Today is Earth Day, a global observance started by US Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1970 as a nationwide protest intended to thrust the environment onto the political agenda. Considered the birth of the modern environmental movement, the continuing mission of Earth day is to raise awareness of and appreciation for the Earth’s environment.

Hundreds of millions of people in around 175 countries will be taking part in events which have been organised at every corner of the globe, and you lot don’t get out of doing your part either! Show your support for Earth day and leave a comment with a link to a globe of the earth, somewhere on Google Earth – like this great big one in Berlin.

Check out the The Earth Day Network website for more information, and thanks to Tom Hooten for our starter globe.

We’ve all been there – the camera is on us, and we suddenly feel a burning desire to impress it. Sadly, not everything turns out how we plan.

Take for example this cool customer – he spots the Googlemobile cruising down his street, and decides his patented bicycle ’skid and turn’ manouvre should be executed, maybe with the objective of sending a small puff of dust into the eyes of the unsuspecting driver.

As our intrepid daredevil starts to make the turn everything seems to be going perfectly – but suddenly the stunt falls apart, and moments later he lies in a bizarre tangle with his two-wheeled friend.

As the camera car moves on – rather heartlessly I might add – we see the boy in further distress as he presumably tries to free himself by way of a reverse roly-poly.

As the Google car continues on down the street the poor lad appears to be lying flat on his back, presumably regaining his composure. I do hope he was alright.

Thanks to Jason O and Streetviewfun.

In an incredible stroke of luck, this image of Potsdam, Germany was captured at exactly the same moment by both Google Earth and I Can Has Cheezburger!

Ladies and gentlemen I give you, HOVEROCEROS!

(If you haven’t got a clue what we’re on about, hopefully this should help!)

Thanks to sladys and I Can Has Cheezburger.

The Burj Dubai, upon completion, will be the tallest man-made structure on the face of the planet.

Here we can see it in a relatively early stage. From the timeline of pictures on Wikipedia, this image looks to have been taken in early 2006.

But things have changed substantially since then. Already, as of last week, it towers 639m into the sky, with 160 floors. Within the next few weeks, it will likely surpass the – now destroyed – Warsaw radio mast to become the tallest manmade structure ever built. And it won’t even be finished then! It is expected to top off at around 818 metres.

The challenges of building the Burj Dubai are immense, with the incredible heat of the desert, meaning that most of the work is carried out at night, coupled with the problem of pumping concrete that high, all challenges that are overcome thanks to the extraordinary amount of money that is being poured into Dubai by wealthy Princes. It is even said that over 25% of the world’s tower cranes are working on projects in Dubai.

However, the record may not stay with this tower for long, as plans are already being made for a mile-high tower nearby!

Read up on the Burj Dubai and watch its progress in pictures at Wikipedia, see a recent picture of Burj Dubai (and neighboring developments) on Flickr and see a previous post on the current tallest buildings.

Thanks to David Kelly

Yesterday Google released an updated version of Google Earth for PC, Mac or Linux.

Google Earth blog has posted a video highlighting some of the new features, which include:

• Day/Night mode showing the local time sunrise and sunset.
• Street Views in Google Earth.
• Photography dates (finally! Although, sadly not for all imagery).
• Faster loading 3D models.
• Flash support on Mac.

Download Google Earth 4.3.