Climate change is an urgent issue. We needed to start reducing our carbon emissions years ago if we were to have a chance at escaping the worst effects of a slowly warming world. But it's hard for people to take action to stop something when they can't actually see it happening. A new iPad app aims to provide a window into our slowly (quickly) changing world.

Conveniently released around the same time as the much-anticipated iPad 3, the Painting with Time: Climate Change App (PWT Climate in the App store) lets your fingers reveal how global warming is rapidly changing our world.

Created by Red Hill Studios, in collaboration with World View of Global Warming, provides a range of time brushes and special time slicers that let you manipulate photographic sequences to discover how glaciers have drastically retreated in numerous places around the world, and examine the ways that climate change is disrupting the timing of natural events such as flower buds opening.

"It's very hard for people to really appreciate long term events – our brains are not wired that way," notes Red Hill Studios Creative Director Bob Hone. "This 'temporal myopia' has helped us ignore our impacts on the planet. Fortunately, with digital imagery and high tech satellites, we can extend our time perception to visualize the long term effects of climate change."

The creators hope that this app will help people understand that rapid changes are occurring, even though they can't always be felt or seen with the naked eye. By making it possible for people to experience the transformation of our planet in a much more direct and tactile manner, the app has a chance to compel them to take action now, rather than later.

Download the free app here, and let us know what you think!