[Applause]
it’s Christmas Eve 1968 the Apollo 8
spacecraft has successfully completed
its first three orbits around the moon
launched from Cape Canaveral three days
before this is the first time that
humans have ever traveled beyond
low-earth orbit on the vessels fourth
pass the earth slowly comes into view
and reveals itself above the moon’s
horizon astronaut Bill Anders
frantically asked his crewmates where
their camera is grabs the Hasselblad
points it towards the window presses the
shutter and takes one of the most
important photographs of all time
Earthrise when the crew was safely home
a few days later they were asked about
the mission
Anders famously replied we went to the
moon but we actually discovered earth
what did he and his fellow crewmates
feel in this incredible moment in a
study released just this past year a
team of researchers at the University of
Pennsylvania examined the testimonies of
hundreds of astronauts who had the
opportunity to view the Earth from space
their analysis uncovered three common
feelings first
a greater appreciation for Earth’s
beauty second an increased sense of
connection to all other living beings
and third an unexpected often
overwhelming sense of emotion the
researchers believe that seeing the
Earth from a great distance provokes
someone to develop new cognitive
frameworks to understand what they are
seeing they believe these astronauts
were forever changed by this new view
this new perspective this new visual
truth this feeling is commonly referred
only 558 people have ever been to outer
space 558 people had the opportunity to
gaze down in awe to wonder at our planet
floating in an infinite sea of darkness
but what if that number were bigger
three years ago I set off on my own
mission to see if I could bring this
feeling of overwhelming scale and beauty
to many more people just by using one
small computer in my small New York City
apartment it was then in 2013 that I
launched daily overview every day I have
used satellite imagery to create one
expansive overhead view of our planet
more than 1,000 of these images have
been created thus far and more than
600,000 people tune in for this daily
dose of perspectives I create the
imagery by curating photos from the
massive archive of a satellite company
called digital globe they operate a
constellation of five satellites each
roughly the size of an ambulance that is
constantly taking pictures of the earth
as they orbit at 28,000 kilometers per
hour now what does this mean each of
these satellites is equipped with a
camera that has a focal length of 16
meters so that’s roughly 290 times
greater than a DSLR camera equipped with
a standard 55 millimeter lens so if we
were able to attach one of their
satellites to the roof of this theater
in Oxford we could take a picture of a
football clearly on the pitch at the
stadium in Amsterdam that’s 450
kilometers away that’s incredibly
powerful technology and I decided at the
beginning of this project that I would
use that incredible technology to focus
on the places where humans have impacted
the plan
as a species we dig and scrape the earth
for resources we produce energy we raise
animals and cultivate crops for food we
build cities we move around we create
waste in the process of doing all of
these things we shape landscapes and
seascapes and cityscapes with increasing
control and impunity so with that in
mind I’d like to share a few of my
overviews with you now here we see cargo
ships and oil tankers waiting outside
the entry to the port of Singapore this
facility is the second busiest in the
world by terms of total tonnage
accounting for one-fifth of the world
shipping containers and one half of the
annual supply of crude oil if you look
closely at this overview you’ll see a
lot of little specks those are actually
cows at a feedlot in Summerfield Texas
in the United States
so once cows reach a particular weight
roughly 300 kilograms they are moved
here and placed on a specialized diet
over the next three to four months the
cows gain an additional 180 kilograms
before they are shipped off to slaughter
you’re also probably wondering about
this glowing pool at the top there that
gets its color from a unique combination
of manure chemicals and a particular
type of algae that grows in the stagnant
water this is the mount whale back iron
ore mine in the Pilbara region of
Western Australia a beautiful yet scary
scar on the face of the earth
of the world’s mined iron ore 98% is
used to make steel and is therefore a
major component in the construction of
buildings automobiles or appliances such
as your dishwasher or refrigerator this
is a solar concentrator in Seville Spain
so this facility contains 2650 mirrors
which are arrayed in
centric circles around 140 meter tall
tower at its center at the top of the
tower there is a capsule of molten salt
that gets heated by the beams of light
reflected upwards from the mirrors below
from there the salt circulates to a
storage tank underground where it
produces steam which spins turbines and
generates enough electricity to power
70,000 homes and offsets 30,000 tons of
carbon dioxide emissions every year this
overview shows deforestation in Santa
Cruz Bolivia immediately adjacent to
untouched tracts of rainforest
deforestation the country has primarily
been driven by the expansion of
mechanized agriculture and cattle
ranching so as the country tries to meet
the demand of its growing population and
feed them the sacrificial destruction of
its rainforest has taken place to do so
it is estimated that the country lost
4.5 million acres of rainforest in one
decade alone from 2000 until 2010 this
is the eye shampo district in Barcelona
Spain so the overview perspective can be
incredibly helpful to help us understand
how cities function and how we can
devise smarter solutions for urban
planning and this will become only more
relevant as it is expected that four
point nine billion people will live in
cities around the world by the year 2030
this area of Barcelona is characterized
by its strict grid pattern apartment
with communal courtyards and these
octagonal intersections which allow for
more sunlight better ventilation and
additional parking at street level and
here we see that grid pattern but under
much different circumstances
this is the Dadaab refugee camp in
northern Kenya the largest such facility
of its kind in the world and home to
260,000 displaced refugees to cope with
the influx of refugees who are fleeing
Somalia where there is famine and
conflict the UN has built this area
gridded out it left called the LFO
extension
to house more and more refugees we’re
arriving and occupying these white dots
which are actually tents which will
slowly fill up the area over time so if
you have one of these overviews you have
a moment in time if we have two
overviews however we’re able to tell
stories about changes in time I call
that feature of the project juxtaposed
and we’ll share a few examples of it
with you now so the tulip fields in
Netherlands bloom every year in April so
we take an image captured in March a few
weeks before and contrast it to one
taken a few weeks later we’re able to
watch the flowers bloom in this
magnificent cascade of color it is
estimated that the Dutch produce 4.3
billion tulip bulbs every year in 2015
two dams collapsed and an iron ore mine
in southeastern Brazil causing one of
the worst environmental disasters in the
history of the country it is estimated
that 62 million cubic meters of wastes
were released when the dams broke
destroying numerous villages in the
process including bento Rodrigues seen
ultimately nineteen people were killed
in this disaster half a million people
did not have access to clean drinking
water for an extended period of time and
the waste soon entered into the Rio Doce
River extended for 650 kilometers all
the way into the sea killing unknowable
amounts of plant and animal life along
the way and lastly here’s a story
related to the crisis in Syria a
conflict which has claimed the lives of
hundreds of thousands of people and
displaced millions
so this patch of desert is seen in
Mafraq Jordan in 2011 the year the
conflict started and when we compare it
to an image captured just this year in
we see the construction of the Zaatari
refugee camp it is estimated that 83,000
people currently lived in this vast sea
of tents so just as the astronauts of
Apollo 8 watched the earth rising above
the lunar landscape for the first time
there is no way that you could have
imagined what the places I just showed
you look like from outer space and while
you may enjoy the aesthetics of an image
once you learn exactly what it is you’re
seeing you may struggle with the fact
that you still like it and that’s the
tension I want to create with my work
because I believe it is that
contemplation that internal dialogue
that will lead to greater interest in
our planet and more awareness of what
we’re doing to it I believe that viewing
the Earth from the overview perspective
is more important now than ever before
through the incredible technology of
these high-flying cameras we can see
monitor and expose the unprecedented
impact that we are having and whether we
are scientists or engineers or
policymakers or investors or artists if
we can adopt a more expansive
perspective embrace the truth of what is
going on and contemplate the long-term
health of our planet we will create a
better and safer and smarter future for
our one and only home thank you
[Applause] [Music]