This TED talk is all about modifying maps so that you can find the most joyous route to your destination! Mapping apps help us find the fastest route to where we’re going. But what if we’d rather wander? Researcher Daniele Quercia demos “happy maps” that take into account not only the route you want to take, but how you want to feel along the way. Tides Canada has teamed up with Google Earth to allow the world to see Canada’s precious environment using Google’s technology. Now you can visualize things like the boreal forest and the migration of many wild animals. It’s one thing to say that the Canadian boreal forest is the largest intact forest ecosystem on earth, Ms. Moore said. Google Earth allows Internet users to “fly in and say, ‘Oh, here’s where the caribou migrate, here’s where billions of birds migrate and nest, here’s where the aboriginal communities live.’” The Pew project was created in conjunction with the Canadian Boreal Initiative, whose executive director, Larry Innes, calls it a validation of the importance of the forests issue. “It’s a very visual way for people to relate to an area that, for most of us, is not immediately accessible,” Mr. Innes said. Without Google, he added, a similar project would have been prohibitively expensive and difficult. Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore has used Google Earth Outreach to depict the effects of climate change. Actor Ted Danson has advocated for the protection of oceans, and actress Sigourney Weaver has narrated a tour of the Amazon. A project that exposed the effects of coal mining on Appalachian mountaintops led to many of the mines being put on hold or stopped. Read the rest of the article here.