Comment 5 for bug 1160289

Complete workaround based on my above solution:

1. I created a script and named it "earth.sh" (without the quotes).

sudo gedit earth.sh

and placed the following lines inside it:

#!/bin/bash
LANG=en_US google-earth

2. Then I placed said script inside /opt/google/earth/free:

sudo cp earth.sh /opt/google/earth/free

3. Then I opened /usr/share/applications/google-earth.desktop:

sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/google-earth.desktop

and changed the "exec" command to "/opt/google/earth/free/earth.sh".

Now google earth opens and the search function works ok even if the language is not US english.