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[edited as per Jutta's request] If you planted it yourself,
you could mark it and have google
tree follow it.
Google earth has a database of maps, roads, names of
cities, and even to the detail of each house and what its
address is.
This is to propose that each tree on the globe would
be
marked, including what species it is and then its history
can be followed throughout the years. When was it burnt
down. When did it grow again. Perhaps ancient drawings
or aerial pictures from wwi showing these trees.
"Following it where?" - exactly. Trees don't just go away
every day, so there's a good chance that they stay for
hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. And we
could track their growth or disappearance.
Old images of trees
http://www.nostal.c...0%E5%E1%E5%EC%E9%ED
Most of the trees in these images still exist. Some clearly show up on google earth (Just looked up Haifa German colony or walls of Tiberias) [pashute, Mar 28 2011]
for MB: Following Disasters
http://www.hewsweb.org/hp/
They are concidering adding plagues, wars and giant hydro-electric or solar projects [pashute, Mar 28 2011]
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Cool. I planted trees as a job before, and it would be nice to see how they are coming along before they are harvested for toilet paper. Although, I think some of the trees were for permanent restoration. |
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Would you mind describing what the actual idea is? I'm sure many of the readers can come up with something they'd expect for Google <any common noun>, but that may not necessarily match what you have in mind. |
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Since the events in Japan, it might be useful to be able to
follow the movement of radioactive debris on Google Earth. |
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Actually, it would also now be useful to be able to follow the
movements of Japan. |
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BTW: You should never believe the labels on these
map websites. Last week the epicenter of a major
earthquake on the border of China and Kazachstan
read "No people in a 60 km radius". Zooming in
with the satellite images, the epicenter was ON A
HOUSE(!) at the edge of A LARGE TOWN (looked
like at least 20,000 residents if not more. |
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I wrote to Hews organization, and asked if Chinese
people where not considered population.
They said they cannot fix the information which is
received automatically from a database. But they
changed the words to "No or few people...". |
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Isn't this just cyber-stalking trees? |
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There's an interesting fact about trees moving. A guy at
Southampton University managed to collect images
(everything from woodcuts to oil paintings, through to
early photographs) which showed the same locations over
periods of several centuries. In each case, the pictures
included distinctive and isolated trees, many of which are
still alive. |
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What he found was that, in almost every case, the trees
moved sideways by 1-2 metres per century, in a consistent
direction (ie, any one tree moved consistently in one
direction, across a series of images). So, Google Trees
would need to be a dynamic database. |
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//the trees moved sideways by 1-2 metres per
century, in a consistent direction// |
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Hang on. I just checked on Wikipedia and it says I dreamed
it. |
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I'm not sure why this would be useful (in the way in which Google Maps or Google Street View are useful). There are lots of kinds of things which Google doesn't currently photograph and index - why trees? |
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a. Because they are a large part of our oxygen
supply. |
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b. Because trees interest many people. |
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- To the point of being attached to a single tree.
To remembering singular trees. To taking care of
single trees. To assigning trees or tree parts to
national symbols (Lebanon, Canada etc.) |
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c. Because trees are permanent like houses, but
not as permanent as rocks and mountains. |
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d. Because trees change the climate around them
to a large extent. They also change the
environment around them. They change the soil.
They are a total eco-system feeding different
organisms and life cycles. |
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e. Because there is "detreefication" - the known
deforestation taking place everywhere, but also
quick removal of vegetation from the face of
earth, in every city and suburb. |
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Once a tree has been removed without
replacement, the area rarely produces the same
amount of oxygen (or green color). |
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OK, a follow up idea, this time it has financial merit. |
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Link coming soon. Stay tuned. |
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Every tree in database could be associated with a timeline of short stories, comments, and, of course, pictures uploaded by people. In a decade some trees could become very interesting for its history. The trees are silent witness of the humanity, this idea is a chance for give it a voice. [+] |
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