Fashion industry’s environmental impact

For Bloomberg, Rachael Dottle and Jackie Gu look at the current state of the fast fashion industry, which uses petroleum-derived polyester in most of the clothing:

Almost every piece of clothing we buy is made with some polyester, the data shows. Although the dataset is made up of mostly fast fashion retailers, it’s not just fast fashion that loves polyester. Lululemon joggers? Polyester, nylon and elastane. Gucci skirt? Polyester.

I like the scrapbook theme and the digital garbage falling down the screen as you read. There’s also a counter that roughly estimates the number of clothing items thrown to the trash since you started reading.

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Seeing CO2 is a playable data visualization

Seeing CO2, by design studio Extraordinary Facility, is a playable data visualization that imagines if carbon dioxide were visible. You drive a car around collecting bits of information about carbon dioxide in our environment, and along the way, you’ll see volumes of CO2 compared against well-known structures. Pretty great.

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Amount of fish to raise a big fish

Raising living things requires resources. In the case of fish, it requires more fish so that another can grow larger. Artists Chow and Lin calculated how much. The surrounding small fish are required to grow the three yellow carp in the middle. [via kottke]

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Years of life lost due to breathing bad air

Researchers at the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute estimated the number of years lost and the number of people affected due to particulate matter in the air. They estimated per country. The Washington Post used a mosaic plot, aka a Marimekko chart, to show the differences.

The width of each column represents total population for a country. The sections in each columns represent the number of people who will lose a certain number of years. Color represents average years of life lost.

These charts are often a bit confusing at first glance, but the scrolling format used here provides some guidance.

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World map shows aerosol billowing in the wind

Using a mathematical model based on satellite data, NASA shows an estimate of aerosol in the atmosphere on August 23, 2018:

The visualization above highlights GEOS FP model output for aerosols on August 23, 2018. On that day, huge plumes of smoke drifted over North America and Africa, three different tropical cyclones churned in the Pacific Ocean, and large clouds of dust blew over deserts in Africa and Asia. The storms are visible within giant swirls of sea salt aerosol (blue), which winds loft into the air as part of sea spray. Black carbon particles (red) are among the particles emitted by fires; vehicle and factory emissions are another common source. Particles the model classified as dust are shown in purple. The visualization includes a layer of night light data collected by the day-night band of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on Suomi NPP that shows the locations of towns and cities.

Gnarly.

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A transforming river seen from above

The Padma River in Bangladesh is constantly shifting its 75-mile path. Joshua Stevens for the NASA Earth Observatory shows what the shifting looked like through satellite imagery, over a 30-year span.

Kasha Patel:

The upper section of the Padma—the Harirampur region— has experienced the most erosion and shows the most notable changes. The river has become wider at this section by eroding along both banks, although most activity occurred on the left bank. Using topographic, aerial, and satellite imagery, scientists found that the left bank shifted 12 kilometers towards the north from 1860 to 2009 and developed a meandering bend. The river left a scar where the water once flowed, as you can see in the 2018 image.

See also the dramatic shifts of the Ucayali River in Peru.

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Mapping the ocean undisturbed by humans

Researchers recently published estimates for the amount of area undisturbed by humans — marine wilderness — left on the planet. Kennedy Elliot for National Geographic mapped the results.

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Surprise, the world was warmer again in 2017

According to NASA estimates, 2017 was the second warmest year on record since 1880. Henry Fountain, Jugal K. Patel, and Nadja Popovich reporting for The New York Times:

What made the numbers unexpected was that last year had no El Niño, a shift in tropical Pacific weather patterns that is usually linked to record-setting heat and that contributed to record highs the previous two years. In fact, last year should have benefited from a weak version of the opposite phenomenon, La Niña, which is generally associated with lower atmospheric temperatures.

Good times ahead.

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Mapping perceived canopy tree cover in major cities

Treepedia, from the MIT Senseable City Lab, estimates perceived tree cover at the street level. They used panorama views from Google Street View to form a “Green View Index”, which they then mapped for major cities.

Treepedia measures the canopy cover in cities. Rather than count the individual number of trees, we’ve developed a scaleable and universally applicable method by analyzing the amount of green perceived while walking down the street. The visualization maps street-level perception only, so your favorite parks aren’t included! Presented here is preliminary selection of global cities.

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Simulation shows swirling of smoke, sea salt, and dust around the world

NASA. Data. Good.

Tracking the aerosols carried on the winds let scientists see the currents in our atmosphere. This visualization follows sea salt, dust, and smoke from July 31 to November 1, 2017, to reveal how these particles are transported across the map.

The first thing that is noticeable is how far the particles can travel. Smoke from fires in the Pacific Northwest gets caught in a weather pattern and pulled all the way across the US and over to Europe. Hurricanes form off the coast of Africa and travel across the Atlantic to make landfall in the United States. Dust from the Sahara is blown into the Gulf of Mexico. To understand the impacts of aerosols, scientists need to study the process as a global system.

Read more here.

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