Recent controversy about the budget of the BBC here in the UK made me curious about its spending. Here’s the BBC-o-Gram, a visualization I created for the Guardian Datablog, exploring the costs of running one of the biggest broadcasters in the world.

See the visual. Explore the data.

Do they provide good value?

It doesn’t help that in climate change reporting, a consistent but bewildering assumption is repeatedly made: that we understand what a 1 metre sea level rise actually means.

A “1 metre sea level rise” is in the same domain as “1 ton of carbon” or “£1 billion”. That is, it’s meaningless without context or some link to our everyday lives.

So, in this latest diagram for The Guardian Datablog, I’ve tried to sum up all the current research on sea level rises. What will happen, when it will happen, and where all that sea water will come from. And to suggest what cities will flood When Sea Levels Attack!

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.

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.

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.

My first post is about Deadly Drugs.

There’s been a furore over here in the UK about the dangers of illegal drugs. The Government has sacked its most senior drugs advisor, Dr Professor Nutt, after he claimed cannabis was no more harmful than alcohol. And that horse-riding, and specifically ‘equasy’ (Equine Addiction Syndrome) was riskier than taking ecstasy. (Statistically he’s correct. His study here.).

Anyway, digging at the numbers behind his statements and how drugs are reported in the popular press, I found some stuff I didn’t expect about drug harms.

Check out the article on The Guardian blog for detail and data. You want both right?

It’s out in the US 10th November. And in the UK on the 4th February.

Here’s a Visual Miscellaneum US pre-order link

I received my first copies this week – a joyful and agonising experience. Joyful because yay it’s my book! Agonising because, inevitably, I keep seeing things I want to change or tweak or improve.

Overall though, I think it’s pretty good. Ultimately, I wanted to explore a whole range of subjects as visually and beautifully as possible, with the minimum of text. I hope I managed it and I hope you enjoy it.

Here are some pictures to give you a sense of it.

(Sorry about the awful framing of some of these. I’m a designer, not a photographer yeah?)

Here’s that Visual Miscellaneum US pre-order link again.

Enjoy! And let me know what you think. Thanks! david.

(p.s. if you want review copies, please email
USA: Meredith.Rusu@harpercollins.com | UK & EUROPE: Katherine.Patrick@harpercollins.co.uk)

They’ve been quietly championing infographics and visual information in their ‘Transparency’ section for a few years now. Many of their images are America-centric. But a lot highlight global concerns. Here are some of my favourites.

The Pacific Plastic Gyre
They were all over the huge lump of plastic in the ocean story before anyone else.

No More Fish in the Sea
This is pretty – and makes me want to look at it

China
I also like these Visual FAQs on the superpower. Visual FAQs are the way to go.

Vampire Energy
Important information wrapped in a cheeky concept. Pretty strong visual incentive to turn off that Plasma.

Solar Power
Staring at the potential of solar power.

Here the Transparency section on their site. You can also see the full set on Flickr

Please let me know any good ones you find or any other great visualizers out there. Me likeee.

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!

Off the back of the recent timeline of global media scare stories, I got curious about what searches actually look like.

For example, the search “violent video games” reveals a very distinct pattern.

Why that distinct pattern? If you add the dates, it clarifies things:

Every April and November the issue flares up. Why?

April 20th is the anniversary of the Columbine Massacre. Though dimishing, the echoes of that event still reverberate through the group mind.

Not sure about the November peak? Maybe because Christmas video games are announced?

Face Off

A cool thing about Insights. You can pile multiple search terms into the interface and force them into a face off. A bit like putting a fly and a spider and an earwig in a bottle. You’ve done that, right?

I like this one for putting the Twitter hype in perspective.

It’s also good for the settling of age old conflicts.

(Though, technically, the results for ‘apple’ might get some noise for people searching for the popular fruit online)

Why those big peaks?

Hahah. Brilliant. Those peaks occur at the height of summer in July. Though there was a considerable dip in 2007. Bad summer then? Maybe we could map these to global temperatures to make a more human (and tasty) barometer of weather fluctuations. Maybe future super-ironic generations will use searches for “ice cream” as climate records?

ANYWAY. Insights a great fun tool for scoping patterns in data or to rate preferencess – or even to help with personal decisions.

Have a play. Let me know any cool stuff you come up with.