve and official programmes are being set up every day. The US ruling body makes no exception to this trend and it really couldn't, not with Al Gore hanging around there and his "Inconvenient Truth" that changed many people's perspective. Steve Miller from Google's Lat Long Blog reports that the US Environmental Protection Agency has a project underway that is using Google Earth.
The way it works or is supposed to work is not complicated: the EPA has created an "amazing" KML file that is able to track air emission sources. Translated, this means that you can track air quality near and far from the comfort of your armchair or desk chair, via your computer screen.
"The layer also makes it possible to see which companies are generating air pollutants at the highest rates. Select a given location and view placemarks of all of the companies in the area. Tilt the earth until you're at ground level and check out the collection of placemarks; they vary in height based on pollutants emitted at their particular location. Click on a company of interest to read about their eco-history," says Miller in the official blog.
This new tool can now be used by green activists all over the world to target their protests better and attempt to make the better future happen today as well. I, for one, wish them the best of luck.