For those that are visually oriented, WorldMapper is the best way to view many statistical realities.  Floods in the Midwest, Hurricanes in Florida and the Gulf Coast are major disasters right?  Not if you look at a map of the world affected by Disasters.  The U.S. barely registers.

This version of the population map allows you to place your pointer over a particular area of the map and find out what country the colors indicate.  This is a good map to keep open as you view the WorldMapper maps of different statistics like Science Growth, Arms Exports, Species Extinct, and Species Living in Zoos Only.

Then there is the issue of world population.  Viewing the U.S. through WorldMapper is a humbling experience.  We are clearly out numbered by the populations of China and India.  The information that this map is based on is eight years old but still it clearly shows where America stands in proportion to other countries in world population.

Viewing the population map next to several of the maps mentioned above like Arms Exports and Ecological Footprint shows just how out of proportion our impact in the world really is.

As of 2003, we are clearly one of the world’s major arms exporters.  No wonder we protect and promote our second amendment right to bear arms.  It’s a big money maker as is arming most of the rest of the world.  The U.S. was one of five nations that made over $15 billion from arms exports.  The others were the Russian Federation, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.  These five nations accounted for 80% of arms exports worldwide.

Then there is our Ecological Footprint.  Talk about out of proportion compared to population.  This is the description of this particular map at World WorldMapper::

The ecological footprint is a measure of the area needed to support a population’s lifestyle. This includes the consumption of food, fuel, wood, and fibres. Pollution, such as carbon dioxide emissions, is also counted as part of the footprint.

The United States, China and India have the largest ecological footprints. Without knowing population size we cannot understand what this means about individuals’ ecological demands. Large populations live in China and India. In both territories resource use is below the world average. The per person footprint in the United States is almost five times the world average, and almost ten times what would be sustainable.

  It isn’t all bad news.  We are one of the largest nations investing in research and development.  As such the U.S. is working toward improving conditions not just here but worldwide.  Since our Ecological Footprint is so big, researching new technologies and better methods of production of energy and materials is important to our survival not just as a country but as a planet.

Several of the maps were either surprising in the reality shown such as the first map at the top that shows the Affects of Disasters worldwide or surprising in the lack of current data such as the Wealth Growth map that shows "the proportion of world wide growth between 1975 and 2002." 

Most of the statistics that many of these maps rely on, are out of date by four to ten years depending on the map.  Granted, many statistics are only gathered once every ten years or so but in the current world of instant surveys, numbers and number crunching, I would have hoped that WorldMapper would be more up to date with the underlying statistics on which these maps are based.

WorldMapper updates the saying that: "There are statistics and then there are damned statistics."  Now we have "visual statistics" to help all of us that fall asleep during the recitation of all those "damned statistics. 

Still the reality depicted by WorldMapper based on statistics available from the United Nations is startling in both its harshness and occasional relief.

Related:

Entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 5:53 pm under High Definition Formats, Japan, Technology.

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