ÉVOLUTION — The changing face of the Earth

Description

For 4.5 billions of years, the Earth went through numerous transformations: from the slow build up of mountains to rapid volcanic eruptions and meteorites impacts. Life appeared, changed the composition of the atmosphere, and progressively colonised nearly the whole surface of the planet. Since the industrial revolution, the humankind, through activities like mining, cropping, manufacturing, urbanization, damm ing, is responsible for significant changes, clearly visible from space. But where are these changes leading us? We can take a bird’s eye view to better understand. This is what is proposed by the United Nations Environment Programme (unep) and grid, its environmental data centre, in a book entitled “One Planet Many People: Atlas of Our Changing Environment”. In it we find satellite images of many regions of the world, taken at intervals of several decades. These vividly reveal the extent to which we rapidly and massively transform our environment, clearly visible from space. The images also show the limits of endurance of systems where inappropriate resource management can lead to their exhaustion. These “before and after” images o¤er an audit of our evolution and prompt an inescapable question: is our development sustainable? What does the future hold for us? The answer depends on our actions and our choices. In this open-air exhibition entitled “evolution”, part of the summer 2006 theme of the History of Science Museum, “evolution-revolution”, we invite you to follow the pathway of 20 panels to have a look at the photographs and the reality they illustrate.