It is no a secret that the past 50 years have seen a tremendous leap and bounds in technologies and (mega) construction. Although everyone is excited about it, this also raises the question, whereto? The idea that out of the thousand years humans have been in this world, only the past half a century has seen an unparalleled spring in materialism (humanism has deplorably spiraled down, perhaps this shows a reversed correlation?). Using Google Earth Engine Timelapse, I have captured how my hometown, Tripoli, Lebanon, has transformed (amorphously) in the past 32 years (1984 – 2016). Timelapse is a global, zoomable video that lets you see how the Earth has changed over the past 32 years. It is made from 33 cloud-free annual mosaics, one for each year from 1984 to 2016. Using Earth Engine, we combined over 5 million satellite images acquired over the past three decades by 5 different satellites. The majority of the images come from Landsat , a joint USGS/NASA Earth observation program that...
Reflections about and critique amongst life, and beyond, in the 21st century.