Green Daily

Air pollution is kind of like the back of your head. You can't usually see it, but you're pretty sure it's there. The EPA and other environmental agencies around the planet collect a lot of data about emissions from various sources including power plants and manufacturing facilities. But numbers on a chart don't always convey the whole picture. That's why we're impressed to see the EPA releasing a tool that lets you visualize air pollution using Google Earth.

If you're not familiar with Google Earth, it's basically tool for stitching together satellite imagery to create an interactive map of the earth. The software comes in Windows, Mac, and Linux varieties. Once you install Google Earth, you can download the EPA's emission file and open it in Google Earth.

Now your map should be populated with cement facilities, chemical manufacturing plants, electric generating units, natural gas pipelines, oil and gas production facilities, petroleum refineries, and pulp and paper plants. At a glance, this data isn't too interesting. It just lets you know if there's an industrial plant nearby.

But if you tilt the map using the scrollbars in the top right corner of Google Maps, you'll notice that some of the markers are at different heights. The heights represent emissions. The higher the marker, the higher the emissions. The EPA data is updated regularly, so over time you may see some markers go up while others go down.

This is a decent way to visualize polluters around the country. But I'd love to see a bit more information. When you click on a marker, you get the address of the power plant of industrial facility, but no actual statistics about emissions. The EPA is collecting a lot data about emissions levels, and it would be nice to see some actual numbers, how facilities are faring over time, and other data in Google Earth.

[via Mashable]