Worth watching and spreading #fridaysforfuture

Istanbul opens new airport

Sail Amsterdam video

It is already 7.5 billion of us

Remember when our planet reached 7 billion milestone? It wasn´t such a long time ago. Few days ago, the world’s population has just passed 7.5 billion, according to the “World Population Clock” – worldometers.info.

Current population explosion is really just a recent thing. It took mankind 200 000 years to reach milestone of one billion. And than only in 200 years it reached 7 billion. According to UN predictions there will be 8.5 billion of us in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050 and over 11 billion in 2100. With reaching 7.5 milestone there are many new interesting articles or graphs.

Read more:

• Thenextweb
• Indiatimes (World has 7.5 billion people, food for 12 billion, but still millions go hungry)
• World Population Clock
• Slovak article at Hnonline

China is building the world’s largest airport

20th century was the century of cars, 21st century is and is going to be the century of planes. And in China they realize this. Since 2014 China is building the world’s largest airport near Beijing. Its current airport Beijing Capital International Airport is running at near its full capacity.

Daxing District airport in Beijing is intended to take the mantle of the world’s largest airport. So far largest airport (by number of passengers) is in Atlanta. New airport near Beijing will cover an area of 2,680 hectares. With planned 9 runways, the $11 Billion mega-project is one huge Chinese investmens into new infrastructure. Even though China’s economy grows at its slowest pace in decades, they can still build things like this.

Read more:

• Article at The National
• Slovak article at Sme.sk

Road Through The Night Sky

As often with this, I start with saying there are many, maybe too many time-lapse videos nowadays. So on this page we are trying to share and spread only the ones that are really good, worth wathching and related to geography. Following time-lapse video is from Jeseníky mountains in Czech Republic.

There are less and less places to watch stary sky in Europe, as visual pollution is almost everywhere. Jeseníky still belong to places, where amazing stargazing is still possible.

Trash – out of sight, out of mind?

For 30 days, Rob Greenfield is wearing every single piece of trash that he creates while living just like the average American which creates 4.5 pounds of trash per day. That’s 135 pounds by the end of 30 days. Most people never think twice about their trash, once it’s in the garbage can, it’s out of sight, out of mind. Through this project, Rob, the award-winning filmmakers at Living on One, and Gary Bencheghib are out to change that through a film series.

More about the project

Nobel Peace Prize for Colombian president

Due to its political nature, Nobel Peace Prize is often subject of controversies. Many politicians who got it didn´t meet expectations. Or were not always as peaceful as thought. So how about this year?

This year The Nobel committe awarded prize to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. Santos has been awarded the Nobel Prize for his efforts to end ongoing conflict in Colombia.

Colombian civil war lasted for 52-years. Over 250 000 people died in this conflict. In 2016 Santos made peace deal with Farc rebels. This deal was rejected in referendum few days ago. The peace treaty was rejected by 50.2% of voters. The Nobel committe acknowledged this result, saying: “What the ‘No’ side rejected was not the desire for peace, but a specific peace agreement.” Committe sees this a challenge – to find the balance between reconciliation and ensuring justice in this war affected country.

Read more:

• NY Times about 2016 Nobel Peace Prize
• Nobel Peace Prize official info

Another subsurface ocean discovered in our solar system

We knew already that two out of many Saturn´s moons hide oceans beneath their icy crusts. These already known are moons Titan and Enceladus. According to newest data from the Cassini spacecraft, there is subsurface ocean also below the crust of Saturn´s moon Dione.

The new study, published this week in Geophysical Research Letters, suggests an ocean exists on Dione as well. The researches say: “seen from within, Dione is very similar to its smaller but more famous neighbor Enceladus, whose south polar region spurts huge jets of water vapor into space. Dione seems to be quiet now, but its broken surface bears witness of a more tumultuous past”.

If researches are correct, Dione´s oceans has probably survived through the whole history of the moon. And thus offers a long-lived habitable zone for microbial life.

Read more:

• phys.org article about this discovery
• article at discover magazine

When huge glacier collapses

Argentina is one of the countries where you can see on mainland magnificant glaciers and where you can also observe how huge glaciers break apart. Following video is from March 9, 2016, when a huge mass of ice broke up into pieces and fell into Argentino Lake.

At this place, an ice bridge collapsed that was part of Perito Moreno Glacier. And there were hundreds of tourist who gathered to witness this event.