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Satellite images of Earth show roads, air traffic, cities at night and internet cables (via The Telegraph)

Felix Pharand-Deschenes has created global snapshots depicting how power lines, roads and even air traffic corridors have come to dominate the surface of Earth. His visualisations based on real data show air traffic routes, the underwater cables that carry the internet, road and rail networks and electricity transmission lines all superimposed over cities at night.

Felix’s visualisations showing how human technology has taken over our crowded planet come just one week before the global population is set to top seven billion. The United Nations Populations Fund has revealed that by October 31st, there will be an extra billion people on the Earth compared to 1999.

Felix used US government sources like the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the National Oceanic for railways, pipelines and roads as well as the Atmospheric Administration for the air traffic to piece together the visualisations.

“These pictures show several sides of global human activities,” said 34-year-old Felix, from Montreal, Canada. “We see everything from paved and unpaved roads, light pollution, railways, electricity transmission lines. All the way to submarine cables, pipelines, shipping lanes and air traffic. The show the extent of our civilisation, the patterns of our global sprawl, how human-influenced our planet now is.”

All 13 visuals can be found here