Satellite monitoring/surveillance for the health of the planet

Jamais Cascio has written a short piece called 'I Spy With My Orbital Eye…' on his site Open the Future that address the use of satellite monitoring for surveying the health of the planet, both human and ecological. He refers to two recent articles on this subject:

The first (via James Hughes) comes from a report at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene conference in Philadelphia: NASA satellites help health policy experts around the world watch for and respond to disease outbreaks, and can potentially help head off a pandemic.

The second (via Ethan Zuckerman) is even more directly Bright Green: the use of satellite imagery to detect natural gas “flaring,” in order to track its impact on the environment.

I happen to think there is some mileage in these ideas... beyond the usual military appropriations.

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