Charred, drained or swamped, built up, dug out or taken apart, blue or green or turned to dust: this is the Earth as seen from above.
As the world commemorates Earth Day on Saturday, the footprints of human activity are visible across the planet’s surface. The relationship between people and the natural world will have consequences for years to come.
In Iraq, lakes shrivel and dry up as rain fails to fall, weather patterns altered by human-made climate change. In Florida, the opposite problem: too much water clogs roads and neighborhoods, trapping cars and stranding people, with the burning of fossil fuels again partially to blame for erratic conditions.
Anmar Khalil/Associated Press
A dried Sawa Lake is surrounded by a dry bed in Iraq on April 10.
In megacities, like the rapidly growing Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, skyscrapers shoot upwards while in Guyana excavators dig deep into the earth for deposits of gold.
In California, surfers straddle waves in the ocean. In New Jersey, solar panels float in ponds, and in India, fishing nets sink into the lakes. Residents of neighborhoods in Utah meanwhile, find water where it shouldn’t be – coursing through their streets and homes.
On land, farmers are at the whims of the weather, with patterns being altered by climate change. In Argentina, parched lands turn crops to gray. Just outside Barcelona, new cracked, thirsty water beds appear after months of little to no rain.
Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press
A pair of waterlogged cars sit abandoned in the road as floodwaters recede in the Sailboat Bend neighborhood of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on April 13.
Earth Day first began in 1970, heralded as the birth of an environmental movement that encouraged people worldwide to protect the natural world. Today, it also urges action to combat climate change, which has accelerated in recent decades.
Each year, scientists have warned that the burning of fossil fuels is heating the planet and bringing us closer to breaching internationally agreed upon limits of warming, which would have major effects, such as more extreme weather events.
Around the world, activists of all ages are keeping the pressure on governments and companies to do more to protect the environment and combat climate change.
An old boat is half-buried after the water level has dropped at the Sau reservoir, about 60 miles north of Barcelona, Spain, on April 18. Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press
The Tassawini Gold Mines are visible amid trees in Chinese Landing, Guyana, on April 17. Matias Delacroix/Associated Press
The sun rises over downtown Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on April 11. Vincent Thian/Associated Press
An array of solar panels float on top of a water storage pond in Sayreville, N.J., on April 10. Seth Wenig/Associated Press
Two surfers wade through water in Huntington Beach, Calif., on April 17. Jae C. Hong/Associated Press
Clouds hover over the Woipan Tepuy on Pemon Indigenous territory at the Gran Sabana, Bolivar state, Venezuela, on April 5. Matias Delacroix/Associated Press
Dry, cracked land is visible at the Sau reservoir, about 60 miles north of Barcelona, Spain, on April 18. Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press
A car drives down a road near farmland in Lobos, Argentina, on April 14. A huge amount of the harvest of soybean and corn has been lost in Argentina due to drought. Natacha Pisarenko/Associated Press
Local officials issued evacuation orders for at least 20 homes as temperatures spiked and snowmelt coursed through the streets on April 12 in Kaysville, Utah. Rick Bowmer/Associated Press
A farmer spreads his net to catch fish in a lake on the outskirts of Guwahati, India, on April 10. Anupam Nath/Associated Press
Water surrounds the coast of Cabo da Roca near Lisbon, Portugal, on April 14. Michael Probst/Associated Press
Boat docks are visible where ice has thawed at Wayzata Bay in Lake Minnetonka, on April 13 in Wayzata, Minn. AP
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