Le BONHEUR comme indice d'épanouissement social et économique.

Global Forest Watch uses satellite imagery and other technologies to estimate forest usage, change, and tree cover (among other things). These estimates and their eventual actions used to be slow. Now they're near-real-time.

The online forest monitoring system created by the World Resources Institute, Google and a group of more than 40 partners uses technologies including Google Earth Engine and Google Maps Engine to map the world’s forests with satellite imagery, detect changes in forest cover in near-real-time, and make this information freely available to anyone with Internet access.

Happiness is a fleeting commodity in reality, it comes and goes, but the perception of happiness is the real bottom-line driver for cities and their branding.

What makes urban dwellers happy? According to a 10,000 respondent, 20 country research effort from GfK Custom Research, it is a location-based perception: does your city offer you places to go that make you happy? Apparently, the perception-reality gap is what is really interesting the city governments. Happiness is a fleeting commodity in reality, it comes and goes, but the perception of happiness is the real bottom-line driver for cities and their branding.

The winning locations end up being quite obvious candidates; entertainment and cultural heavyweights, beautiful urban areas and laid-back lifestyles lead the march...

See more statistics and data at the infographic and article link.

Deforestation has long been cited as a problem, but a lack of accessible data meant that the general public had to take someone's word for the figures. As a result, its threat always seemed more abstract and nebulous than, say, climate change or rising sea levels.

Until now: Google has unveiled its Global Forest Watch, an online tool that monitors deforestation around the world in near-real time.