You Won't Believe What Humans Can Accomplish With Just Plastic Sheeting
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papintoYou Won't Believe What Humans Can Accomplish With Just Plastic Sheeting
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papintoYou Won't Believe What Humans Can Accomplish With Just Plastic Sheeting
The Atlantic, 2013-11-08 Robinson Meyer
Today, with the help of Google Maps, well look at the city of El Ejido in Spain.
See those white rectangles? Those are, technically, green houses, though theyre not much like the greenhouses youd see at a garden nursery. Google Street View reveals they look like this:
Google Street View
Theyre little more than plastic and metal piping. In 2000, an article in The Economist called them plastic awnings to intensify the sun's rays. Heres one zoom level higher. Notice the scale of those structures.
You Won't Believe What Humans Can Accomplish With Just Plastic Sheeting
Google Maps
There are so many of them.
Google Maps
Zoom another layer out, there are still more.
You Won't Believe What Humans Can Accomplish With Just Plastic Sheeting
Google Maps
And more
Google Maps
And more
You Won't Believe What Humans Can Accomplish With Just Plastic Sheeting
Google Maps
And still more
Google Earth
You Won't Believe What Humans Can Accomplish With Just Plastic Sheeting
And they dont just cover that little nub of land, either. Zoom out further, and youll see they branch into the surrounding countryside.
Google Earth
And switching to NASAs Blue Marble imagery, here are El Ejidos greenhouses against the tip of Spain and the northern coasts of Morocco and Algeria.
And heres the entire Iberian peninsula, back in Google Earth. You can still see El Ejidos greenhouses.
You Won't Believe What Humans Can Accomplish With Just Plastic Sheeting
And heres the entire continent:
Google Earth
Look down and find that tiny nub on the southern coast of Spain: That patch, as white as the Alps, is a set of manmade structures. Those structures are made of plastic and metal piping, the kind of materials you could find at a local Home Depot. Its just thousands of these:
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You Won't Believe What Humans Can Accomplish With Just Plastic Sheeting
Google Maps
Which, from the ground, look like this:
Google Street View
Andaccumulated by capital and climate changecome together into something which can easily be seen in an image thousands of miles tall by thousands of miles wide. Via Charlie Loyd. This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/you-wont-believe-what-humans-canaccomplish-with-just-plastic-sheeting/281290/
Copyright 2013 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved. 7