The Google Earth Is Too Much With Us

– By Russ Johnson –

My 4-year-old son came back from the planetarium all excited.  “Dad, Dad, I saw Google Jupiter!” Since he discovered Google Earth on the Internet at age 3, every planet's name now has the prefix “Google.”

Actually, Google Earth is a great program. You can type in an address and the software zooms in as if you are flying down from outer space until you are close enough to see the cars in the driveway. The images are rendered for you by a geographic information system that references aerial or satellite photographs and other data. Click checkboxes and roads, waterways, place names, or public recreation sites pop up for you.

The photos are so clear, you can see the rocks submerged at high tide off Playland Pier if you type in the coordinates 40.57.58.25 N by 73.40.28.67 W.  With Google Earth, you can see Nature at Anyone's Doorstep. You can make out the shadows of the trees and shrubs in backyards from Sacramento to Scarsdale.

My son thinks he can see penguins at the South Pole. He has been looking for them since we saw the films “Happy Feet” (recommended) and “March of the Penguins” (highly recommended).  What he really likes to do is hold down the button, drag the mouse across the globe and let go to spin the Earth from North to South instead of from East to West. “Penguins,” he says when he sees the Antarctic ice cap, and “Polar bears” when the Greenland ice sheet comes into view. “Penguins, Polar bears, Penguins, Polar bears, Penguins….”

We can “fly” from pole to pole in a half second or drill down into the depths of the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean. You can see a patchwork of fields nestled near the rumpled grocery bag brown mountains of Charikar, Afghanistan. Are they growing wheat, or opium poppies? You can count the clouds over the green Berber carpet of a jungle between two tributaries of the Amazon. Is that jungle still there, or has it been slashed and burned since the last satellite photo?

We have such unprecedented access to the world. Maybe it's a little too overwhelming to think of it all, now that we can grasp the whole thing. In 1807, William Wordsworth penned, “The world is too much with us; late and soon.” Now, with Google Earth, I can count the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike. I can see the true size of The Westchester mall and single out new construction in the Pulte Homes luxury development at Stoneleigh Avenue, Carmel, NY 10512.  I know that Wordsworth's claim that “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers” is still true, even after 200 years have passed.

So, take some time on Earth Day, Sunday April 22, to explore a little piece of your own world and renew your commitment to “think globally, act locally.” Explore it in person, not virtually, at the Earth Day Celebration hosted by Friends of Rye Nature Center, 1 to 4 p.m.