How to Use Google to Save the Planet

Soon, 10,000 Canadian homes will be given access to a powerful new tool for managing their home energy use: Google-fuelled information. Each home owner will have access to Google PowerMeter, a web-based application that displays a time-series graph showing how much power they’ve used, and when. Turn on the dryer at 2 p.m., and witness a corresponding spike on PowerMeter (and, it’s hoped, feel a twinge of regret that you didn't take the time to hang up your clothes on a sunny day).

It's all part of a trial in eight North American cities conducted by Google in partnership with local utility companies. If it works, it will soon be rolled out to all 600,000 homes in Toronto in which smart meters have already been installed. The hope is that, armed with this data, citizens will start managing their energy use like they manage their bank accounts, leading them to take a wave of conservation measures.

But you don't have to wait for Google PowerMeter to come knocking to start exploiting the power of Google to help the environment. In fact, individuals and non-profit organizations have been doing it for years. Their primary weapons are the Google services that allow users to create and share content—in many cases, that means maps.

Google Earth is a 3-D earth viewing application that allows you to display any sort of data on a faithful reproduction of planet Earth synthesized from satellite, GPS and other data. Google Maps is useful for figuring out how to use mass transit to get from one place to another, of course, but it's even more useful for non-profits that want to quickly share any kind of geographic data. And Google SketchUp, a 3-D drafting program that allows you to draw anything from your green dream home to a hypothetical field of windmills, can integrate with both Google Maps and Google Earth.

Resources that explain how to use these applications are readily available—A Nonprofit's Introduction to Google's Online Mapping Tools is a great start—and there are literally hundreds of handy examples out there.  But to give you just a taste of what's possible, here’s round up of a few of our favorites.

Google Earth

Vancouver Sea Level Rising

Sierra Club B.C. put together this Day After Tomorrow-esque animation showing the inundation Vancouver would experience after six meters of sea level rise (which, it should be noted, would take centuries even under worst-case global warming scenarios).

Try this: Live in Vancouver or know someone who does? Fly around until you find your house. If you're lucky, you'll have a waterfront property. And if not...

Rising Sea Level Animation

Remember the opening sequence of the movie Waterworld, when all the dry land is engulfed under rising seas? You can easily reproduce that animation using the time slider on this Google Earth layer (you may have to download the layer and view it in the Google Earth application, rather than simply viewing it in your browser).

Try this: Fly over to your nearest coastline and check out what the effects of 2 meters of sea level rise will do; that's the current best estimate of what we're in for by the year 2100. Then show it to your local disaster planner.

Climate Change in Our World

The Hadley Center in the United Kingdom has put together this compilation of the effects of climate change on our world, and while the offering is a little sparse, it's also easy to digest.

Try this: Center the globe on Canada and drag the time slider to 2070 or so. Click on the buttons that pop up, and find out what extreme summer heat will be like, even in northern climes, and how the Northwest passage will be ice-free and navigable for 125 days out of the year.

Healthy Planet

Making a gift of a protected piece of land has never been easier, or more concrete. Healthy Planet lets you choose exactly the plot of land you want to adopt in the name of a friend or loved one, and allows you to share it, in all its satellite detail, with whomever you buy it for. (See a video of how it works here.)

Try this: Check out the plot of land adopted by "the UK's smartest man," Steven Fry.

Google Maps

Alberta Tar Sands

Paul Kedrosky, a venture capitalist and finance commentator, found this image of one extraction point in the Alberta tar sands on Google Maps. Because Google Maps covers almost the entire planet with detailed satellite data, almost nothing can hide from its all-seeing eye—especially not environmental destruction of this scale.

Try this: Zoom in on the gray patch just south west of the big blue lagoon. At a resolution of 100 feet, it's not hard to see how mined areas become utter deserts.

First Look Global Windspeed Map

If there's one renewable energy source Canada has a lot of, it's wind. Even a cursory survey of First Look's global windspeed map shows that plenty of the highest windspeeds in North America are recorded within the Canadian border. Intended for developers, First Look's map is also useful for home wind enthusiasts and anyone else who wants to visualize the estimated 17 million homes' worth of largely untapped wind energy Canada possesses.

Try this: Zoom in on the coasts, which are uniformly red. Now you understand why near-shore wind energy projects have some of the greatest potential for electricity production.

Google SketchUp

Models of Green Energy Projects

Another way for ambitious hobbyists and non-profits to visualize their green dreams is to combine Google SketchUp with Google Maps or Google Earth. Google SketchUp has made it possible for modelers to design everything from wind farms to home geothermal heating systems. Some have even taken the next logical step—placing their proposed green energy systems in the landscapes they’re destined for. Combined with the First Look global windspeed map mentioned above, it's all a budding wind financier needs to convince the locals to sign up their land for a proposed wind development.

Try this: Click on the "View on a 3D map" link below" this image of a wind turbine to get an idea of what's possible with the combination of SketchUp and Google Earth/Google Maps.