Monitoring Earth

While on the internet earlier this week I came across a couple of articles that I found interesting and that both correlated with each other. The main idea of the first article was about various space agencies teaming up with google to monitor the rates of deforestation of tropical rainforests using satellite imagery. This monitoring of the forests from space is providing even more accurate and credible data on deforestation rates and carbon content of the forests than we have had before. A similar project has been started monitoring the ice sheets in Antarctica and the rate of these ice sheets melting. New more accurate results show that the ice sheets are melting at a slightly slower right than was being estimated.

I think these new methods of gathering more accurate data are great ideas but I also can't help but wonder if it will have any different effect on producing a solution. While this data may be more accurate it doesn't seem to me like it tells us anything we didn't already know. The forests are still being cut down and the ice sheets are still melting because of global warming. In my opinion our energy would be better spent working on solutions to the problem instead of trying to polish the knowledge we already have.

http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/40613

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/40604