by For Google today, the capital letter “G” represents much more than the sound of “guh”, a measure of gravitational force or a cold way to explain how many thousands of dollars a person has. That’s because it is Earth Dayand in Google’s creative fashion, the company found a way for the first letter of its logo to represent the seventh part of a timely reminder – that the planet we live in is as fragile as it is strong, and that it is up to policy makers, energize wildlife leaders and organizations to protect it.
In honor of celebrating our world this year, Google’s doodle has replaced the company’s usual sans-serif logo with aerial views of the world’s surface features naturally shaped like letters. And, moreover, each selected feature is connected to a story; among other things, these include stories about him climate change and climate resilience, calls to action for animal welfare and examples of rebuilding broken land.
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Here’s a rundown of that big letter “G,” and the other six-sevenths of Google’s Earth Day tribute.
You have the initial “G”, of course, a view of the Turks and Caicos, which Google says has important biodiversity areas and an endangered species of iguana: The rock iguana. So conservation efforts are underway in this region, focused on things like taking care of the area’s natural resources and ensuring that the rock iguana is allowed to thrive in the face of human-induced climate change.
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The first of two “o’s” in Google today is an azure view from Mexico’s Scorpion Reef National Park. It is the largest reef in the southern Gulf of Mexico and a UNESCO biosphere reserve, a place for scientists test different ways to approach understanding how different ecosystems interact with each other. “The marine protected area is a refuge for complex corals and several endangered species of birds and turtles,” Google writes in explanation of the letter.
The second “o” takes you to a portal of concentric rings in Iceland’s Vatnajökull National Park, which earned national park status in 2008 after “advocacy schemes,” the explanation says. Vatnajökull National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which means it is considered to have the best, or more “outstanding” value, which has a specific, universal value throughout the world in terms of heritage and culture. It is the largest glacier in Europe and contains “a mixture of volcanoes and glacial ice” that produces “rare landscapes and flora,” says Google.
Rolling into the lower case of the doodle “g,” this well-known trail comes from Jaú National Park in Brazil, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, and one found in the Amazon rainforest. “It protects a huge range of species, including the margay, jaguar, the giant otter, and the Amazonian manatee,” writes Google.
The last two letters in Google’s name today, a casm for “l” and a winding green grove for “e” from the Great Green Wall, Nigeria and the Pilbara Islands Nature Reserve, Australia, respectively. The Great Green Wall is part of an African-led effort to restore land across the country that has been devastated by desertification, or the process by which a piece of land loses its vegetation over time. The effort is therefore focused on planting trees, for example, to help the area teeter back towards the lush end of the spectrum. “This also provides increased economic opportunity, food security and climate resilience for the people and communities of the area,” Google writes.
Meanwhile, the Pilbara Islands are one of 20 nature reserves in Australia, Google explains, which are meant to protect ecosystems and animal habitats, including many endangered species such as sea turtles, shorebirds and sea birds.
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— The James Webb Space Telescope documentary returns to IMAX theaters this week for Earth Day
Interestingly, in a video released by Google outlining the process by which the doodle was created, these seven photographs of the Earth live among tons of others. Of course, this shows how many of our planet’s surface features are strangely like alphabet soup, but the fact that this Earthly alphabet soup even exists also shows how enough surface features that are on World. Only then would, apparently, be enough to have a bucket from which the best seven would be selected to be on the search engine site.
We have gone through a number of moderate climate effects of late, including the the hottest year on record and the era to be caught in wildfire smoke — both are direct consequences of human activities like burning coal — so Earth Day feels a little more cut-throat. It is significant that we live on a luscious blue orb, and both stressful and special that we only have one.
