According to Earth Overshoot Day: Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. We maintain this deficit by liquidating stocks of ecological resources and accumulating waste, primarily carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. …
Read More »Should you move to Duluth, MN?
The Weather Channel article It’s the Year 2100 and Everyone’s Moving to Duluth by Neil Katz (4/16/19) notes In a climate-changed future many people, says Keenan, “are looking for affordability, accessibility and actually qualitatively some degree of environmental amenities, which we believe Duluth, Lake Superior, and that part of …
Read More »How do we visualize changing temperature distributions?
This recent video (3/29/19) by Robert Rohde shows how temperature distributions have changed. Each year the graph is a distribution of temperature anomalies. As noted “This essentially the same data that was previous shown as an animated map:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JObGveVUz7k The video here is useful in any statistics or QL course …
Read More »What is the state of Arctic Ice?
The melting season for Arctic Sea Ice has started with a quick drop in ice. The total ice is at a record low for this time of year (orange line in chart). But, how this plays out throughout the melting seasons is hard to predict based solely on past seasons. …
Read More »How much money do migrants send home to individuals?
Pew has an interactive graph on their Remittance flows worldwide in 2017 page where you can select a country and either outgoing or incoming. The result is get a map of how much money was sent to other countries or came into the country. For example, the graph here is …
Read More »What’s new at sustainabilitymath?
There are three more interactive graphs on the Interactive Graphs page for a total of five. One is Arctic Sea Ice extent by year for the months of March (high month), June, September (low month), and December, along with regression lines and residual plots (snapshot here). The other two represent …
Read More »What is Population Bracketology?
The Census Bureau has a new interactive data visualization called Population Bracketology (see the screen shot here). In the game, players have to choose the city (or state for the state version) with the largest population. Once the game is completed users can scroll over the cities (or states) to …
Read More »How much coal does the U.S. export?
The EIA article In 2018, U.S. coal exports were the highest in five years (3/27/19) summarizes coal exports. While U.S. coal consumption has generally declined since its 2008 peak, EIA expects that U.S. coal exports reached 116 million short tons (MMst) in 2018, the highest level in five years, based on foreign …
Read More »How will raising the federal minimum wage impact workers?
The EPI article, Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would life pay for nearly 40 million workers, by David Cooper (2/5/19) covers their analysis of raising the minimum wage. Their graph here shows the gap between the minimum wage and median wage over time. The report is …
Read More »How well do you know Antarctica?
The Climate.gov article Antarctica is colder than the Arctic – but it’s still losing ice by Michon Scott (3/121/19) is a detailed primer on Antarctica and it’s relation to climate change. Some basic facts about Antarctica: Thanks to thick ice, Antarctic elevation averages more than 6,000 feet (more than …
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