| The Picture: Lights on earth show in this 2000 photo of the earth at night. Global city lights. The Eastern U.S., Europe, and Japan are brightly lit by their cities, while the interiors of Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America remain (for now) dark and lightly populated. (Image by Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon, NASA GSFC. Based on data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program courtesy Christopher Elvidge, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center)
Urban sprawl completely transforms the landscape and the soil and alters the surrounding ecosystem and the climate. |