Friday is Earth Day, the day when our climate anxiety reaches its peak and we gaze in horror at what we’ve done to the planet. As such, Google is marking the occasion with a graphic reminder of our failings, publishing a bleak Earth Day Google Doodle which illustrates the horrible impact climate change has already had.
April 22’s Google Doodle includes a variety of GIFs created from photos of real locations, all taken over several years. Each time-lapse GIF will be displayed for a few hours throughout the day, giving you time to marinate in exactly how we’ve destroyed the world.
Though Google was presumably spoiled for choice when finding landscapes ravaged by climate change, it mercifully restricted itself to just four.
As such, the 2022 Earth Day Google Doodle will show the glacier at the peak of Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro melting away between December 1986 to 2020; glacial retreat in Sermersooq, Greenland from December 2000 to 2020; shocking coral bleaching around the Great Barrier Reef’s Lizard Island from March 2016 to October 2017; and the destruction of the Harz Forests in Elend, Germany between December 1995 and 2020.
Glacier retreat at the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania from December 1986 to 2020.
Credit: Google
Glacier retreat in Sermersooq, Greenland from December 2000 to 2020.
Credit: Google
Coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef from March 2016 to October 2017.
Credit: Google / The Ocean Agency
Destruction of the Harz Forests in Germany from December 1995 to 2020.
Credit: Google
Most of the pictures in the Google Doodle were taken from Google Earth, however the footage of Australia’s coral bleaching came from The Ocean Agency, a non-profit conservation organisation. The Doodle is set to go live in the U.S. on April 21 at 9 p.m. PDT.
This Earth Day Google Doodle is notably more dire than the one published last year, which had a more optimistic, tree-planting vibe. But then again, you can’t say the situation doesn’t call for it. We need to take immediate and drastic action to halt climate change, otherwise the disappearance of natural wonders such as these will soon be the least of our problems.
