Google is a partnering up with CNN to launch a new YouTube channel allowing people to raise their voice about climate change.
The public’s submissions will be run alongside celebrity climate change awareness clips from people including the Crown Prince of Denmark. The videos will be broadcast on screens around the Copenhagen conference in December and rated by viewers of the channel.
The Danish government and the United Nations climate change convention in Copenhagen coming up in December will be a critical venue for forming a global deal to reduce carbon emissions.
The top-rated contributions will be aired globally during the meeting on December 15, and the top two submissions will win a trip to Copenhagen.
The meeting is also going to discuss a new tool for Google Maps. Using its Google earth mapping tool, Google is going to simulate a 3D map of the world to see the predicted effects of climate change until the year 2100.
Using data provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the search giant created new layers for Google Earth showing the range of calculated expected temperature and rain changes under different scenarios that could occur throughout the century.
The meeting in Copenhagen is the critical venue for forging a critical global deal to reduce carbon emissions.
Users will be able to view the effects of climate change in their own country by either installing plug-in into Google earth, or via a special web page. Initially only temperature and rainfall changes will be able to be viewed, but Google is planning to add several new layers and also videos in the coming months.
Viewers will also be able to see the ongoing effects of sea level rises, polar ice sheet melting and water shortages.
Google is going to add further layers saying and highlighting what communities around the globe are doing to reduce their carbon footprint and trig to adapt top their environment.
The company is hoping that by allowing people to see and visualize the impacts of global warming on their planet, on a 3D map of the world, it will seem more real and therefore compel people to try harder to reduce their carbon footprint.
By Giulia
Student Voice 
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