Around the World in 90 minutes.

Cinorjer

That's the title of this remarkable bit of film from the space station. It shows, using a dozen or so passes across the earth, the entire world as seen at night. It is an eye opener, not just for the beauty of the northern lights. You will notice that in the entire world, the only significant area of land that is not now covered with city lights is the Sahara Desert in North Africa. That's what 7 Billion people look like who have access to power.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111121.html

The other thing I noticed is that a huge amount of our population is concentrated on the shorelines, going by the night lights. So anyone saying we can just pack up people and move them inland with rising sea levels has no grasp of reality.

It is beautiful, though. A tiny moment in our long history of civilizations. Humanity busy burning up oil and coal. I wonder what it would have looked like a couple hundred years ago, and what it will look like in another hundred years?

Bodha8

That is very, very cool.

Thank You.

Namaste

compassionate_warrior

It went by too fast for me to be able to make anything out, except South America on one pass. The entire Amazon region was covered in clouds. That's a good sign. It hasn't been chopped down and dried up yet.

Thanks for posting this.

dorje

The one thing which actually struck me was the insane amount of storms going on at any one time. It was as if entire regions were under electrical attacks from the clouds.

Very humbling, and reminds me of the interconnectedness of the human race. You can't distinguish any borders at all, except where the land borders the sea.