Today’s Google doodle is celebrating Earth day by delivering an important message, this time about climate change, which is one of the most pressing issues of the world today.
In this doodle it’s shown that a fox is abruptly awakened by a nightmare, foreshadowing the havoc that pollution and climate change have wrought on the earth: Icebergs melt and plants turn into ashes and waste. Alarmed, the fox gathers two animal friends to help him save the earth. They then plan to use less electricity, use bikes instead of buses, use wind turbines and solar panels instead of other sources of energy.
The urgency of this message is clear. This nightmare is not taking place anywhere in the future but very much in the present. According to the World Health Organization, environmental risks currently result in the deaths of 1.7 million under the age of five each year. And studies show that ice sheets are melting at accelerating rates.
“I did a lot of research into coral bleaching for the doodle, and it surprised and saddened me that these underwater ecosystems were so fragile,” says Google doodler Sophie Diao. “I also learned how everything is interconnected, so the rising temperatures in the sea lead to all kinds of effects beyond just melting ice caps.”
Instead of taking a macro approach to enacting change, Diao went smaller.
“I wanted to focus the Doodle on what an individual contributor can do for the environment,” says Diao. “There’s a lot of distressing news about changes to our ecosystems, but it can be hard to know how to help as just one person. That’s why I wanted to create a story about individuals coming together to do something about it.”
At the end of the doodle, there are small tips that individuals can apply in their daily lives to contribute to the betterment of environment in every way that they can.
