Satellite image from 1942

[Free Capitalist 0]

I'm going to here save the article, exactly as it appears on the AP website, in case they'll change it later:

Tue Jun 10, 8:32 PM ET

This image released by the United Nations Environment Program shows a satellite image from 1942 of the capital of Senegal, Dakar, a small urban center at the tip of the Cap Verde Peninsula. The United Nations environment agency unveiled a new atlas Tuesday June 10, 2008 that shows what the agency says are the dramatic effects of climate change on Africa. The nearly 400-page publication features over 300 satellite images taken in every African country.

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Climate-Chan...951ac3100/print

[PhilO 0]

I'm going to here save the article, exactly as it appears on the AP website, in case they'll change it later:

What do you see in the photo that makes you think they'd want to whitewash something later?

[KurtColville 0]

Satellites... 1942... idiots. Was that the famous Buck Rogers satellite?

[Laure 0]

A satellite image from 1942? Sputnik was 1957. Either they made a mistake with this story, or they've made a major revelation that we actually had a satellite up 15 years before Sputnik!

[Free Capitalist 0]

I'm going to here save the article, exactly as it appears on the AP website, in case they'll change it later:

What do you see in the photo that makes you think they'd want to whitewash something later?

It being a satellite image, from 1942?

[Tito 0]

This is such a blatant and overt lie - they've even put 1942 on the bitmap of the image to make it look like a timestamp.

[piz 0]

Apart from the blatant 1942 thing, I can't get over how the picture looks like a creature (upside-down, relatively speaking) about to eat that little thingie in the bottom right. There's a mouth with teeth, and an eye. Looks sorta like a big dinosaur.

See, Gaiaiaia is alive!

[PhilO 0]

Oh, 1942, of course. Given how clearly silly that is, is it a typo? Not that honesty is expected from any viro group but that's blatantly absurd.

[PhilO 0]

They say it was mistitled and was actually an aerial photo mosaic:

http://newshopper.sulekha.com/photos/slideshow/41265.htm

[piz 0]

They say it was mistitled and was actually an aerial photo mosaic:

http://newshopper.sulekha.com/photos/slideshow/41265.htm

Still looks like a gigantic monster about to chow down.

[bborg 0]

I don't really know what I'm looking at here. What "dramatic effects" are they referring to?

[piz 0]

I just checked Google Maps for the same area, and apart from some differences in brightness between some areas of the two pictures I can't see any difference, except that the monster still hasn't eaten the little island.

Really, though, other than the harbor (if that's what it is) apparently being more developed, I don't see a difference.

[alann 0]

I just checked Google Maps for the same area, and apart from some differences in brightness between some areas of the two pictures I can't see any difference, except that the monster still hasn't eaten the little island.

Really, though, other than the harbor (if that's what it is) apparently being more developed, I don't see a difference.

Thanks for the excellent comparison map, piz! Now, I can see the damage. Senegal used to be much more phosphorescent, a much bigger glow. Obviously, they just need to go down there and repaint it with Tritnite, or some other appropriate watch dial paint. That would take care of the problem. Oh, also, it appears that someone has drawn 'Dakar' in really big letters, right in the middle of the peninsula. That must really mess up traffic, having to drive around that giant 'D'. Damn Mankind!

[Free Capitalist 0]

The AP has a horrific history with photos. They have consistently doctored images from the Iraq war to make it look more disturbing and miserable, by photo-adding desolate smoke stacks, addint fires to the streets, photo-clipping desperate face expressions of the natives. etc.

[alann 0]

The AP has a horrific history with photos. They have consistently doctored images from the Iraq war to make it look more disturbing and miserable, by photo-adding desolate smoke stacks, addint fires to the streets, photo-clipping desperate face expressions of the natives. etc.

Yes, I remember that, from the postings noted on Little Green Footballs that pointed out the deception in the famous photo of Beirut in which one column of smoke was turned into a conflagration by cutting and pasting the same column over and over. My understanding is that they were quite deceitful and second-handed about it: They took that photoshopped picture and posted it without the least in the way of vetting and dutifully published Arab-media sources with not the slightest editorial oversight. They were looking for pictures that made "the case" that the US was murdering babies. It's not in the least surprising that the agit-prop, dishonest nature of their photos would match their editorial position as reflected in the text of their articles. Read Taranto's Best of the Web column any given week and he'll be pointing out one or another such example of distortion.

[JRoberts 0]

I just checked Google Maps for the same area, and apart from some differences in brightness between some areas of the two pictures I can't see any difference, except that the monster still hasn't eaten the little island.

Really, though, other than the harbor (if that's what it is) apparently being more developed, I don't see a difference.

I can definitely see some changes (look really closely at the shore line).

However, it appears to me that the ocean levels in the recent photograph/Satellite image (whatever Google Maps uses) have actually fallen. It must, of course, have been caused by the melting ice caps.

With that being said, I don't see anything that some simple time and natural geological changes would not account for.