Category Archives: Political

Haiti Earthquake: Who’s given what?

January 26, 2010

Haiti Earthquake: Who's given what?

The global response to the Haiti earthquake has been extraordinary and generous. But in the midst of all the reporting, it’s difficult to keep track of the numbers.

In particular, who has given what, who has dug deepest, and how the Haiti relief fund currently compares to those of other tragedies.

This is an image I created for The Guardian Datablog to visualise the international contributions to the Haiti Earthquake recovery effort as of 24th January 2010.

Haiti Earthquake: Who's Given What?
And the data is here for you to explore. (Thanks to Phil Wand and Jeffrey Grabell for the idea).


Sources: ReliefWeb, Guardian Datablog, OECD (PDF).
N.B. Reuters seem to have a whole different set of data on who paid what for the Tsunami. As they don’t list their sources, I can’t cross-reference with the OECD figures. Regardless, all the record keeping appears to dry up after 2005. But if anyone can find figures for after 2006, please email.

Also posted in Data Journalism, Data Visualisation |
 49 Comments

Photographers Rights In The UK

January 22, 2010

Photographers Rights In The UK

Here in the UK, there’s been a recent spate of harassment and even arrests of innocent photographers by police invoking anti-terrorism laws.

So we’ve compiled an easy-to-read wallet-sized infosheet of photographer legal rights here in the UK (PDF). It’s designed by David McCandless and Joe Swainson. The information is sourced directly from the UK Metropolitan Police and distilled from other bust cards out there.

Download and print the PDF, cut it out and stick it in your wallet or purse. If you’re stopped by police for taking photos, whip out the sheet and instantly check your rights.

Of course, it’s never a good plan to antagonise the politzei. We hear they’re particularly unimpressed by having ‘infosheets’ waved in their faces. If you are stopped for suspicious photography, a good response is usually something like:

“I’m an amateur photographer taking pictures for fun. Would you like to see them officer?”

NOTE: Note Saturday 23rd Jan 2010, there’s a Mass Photo Gathering in Trafalgar Square in London 12 Noon to protest photographers rights. It’s organized by PhotographerNotATerrorist.org

If you can help us with photographers rights cards for other countries, such as the US, please get in touch. Thanks!


:: source Metropolitan Police Guidance To Officers, Metropolitan Police: What is Stop and Search?, Sirimo.co.uk: UK Photographers Rights, and PhotographerNotATerrorist.org: Bust Card.


Also posted in Information Design, Infosheets |
 19 Comments

What Does China Censor Online?

January 14, 2010

What does China censor online? The Great Firewall Of China
The Great Firewall Of China.

Oops. I guess we can add a certain beautiful infographics website to that ban list.

Data here.

Update 1: There’s a more detailed, annotated version on The Guardian Datablog.


:: source Wikipedia/Words_censored_by_search_engines_in_the_People’s_Republic_of_China, Wikipedia:Notable_websites_blocked_in_the_People’s_Republic_of_China, ConceptDoppler.org, GreatFirewallOfChina.org,
:: Data on Google Docs

Also posted in Data Journalism, Tag cloud, Visual Journalism, Web |
 85 Comments

The Climate Deniers vs The Consensus

December 7, 2009

Climate Skeptics vs Climate Consensus

A visual map of the arguments for and against human-caused global climate change.

I’m fascinated by climate deniers. How could anyone deny the climate change is happening?
What evidence is there? Surely it’s unambiguous?

Curious, I investigated the key statements made by climate denialists and sought out the counter-views, as presented by climate research scientists. The result is this image.

(This a new and updated version of the spread on Climate Skepticism from my book The Visual Miscellaneum)

Method

I researched this subject in a very particular way. I deliberately chose not speak directly to any climate experts or leading scientists in the field. I used only publicly available web sources.

Why? Because I wanted to simulate what it’s like for people trying to learn about climate change online.

My conclusion is “what a nightmare”. I was generally shocked and appalled by how difficult it was to source counter arguments. The data was often tucked away on extremely ancient or byzantine websites. The key counter arguments I often found, 16 scrolls down, on comment 342 on a far flung realclimate.org post from three years ago. And even when I found an answer, the answers were excessively jargonized or technical.

Most of the info for this image is sourced from Realclimate.org. It’s an amazing blog staffed tirelessly by some of the world’s leading climatologists.

Unfortunately, the majority of the writing on there is so scientific and so technical, it makes the website nigh on useless to the casual, curious reader.

This has got to be one of the reasons why scientists and leaders are struggling to convince sections of the populace that the threat of climate change is real. Because they’re doing such a terrible job explaining it.

(Saying all that, I would like to express my gratitude to Gavin A Schmidt, one of unsung heroes of the web IMHO. His sterling and patient replies to comments, on RealClimate.org in understandable English, have really helped this process.)

Runaway Feedback

This image was a mammoth undertaking, especially for someone like me, unschooled in climate science. So I appreciate your understanding if any errors have crept into the process. If you spot any, please get in touch and I’ll will correct them on the double.

In every case, wherever possible, I went back the original data. (I’ve included a ZIP of all the data I’ve collected plus a spreadsheet of all the sources). And all the graphs in the image are generated from the original temperature records and other data sources. Feel free to rifle through and check everything.

RealClimate.org are (now) keeping an archive of all the data – if you want even more!
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/

UPDATE 1 (12th Dec 09): There have been a few complaints about the legibility of the image. So I’ve created a version on white instead of black.


Climate Skeptical Sources: The Myth Of Human-Caused Climate Change (RM Carter), Is The Earth Still Recovering From A Little Ice Age (Syun-Ichi Akasofu ), The Deniers, Laurence Solomon

Consensus sources: Realclimate.org, NOAA Satellite and Information Service, Nature.com, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre

Explore the sources In this Google doc
Here’s all the climate change data I used to create the graphs

Also posted in Climate, Comparison Chart, Data Visualisation, Environment, Skeptics vs Believers, The Visual Miscellaneum, Visual Journalism, X vs Y |
 226 Comments

The Billion Pound o Gram

November 27, 2009

My latest visual piece for The Guardian, The Billion Pound O Gram, is a British cousin of The Billion Dollar Gram. It reveals the scale of the budget deficit in the centre of the British economy. SPOILER: It’s a big one..

Link to the Guardian piece.

Also posted in Data Journalism, Data Visualisation, Economics, Guardian Datablog, InfoVisualisation, Statistics, Visual Journalism |
 15 Comments

Left vs Right

October 20, 2009

A concept-map exploring the Left vs Right political spectrum. A collaboration between David McCandless and information artist Stefanie Posavec, taken from my book The Visual Miscellaneum (out Nov 10th).

Of course, the political spectrum is not quite so polarised. Actually, it’s more of a diamond shape, apparently. But this is how it’s mostly presented via the media – left wing vs. right wing, liberal vs. conservative, Labour vs Tory. And perhaps in our minds too…

Well, certainly in my mind. Researching this showed me that, despite my inevitable journalistic lean to the ‘left’, I am actually a bit more ‘right’ than I suspected.

This kind of visual approach to mapping concepts really excites me. I like the way it coaxes me to entertain two apparently contradictory value systems at the same time. Or, in other words, I like the way it f**ks with my head.

I’ve got a few more of these coming from my book. They do a similar act of mind-flossing. Stay tuned.

Oh and if there’s enough demand, we’re going to do a signed, limited edition poster run of this image before Christmas. Email informationisbeautiful [at] gmail [dot] com if you’re interested

design notes

The original design concept was “something like a rosette”. But Stefanie did an amazing job taking it way further.

(I’ll be doing a ‘Great Visualizers’ piece on her in the future. But you can see some of her work here: itsbeenreal.co.uk. My particular favourite are her literary organisms. Truly beautiful and very informational. Yum.)

There are two versions with different colours: a US and a World version. This is because the US and Switzerland are the only countries in the world where red = right wing and blue = left wing. Grrr!

Also posted in Comparison Chart, Economics, Group MInd, Infographic, Knowledge Map, concept map |
 132 Comments

Four Infographic Morsels

September 21, 2009

How To Get Replies Online Dating
Dating site OKCupid examined which words in an opening email to women increased or decreased the chances of a reply. Hilarious and revealing.

How To Get Replies In Online Dating

Christopher Niemann
This US illustrator does a nice line in hand-drawn infographics

Christopher Niemann Mosquito
(I also like his ‘I Confess’ range)

How many troops has each country sent to Afghanistan?
Ok I did this one. But I think it’s an important question. And quite surprising.

How any troops has each country sent to Afghanistan?

Susanna Hertrich: Reality Checking Device
A visual device for getting some perspective. Nice!

Susanna Hertrich: Reality Checking Device
(sorry about the tiny screen shot – it’s the only one I could find) UPDATE: Here’s a big version (Thanks to Matthew Goldthwaite)

If you come across any visual delights, please send them through.

Also posted in Data Journalism, Data Visualisation, Fun, Graph, News, War |
 16 Comments

Surface Area Required To Solar Power The World

September 3, 2009

Surface area required to solar power the world

According to the United Nations 170,000 square kilometers of forest is destroyed each year. If we constructed solar farms at the same rate, we would be finished in 3 years.

New: I did a little revisioning, adding another power source we possibly haven’t considered.

From LandArtGenerator.org. Image here. Science here.

[Via Cool Infographics]

Also posted in Environment, Sustainability, World Map |
 47 Comments

The Billion Dollar Gram

August 12, 2009

The Billion Dollar Gram

Billions spent on this. Billions spent on that. What does it all look like? Hopefully The Billion Dollar Gram will help.

This image arose out of a frustration with the reporting of billion dollar amounts in the media. That is, they’re reported as self-evident facts, when, in fact, they’re mind-boggling and near incomprehensible without context. But they can start to be understood visually and relatively, IMHO.

(This is one of the first images I created for my book. So a lot of the figures are from 2006/07. I’ve also visually cheated slightly here and there to make everything fit)

I hoping this will be a “living image” that I’ll keep updating all the time. So if you find any interesting, juicy or eye-popping billions, please comment below (with a source). Let’s see how high we can make this image!


source: New York Times, The Guardian, Fortune and others. See this Google doc for all details.
Also posted in Comparison Chart, Data Journalism, Data Visualisation, Economics, InfoVisualisation, Infographic, Media, Treemap, Visual Journalism |
 146 Comments

Walled World

August 8, 2009

Mind-opening viz from Td Architects in Holland. I didn’t know about the Schengen ‘Wall’.

Td Architects have run a nice side-line in information visualizations for several years. I don’t always connect with their visual style. But they’ve created some really thought provoking images. Unfortunately, they’re locked behind the walls of a very-hard-to-navigate website. Get an RSS feed dudes!

(You can find them on their homepage listed under ‘SNOGs’ (?). The space debris one is cool. Let me know any other good ones you find.)

Also posted in Data Visualisation, World Map |
 25 Comments