It used to be that updated editions of world atlases mainly tracked the shifting of borders and changes in the names of cities and countries determined by politics, diplomacy or war.The surface of the planet itself was a relatively constant template in the background. You could render it in more detail with, say, better satellite data, but the basics didn’t change much.
Now, though, the accelerating and intensifying impact of human activities is visibly altering the planet, requiring ever more frequent redrawing not only of political boundaries, but of the shape of Earth’s features themselves...
The Metamorphosis.
In other news, I enjoyed this favorite word thread.
7 comments:
Murst!
Is that database art or another fishnet stocking?
I'm pretty sure it's database art. Hot ass in fishnets would be found elsewhere.
Haven't checked in here for a week or so. Great surprise! Great to be back. & I love ZB, too.
Actually, mythological accounts (if they're to be believed) have much of Central Asia being covered by water thousands of years ago; the shrinking of the Aral Sea and the Caspian have likely been occurring for millenia. Ditto with the Great Salt Lake dropping from when it was (far in the past) fresh water Lake Bonneville. Now, as to the question of if those have been occurring more rapidly than the historic trendline, I don't know.
@ PV:
Now, as to the question of if those have been occurring more rapidly than the historic trendline, I don't know.
I don't have the sources to back this up but my understanding is that the Aral Sea has been receeding more quickly, very much so. It's gone from no appreciable change over the course of lifetimes, to the dramatic decline seen in the last half of the 20th century.
I have never heard of those Central Asian myths, but the Aral Sea shrank because the Soviet engineers diverted the rivers. See Wikipedia.
Post a Comment