Gordon Brown has revealed his latest wheeze to try and convince us that underneath that gruff capitalist exterior there beats a heart of purest green. Together with the Met Office, the government has released a Google Earth layer showing the effects of climate change (download Google Earth, then get the layer).
The new layer (which comes hot on the heels of the launch of the Greenpeace layer) includes information on how the climate will be affected in different areas around the world, as well as some case studies of how people are coping with the effects of climate change now. Which is all very nice but the main selling point is an animation which shows how temperatures are expected to change up to the end of the century. Instead of displaying average tempartures, it shows what the differences in temperature will be so the Arctic (which is expected to see the biggest increases) glows an angry red by 2050.
"I think this will be a huge tool for making everybody aware of the huge climate changes of our time," Gordon Brown muttered at the Google Zeitgeist conference, while environment secretary Hilary Benn claimed that "by helping people to understand what climate change means for them and for the world, we can mobilise the commitment we need to avoid the worst effects by taking action now."
Sadly, this whizz-bang new bit of spin doesn't show the possible locations of the new coal-fired power stations currently being proposed, nor does it show where clean energy projects might have been had the government's renewable policy not been so woefully inadequate. Now there's an idea for a Google Earth layer...
