Nothing quite gives me a sense of place like the bird’s eye view and a map. That’s one of the things I lSouthern Marin Countyove about living next to a 2500-foot “mountain.” I can hike or drive to the summit and see the big picture of where I live.

The Web has revolutionized mapping, and planning for climate change impacts gets a huge benefit from having access to the new mapping capabilities. Check out this participatory view of Marin County provided by Wikimapia. Yep, you can add stuff – define a place, describe it, add photos to it.

Here’s another example of a participatory local map with a special application for marking locations of interest. It’s called Oakland Crimespotting. Imagine such a map with the locations indicating significant places relevant to climate change impact planning instead of crimes committed.