Sunday, June 24, 2018

A Better Way to See the World


Maps can allow us to see more clearly the true face of everything from sea level rise to light pollution to where the world's migrants are really headed.

5 comments:

the salamander said...

.. quite true Mound.. im the last hear I have seen animated maps. One was the flow of winds throughout North America. Another shows the annual flights of birds.. some coming from the Arctic to the midwest and retirning. Another showed hlw Northern species, including fish are hesding north to cooler temperaturss. Yet others track hurricanes passing from Atlantic or Pacific to the Carribean and on to Houston or the Florida pannandle etc. Soon will see such maps showing the flow of migrants.. and where their children have been disappeared to.. with not even even a slip of paper to help trace them. There are more, like tracking the desertification of grasslands.. and of course the shrinking icefields and glaciers.. Polar besrs on sea ice. Remakning tigers in the wild ? These are perfect for mainstream media.. so where are tthey ? Concise, illuminating, priceless & informative & a minute or less doesn't cut it any more as news ?

The Mound of Sound said...


The written word sometimes confounds, often is easy to ignore, forget, flush down the Memory Hole. Sometimes the animated message can actually offer a more accurate, lasting picture.

Toby said...

That thing at the end with the gas flares in N. Dakota throwing up more greenhouse gases than a billion cars per year . . . We the little people are always blamed and we have to bear the brunt while some industries pollute like crazy without repercussion. Another is the shipping industry burning bunker oil.

the salamander said...

BTW, Mound.. One of the biggest obstacles I encounter re partisan or semi-partisans I try to inform is this. From federal through provincial, then civic or local, I notice they have no depth of knowledge re the individual stages and repercussions of resource extraction through to actual export. One wonders if an animated or interactive map could assist. Most seem to assume a northern frack site delivers its booty by stork.. to a shiny pipeline in the south.

We both know there are clear stages, whether site clearing, financing, water pipelines in - well fluids out, pipeline excavation across rivers, subsidies from government, portland infrastructure, and the monumental tar sands complexities.. all prior to the miraculous royalties and boundless high paying jobs forever n ever in the jack in the beabstalk Economy.

Uh oh.. The First Nations get lip service and the environment gets a shiv

Wild Salmon fisheries vs Farmed Salmon is different but an excellent example of the same process but in microcosm. Instead we get bare bones explanations about all those jobs and the importance to the BC and Canadian Economy. No comparisons of number of jobs or economic value, environmental damage, tourism or commercial fisheries forexample. Maybe there is a map that will help us understand how we (you and me) subsidize and a Norwegian multinational takes the profits

Regardless, maps are built on data and analysis.. and I am thinking of building a text file of the key or main stages re tar sands piplines & related rail operations to export or keep domestically - to the resources actually leaving Canada, whether by pipeline, suoertanker or stork.. and to whom & for approx how much $

Apologies re previous horrendous spelling. No excuses.
Sheer laziness not to proofread more carefully my raging opinions is awful

Northern PoV said...

"One wonders if an animated or interactive map could assist. "

In a bygone era perhaps....
These folk work hard at willful ignorance.