Visualizing Our Earth

I'm always a sucker for nifty data visualization hacks and I particularly enjoyed these globe projections from the San Jose Technology Museum.

Life Expectancy

Life expectancy is a core factor in the human development index. With 82 years Japan has the highest life expectancy. All 35 countries at the bottom of this list are located in sub-Saharan Africa; their citizen's average life expectancy is between 52 and 39 years.

Mountains of Debt



Pollution

Dark red circles indicate oil spills and gray-shaded areas indicate sea pollution and land pollution from chemical fertilizers. Shown is only a small part of the entire pollution spectrum in 1988. At an average of every three months this globe becomes obsolete due to yet another major oil spill.

Satellite Blind Spots

The public service Landsat System has blind spots over territory and time. However, personal satellites may soon be purchasable for about the price of a Mercedes, and space junk is increasingly hard to track.

Check the web site above for hundreds more!