Satellite Evidence of Global Warming

The United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) "One Planet Many People" compares and contrasts satellite images from past decades with those from the present. The atlas is aimed to show citizens, notably of industrialized nations, the effect that lifestyle can have on the environment.

The agency says the images clearly illustrate the major environmental devastation that has been wreaked on the planet over past decades that isn't noticeable on the ground because of its gradual occurrence.

"Most of these changes are very slow. But if you look over periods of five to 10 years you can see dramatic changes on the environment," Pascal Peduzzi of UNEP told journalists.

"The changes are just as impressive as a tsunami or a flood," he added.

On Friday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged leaders to ensure that environmental planning is incorporated into all aspects of urban management.

"As human beings, we are bound by our common humanity. And like all species on Earth, we are bound by our common dependence on the environment," he said in New York.

"If we are to build a world of peace, freedom and dignity for all, we need clean water, pure air and enough resources to sustain us."
Annan's statement came as representatives from cities from all over the world gathered in San Francisco to discuss the future of the environment.

The gathering is the first of its kind for 60 international mayors, coming together to celebrate the UN's World Environment Day held this year in San Francisco -- the birthplace of the UN 60 years ago.

The images from UNEP's atlas also show:
• that Las Vegas expansion into the desert has leached scarce water supplies between 1973 and 2000;
• the expansion of Mexico City from a city of nine million in 1973 to over 20 million today is stripping forested mountainsides;
• how wars, pests and oil development have stripped away the once abundant date palm trees in the Shatt Al-Arab waterway between Iran and Iraq since the 1970s; and
• depleted forests in the Parrot's Beak region of Guinea, due to the trees being used to for fuel, shelter and crops for tens of thousands of refugees from civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s.
-from CTV and The Times OnLine