It's funny, social media has us so tied to what's happening right now, in the moment, that we seldom look back at where we've been and how far we've come. That's what made the #10YearChallenge so interesting. It was a rare cause to take stock.
But some folks looked more at what had changed around them, and how the planet had changed, rather than what had changed about themselves. Boy, what a difference a decade made for ol' Planet Earth.
In the heart of Africa, between 20 and 30 million people across four nations rely on Lake Chad: Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. The dwindling of the lake has been going on for much more than a decade. Since 1963, 90% of the lake has disappeared.
Seen in 2006 on the left and 2017 on the right, Trift Glacier has seen a rapid retreat. Where the glacier was once enough for hikers to reach a nearby alpine club hut, a suspension bridge had to be installed in 2004 to make up for the ice loss.
In 2017, hundreds of locals were evacuated just before part of the glacier collapsed.
As NASA's Earth Observatory reported, the Rondonia region of Brazil saw an area larger than the state of West Virginia deforested by 2003. That trend definitely hasn't slowed down since then.
It's no surprise that the Arctic sea ice is in decline. We've know that for a while. But what a difference a decade makes.
In September 2006, the Arctic sea ice covered about 5.8 million square kilometers. In September 2016, it was down to 4.14 million square km — over the first ten days of that month, the Arctic lost an area of ice the larger than the state of Maryland every day.
It's not clear exactly which area Parks and Recreation star Rashida Jones was trying to highlight in particular with her Instagram post, or if it was a single beach, but she definitely wanted to draw attention to the plight of some of the world's most beautiful and sought after landscapes.
Like Trift Glacier, Switzerland's Rhone Glacier is in retreat, but it's also one of the more important glaciers in Europe, feeding both the Rhone River and Lake Geneva.
However, since 2008, the Swiss have been trying to reduce the melting with huge swaths of white, UV resistant blankets, which reportedly cut down the ice loss by up to 70%.
Lake Oroville is California's second largest reservoir, and when an epic drought struck the state, its startlingly low water levels in 2015 became a symbol for the state's struggles.
Just two years later, the reservoir's dam had to open its emergency spillway for the first time ever. It's emblematic of the extremes of climate change.
At one point, the Aral Sea in central Asia was the fourth largest lake in the world. Now, it's all but gone.
Its disappearance can't be chalked up completely to climate change — although a series of dry years haven't helped — but it certainly is the result of human activity, with a massive irrigation project diverting much of the water to the surrounding desert.
As these images from NASA demonstrate, 2007 was a hot enough year in its own right.
A decade later, and you can see the difference in the extent of hotter areas around the globe. It's especially noticeable in the Northern Hemisphere and Brazil.
The caption read, "It can take hundreds of years for a single piece of plastic to decompose. Plastic pollution is a problem we all need to address. Encourage more people to be part of the solution."
If this harsh reality is upsetting you like it's upsetting me, reconsider your next single use plastic purchase.
It's not all bad news, however. As this post from supermodel Gisele Bunchen shows, efforts at reforestation can work.
A project she helped create saw 40,000 trees planted along the river bank in her Brazilian hometown, which greatly improved the water quality there as well as bringing wildlife back to the area.
Small acts of kindess for mother Earth are great ways to feel better about the overwhelming environmental damage.
And we have to think responsibility in order to save our planet!
