Last year, the global population hit 7 billion people. It is challenging to make an effective visualization of that. Canadian anthropologist Felix Pharand took on that challenge and, through his organization, Globaia, created visuals that illustrate the impact of a human-dominated planet. They did this using a collection of maps that show various systems that connect us, such as cities, roads, railways, power lines, pipelines, cable Internet, airlines, and shipping lanes.
Globaia’s vision is an impressive attempt to visualize the human-designed and dominated ‘epoch’ in which we live—the ‘Anthropocene.’ In August 2012, this epoch may be permanently added to the geological time scale by the International Union of Geological Sciences. The Anthropocene is meant to encompass the results of millennia of exploration, travel, exploitation, and innovation.
Explaining the purpose behind these visuals, Globaia’s website says, “Behind the name [Anthropocene] lies the challenges of our time. This concept [the computer visuals] illustrates and groups together the main agents that shape our planet, who literally engrave its surface—it is the anthroposphere, the human layer that grows inside the biosphere.”
Featured on CNN and other global news sources, these visuals have already reached a large audience. Pharand hopes these images will change people’s view of our planet. They are far more attractive than similar maps, such as the “human footprint” maps of about ten years ago. An interesting question, however, is whether Pharand’s aesthetically pleasing maps beautify what he intended to be seen as a problem. This could encourage complacency and inaction, rather than action. The problem is not dissimilar to one where great medical imaging can make disease look attractive.
To explore this idea, I took Pharand’s image of North America and changed the color palette to reds and oranges—colors often associated with alarm. The resulting impression is quite different, n’est-ce pas?
P.S. Take a look at the map Paul Butler, an intern at Facebook, put together showing Facebook connections. Maybe that is a better use of the cool color palette.
—Chris Sloan with Justine Benanty
