A few months ago, during a coffee break, at the Greenpeace office in Helsinki, we were chatting about the incredible beauty of the Great Northern Forest. We had just returned from a documentation trip that had left us in awe, not only of the towering trees and deep green mossy floor, but the vast tangled areas that had been stripped away by logging machines and left in ruins.
“If only everyone in the world could see how amazing this place is and how much of it is under threat… I wish we could just transport people straight to the Great Northern Forest!” someone proclaimed.
And then, Jani, our digital guy said, “well, actually, we can, with augmented reality.”
And now, you can.
If you haven’t tried it yet, augmented reality is similar to virtual reality; you just need a smartphone and an internet connection. After downloading the app (see instructions below), a door appears on your phone’s screen, and as you physically walk towards it, you enter the Great Northern Forest.
As you look up, the Northern Lights appear across the sky and you are surrounded by majestic snowy trees. A campfire crackles and invites you closer. In the distance you hear the call of a raven and as you turn to walk towards it, another scene appears; and you’re faced with the all too real destruction of the forest.
The Great Northern Forest stretches across the globe like a green crown, covering Canada, Scandinavia and Russia. It holds almost a quarter of the world’s trees and stores more carbon than all the tropical rainforests combined. It’s the ancestral home of Indigenous peoples like the Sami in Scandinavia and the Cree in Canada. It houses a complex and biodiverse ecosystem full of owls, eagles, wolves, and bears.
Yet only 3% of this forest is protected and each year vast areas are being lost as logging companies fragment and destroy the forest, turning trees into products like paper towels and packaging that we use only for a brief moment.
Not only is this forest beautiful but it is also a crucial ally in mitigating the worst effects of climate change. Its continued destruction could turn it from a carbon store into a carbon bomb.
Together, we can’t let that happen.
The Great Northern Forest can protect us from climate change, but only if we protect it first.
Join the movement: choose forests.
How to visit the Great Northern Forest in Augmented Reality:
- Download the Arilyn app (iOS, Android) on your phone.
- Open the app and scan this image:
- Follow the instructions on screen: place the gate close to you and walk in!
Now the gate will be saved in the menu (Playground >> Greenpeace >> TheForestGate)
Ethan Gilbert is a forest campaigner with Greenpeace Nordic
Discussion
Heroens Photo
Photosyntesis - The reaction equation CO2 + H2O -> C6H12O6 + O2 from where can see that plant's photosyntesis with light, carbondioxide and water is producing glucose and oxygen. The glucose is sugar what plants store for need of grow. Photosyntesis binds carbondioxide from the atmosphere only during the growing season, where plants need energy for the growth and production of seeds. The photosyntesis also works only when other factors of growth light, heat, moisture are present and allows the conditions of growth what on the northern parts of the globe do not exists during the plants wintering season. Is harmonization of speed limits the reducing solution ? My environmental-economy plan include reducing of speed limits to 40-70-100 km/h serie - so called KH-serie II - in what beside introduction to whole plan from Planet-X Earth Google Community here is more rationalization. When world's total amount of cars is about 650 million there would be a long period of replacement time with electric power source. Despite of this time the electric car's battery and needed manufacturing substancies will wear natural assets in a ways what is couse from market demands. This overhelmed need of natural assets will have effects to economy so that raw material prices will be abnormal. Second point is carbondioxide and reducing of it what do not achive in situation in where old cars do not have replacement form when electric car manufacturers make only models what is designed use in orbit of outerspace or trend vehicles with technical propertyes which are not suitable in use on daily needs. Atmospheric carbondioxide is in use of natural circulation only in summer time when plants and trees need energy to grow so that electric cars will not have effects with present manufacturing policy to global warming.