Google Maps
Discover Greenland
Discover Greenland
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau“If we all work together, we can preserve this beautiful wilderness.”
Southern Greenland is changing frighteningly faster than anywhere else on Earth.
As sea ice melts and glaciers crumble, scientists scramble to measure and photograph the shifting landscape in order to understand how to preserve this strikingly fragile place. Google Maps is committed to documenting these frontiers of climate change to raise awareness and spread an urgent call to action.
Google called upon Lonelyleap and UN Goodwill Ambassador Nikolaj Coster-Waldau to film remote areas of Greenland and make them feel accessible through Google Maps. Our crew, drawn from both our New York and London offices, fought rainy days, harsh weather and travel by boat, plane and four-wheeler to make the shoot happen. With the help of a Greenlandic fixer and plenty of warm clothes, we spent six days filming this magnificent country.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
“What I love about Greenland, is that I feel small. In the best sense of the word.”
Greenland is simultaneously very much like our own world and utterly different. We felt energized by the environment, staying up late to try and film the northern lights. It’s not an easy place to get to, and out the window of an airplane you can see that it’s largely unpopulated. But the people we did meet took us into their homes and showed us why capturing this place, its people and its landscape was a vital undertaking.
The message is clear: if we don’t band together, Greenland will be one of the first places irrevocably damaged by climate change, but it certainly won’t be the last.