Informative maps
Informative maps
Lately, in my search for a new place to live, I've been looking at lots of national (U.S.) and global maps (including animated maps) to get an idea for the general characteristics of different areas of the country and the world. Some of the maps I've found have done a really nice job at attempting to summarize the geographic variability of environments and people, often assimilating large amounts of data. Does anyone else here enjoy looking at maps to get a general sense of the world, and what are some of the ones you've found most informative? I am going to share a few I've found that I really enjoy, and encourage others to do the same.
Re: Informative maps
A year of Weather: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlswRI_-6DY
Re: Informative maps
Yes definitely. This has been linked before buts it's kinda mind blowing. Especially when you consider over half of humanity live in south Asia...
Re: Informative maps
Animated map of population density in the U.S., 1790-2010: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYMtuo3MQ_Q
Re: Informative maps
Life Expectancy - Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy
Re: Informative maps
Thanks chenda. I've heard climate models have a harder time forecasting precipitation, so maybe there's reason to hope mass desertification won't quite pan out like this if a 4 degree C increase happens. But unsettling nonetheless.
Re: Informative maps
Yes lets hope so. Overall New England strikes me as the most resilient area in the US overall. I think here the Baltic may become the new Mediterranean.
Re: Informative maps
Russia will probably be much more habitable too...maybe anyone who enlists in Putin's army for WWIII will receive a plot of land in Siberia.
Going on a tangent bender and taking this way too far, here's what I see as a possible distant future:
-Modern living and overpopulation drive climate change and other forms of environmental degradation sufficient to require meaningful concerted action on a large scale, in an effort to mitigate and help reverse the damage, to attempt to ensure the planet remains habitable (ongoing, in the early stages).
-Some of the wealthiest individuals on the planet, whose fortunes have been accumulated through factors directly or indirectly contributing to climate change and environmental degradation, invest in the advancement of technologies that help address climate change and other forms of environmental degradation, and for travel to other planets for the sake of colonization (also ongoing and in the early stages).
-Addressing climate change and environmental degradation and developing space travel technologies helps provide these individuals with additional wealth and a pilot study for making other planets habitable, and the ability to take lessons learned to other planets such as Mars to help make them habitable (the seed is being planted).
-These few people who have the resources to develop and provide transportation to these newly habitable worlds also serve as gatemaster, only allowing in individuals and groups they consider most suited for colonizing new worlds, possibly also anyone who pays what might be an incredibly high fee to help pay for the operation. The rest of humanity remains on earth while it very slowly recovers, some of them lucky enough to be in, or find and secure, sweet spots to eke out an existence. Or maybe the whole place smolders from runaway climate change.
-New worlds are colonized by this übermensch collective of exceptional personal traits and wealth, the former perhaps similar to the characters in Kubrick's 2001 and anyone who the space tycoons identify with, the latter a subsection of the upper crust of the upper crust. When the descendants of these people lose touch with their history and reality and repeat the same mistakes as their ancestors on earth, the problem repeats itself, and the colonists are forced to search for another world to colonize, with the path of least resistance being to re-engineer and recolonize earth.
-In the instance the earth does not become a wasteland for human life, the vestiges of humanity remaining on earth have devolved into more primitive tribes that retain some advanced technologies, and are scattered in the few fringes still relatively habitable. The arrival of humans from somewhere like Mars to take over the world triggers a Vietnam War meets Planet of the Apes type of scenario, involving a group of humans with very advanced technology yet made docile by ultra-technological living, against a group of very resourceful people, with more primitive technologies yet more familiar with the terrain and how to use it to their advantage in wartime, and a will to survive forged through generations of struggle.
Maybe something similar but on a more advanced scale happened before, a highly intelligent civilization engineered the earth to breed life and become habitable for them over billions of years, and will soon return to lay claim to the world of their design before newly evolved intelligent life can extinguish it, a sort of sci-fi version of the book of revelation.
Title: 3001 4.5 (Billion)
Going on a tangent bender and taking this way too far, here's what I see as a possible distant future:
-Modern living and overpopulation drive climate change and other forms of environmental degradation sufficient to require meaningful concerted action on a large scale, in an effort to mitigate and help reverse the damage, to attempt to ensure the planet remains habitable (ongoing, in the early stages).
-Some of the wealthiest individuals on the planet, whose fortunes have been accumulated through factors directly or indirectly contributing to climate change and environmental degradation, invest in the advancement of technologies that help address climate change and other forms of environmental degradation, and for travel to other planets for the sake of colonization (also ongoing and in the early stages).
-Addressing climate change and environmental degradation and developing space travel technologies helps provide these individuals with additional wealth and a pilot study for making other planets habitable, and the ability to take lessons learned to other planets such as Mars to help make them habitable (the seed is being planted).
-These few people who have the resources to develop and provide transportation to these newly habitable worlds also serve as gatemaster, only allowing in individuals and groups they consider most suited for colonizing new worlds, possibly also anyone who pays what might be an incredibly high fee to help pay for the operation. The rest of humanity remains on earth while it very slowly recovers, some of them lucky enough to be in, or find and secure, sweet spots to eke out an existence. Or maybe the whole place smolders from runaway climate change.
-New worlds are colonized by this übermensch collective of exceptional personal traits and wealth, the former perhaps similar to the characters in Kubrick's 2001 and anyone who the space tycoons identify with, the latter a subsection of the upper crust of the upper crust. When the descendants of these people lose touch with their history and reality and repeat the same mistakes as their ancestors on earth, the problem repeats itself, and the colonists are forced to search for another world to colonize, with the path of least resistance being to re-engineer and recolonize earth.
-In the instance the earth does not become a wasteland for human life, the vestiges of humanity remaining on earth have devolved into more primitive tribes that retain some advanced technologies, and are scattered in the few fringes still relatively habitable. The arrival of humans from somewhere like Mars to take over the world triggers a Vietnam War meets Planet of the Apes type of scenario, involving a group of humans with very advanced technology yet made docile by ultra-technological living, against a group of very resourceful people, with more primitive technologies yet more familiar with the terrain and how to use it to their advantage in wartime, and a will to survive forged through generations of struggle.
Maybe something similar but on a more advanced scale happened before, a highly intelligent civilization engineered the earth to breed life and become habitable for them over billions of years, and will soon return to lay claim to the world of their design before newly evolved intelligent life can extinguish it, a sort of sci-fi version of the book of revelation.
Title: 3001 4.5 (Billion)