Where The World Is In Trouble Screensaver
The Where The World Is In Trouble screensaver plots active GDACS disaster alerts on a rotating globe, colour-coded by humanitarian alert level. It runs in the browser with nothing to install; press ESC to exit.
How the Where The World Is In Trouble screensaver works
The saver renders with three.js on your GPU. The library is vendored into this site rather than fetched from a CDN, and loads only when a 3D screensaver actually runs.
It reads GDACS, run jointly by the United Nations and the European Commission.
The scene resizes with the window and releases its WebGL context when the saver stops, so shuffle mode and Multi-view can cycle 3D savers without exhausting the browser's context limit.
If WebGL is unavailable the saver says so on screen rather than showing an empty black box.
A worked example
Each event is a marker on the surface with a stem so it stays readable on the far limb, sized and coloured by GDACS's own alert level — red and orange pulse, green sits still. The globe answers a question the list version cannot: where these things cluster. Earthquakes trace the plate boundaries almost exactly, tropical cyclones occupy two bands either side of the equator and never cross it, and floods follow the great river basins.
Settings & tips
- Accent and Background recolour the scene; Speed changes the pace of the motion and the camera.
- Add it to a Multi-view grid, though 3D savers are heavier than 2D ones and a few per screen is plenty.
- Press ESC at any time to leave fullscreen.
Frequently asked questions
- Why do cyclones avoid the equator?
- Because they need the Coriolis effect to start rotating, and it falls to zero at the equator. Within about five degrees of it a storm has nothing to spin it up, which is why that strip is permanently empty on this globe.
- What do the colours mean?
- GDACS's assessment of likely humanitarian impact, not the size of the hazard. A large earthquake under open ocean is green; a smaller one beneath a city is not.
- Does this need a special browser or plugin?
- No. It uses WebGL, which every current desktop and mobile browser supports. Nothing is installed and no plugin is required.
- Does it cost anything or need an account?
- No. Every screensaver here is free, runs in the browser and needs no sign-up.