A lone man walks across an expanse of ice; a mottled tundra; desert badlands. The single human figure becomes a focal point as images from Earth’s diverse ecosystems change underfoot.

In this visual lies a metaphor: Human footprints have made their way across the entire planet, but how have they actually shaped the land?

That question drives Earth in 100 Seconds , a short film by geography educator and National Geographic Explorer Daniel Raven-Ellison. The project translates hard data on global land use into a storytelling device: a walk across the world, where each second represents one percent of Earth’s land surface. The result reveals how more space is taken up by activities like ranching and farming than the parks and wild places that provide ample habitat for wildlife. Daniel

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