The NASA article Nope Earth Isn’t Cooling by Alan Buis (7/12/19) is a good primer on short and long term trends as it relates to global climate change. The main graphic (copied here), which is an animation zooming into a short time period and then back to the longer time …
Read More »How easy is it to understand mass incarceration?
The details of mass incarceration is complicated, but the Prison Policy Initiative report Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2019 by Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner (3/19/19) provides an extensive look at the data. The report has over 20 graphs and links to data. A few excerpts: The American criminal justice …
Read More »How much energy does the U.S. government consume?
The eia article U.S. government energy consumption continues to decline by Fred Mayes (7/25/19) has a half dozen charts showing U.S. government energy consumption. For example, the chart copied here provides energy consumption by defense and civilian agencies by type (vehicles/equipment or buildings). The U.S. federal government consumed 915 trillion …
Read More »In 2100, 80% or more of the population will live where?
The Our World in Data article More than 8 out of 10 people in the world will live in Asia or Africa by 2100 by Hannah Ritchie (7/15/19) includes the (interactive) chart copied here with population projections by the United Nations. The United Nations projects that world population growth will …
Read More »How hot was June 2019?
The NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information Global Climate Report – June 2019: Averaged as a whole, the June 2019 global land and ocean temperature departure from average was the highest for June since global records began in 1880 at +0.95°C (+1.71°F). This value bested the previous record set in 2016 by …
Read More »What percent of congress are immigrants or children of immigrants and what part of the country do they represent?
The PEW article In 116th Congress, at least 13% of lawmakers are immigrants or the children of immigrants by A.W. Geiger (1/24/19) provides an overview of the immigrant status of congress. The chart copied here show that the West has a greater number of immigrant or child of immigrant lawmaker. …
Read More »Rain, Rain, Go, Away. . .How wet has it been?
The NOAA post Assessing the U.S. Climate in June 2019 (7/9/2019) has a quick summary of precipitation. In short, the 12 month contiguous U.S. precipitation record has been broken for the last three months. Average precipitation across the contiguous U.S. for July 2018–June 2019 was 37.86 inches, 7.90 inches above …
Read More »How much does a half a degree Celsius matter?
In terms of climate change a half a degree Celsius matters a lot. NASA has a two part series A Degree of Concern: Why Global Temperatures Matter and Part 2: Selected Findings of the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming both by Alan Buis (6/19/2019). The two part series …
Read More »How has the federal minimum wage changed?
The EPI article Congress has never let the federal minimum wage erode for this long by David Cooper (6/17/19) provides the graph here. June 16th marks the longest period in history without an increase in the federal minimum wage. The last time Congress passed an increase was in May 2007, …
Read More »Who gets injured by fireworks?
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has annual reports on fireworks. The 2018 report on the Fireworks Information Center page includes data on injuries. In 2018 64% of injuries were male. From 2003 to 2018 injury rates varied from a low of 2.8 per 100,000 to a high of 4.0 …
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