WebProNews

A French photographer named Yann Arthus-Bertrand is famous for many things, including an “Earth from the Air” exhibit.  It seems perfectly natural, then, that about 500 of his photographs have been used to create a new “Earth from Above” layer in Google Earth.

The pretty pictures were used with Arthus-Bertrand’s permission, but there’s much more to it than that.  Google’s Rebecca Moore explains, “Each image is paired with thought-provoking statistics about the current environmental situation they depict.  The facts and figures were put together by GoodPlanet.org, Yann’s non-profit organization established to promote environmental awareness and sustainable development.”

And although many of the developments we cover tend to be picked up by the American press, this one seems to interest a much larger audience - a query for “Google Yann Arthus-Bertrand” in Google Blog Search turns up more top-ranking results in French and Spanish than in English.

Google’s environmentally-friendly projects were once viewed as an oddity, but if anything, the company has participated in them with increasing frequency over time.  Since Google’s market share and market cap have continued to grow, shareholders have no reason to complain, and the rest of us get to enjoy interesting offerings like the Yann Arthus-Bertrand layer.