On a map showing the countries of the world according to the size of their carbon footprint, the Northern Hemisphere is roughly twice as big as it is in reality and the Southern Hemisphere shrinks to, let’s say, a quarter of its size in square kilometres. This image of the carbon footprint, and therefore the influence of people living in the western world on climate change and global warming, and their use of resources, is shocking. Especially when you know that the negative impact of this heavy use of resources is mainly affecting those people not using them; in other words, the people living in the shrunken parts of the map.
This was the illustrative material shown by Professor Stig Enemark, president of the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) at the Survey & Engineering GIS Summit, part of the ESRI User conference held in San Diego from 16th to 21st June. A keynote speaker at the Summit, Enemark explained how FIG wanted to work to lessen poverty in the world by smart land management in those parts of the world where there are no cadastral systems, and by helping make better use of natural resources through new survey and GIS techniques.
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