When it comes to telling environment and energy stories, especially about place and scale, data visualizations can turn an average story into a standout. Reporter’s Toolbox takes a look at some recent examples of inspiring data-mapping projects that provide insight into everything from auto emissions and floods to vanishing rivers and whipping winds.
"In 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from the Eastern Shore farm where she was enslaved. Over the next several years, she would return 13 times, rescuing more than 70 enslaved relatives and friends, ... She has become a hero, with two national parks established in her honor, ... . But time has not been as kind to the lands that Tubman left behind, or the descendants of the first free African-American communities that called them home."
"Tens of millions of voracious purple sea urchins that have already chomped their way through towering underwater kelp forests in California are spreading north to Oregon, sending the delicate marine ecosystem off the shore into such disarray that other critical species are starving to death."
"Environmentalists hoping to save the North Atlantic right whale won a case in federal court in Washington, D.C., Monday, banning walls of fishing net that entangle the species, which has been on the brink of extinction since the 1970s."
"Governments, businesses, organizations and research institutions made commitments toward improving marine health and productivity worth more than $63 billion at the Our Ocean 2019 conference in Oslo on Oct. 23 and 24."
"A thick sludge of crude oil has been washing up on vast stretches of Brazil’s coast for nearly two months, and authorities and experts have been baffled by its origin."
"Surfside’s postcard beach is experiencing a disappearing act amid hurricanes. rising sea levels – and a worldwide sand shortage".
"Get ready for a surge of lawsuits over the Trump administration's decision to walk back Obama-era protections for wetlands and streams."
"The United States government has lost billions of dollars of oil and gas revenue to fossil-fuel companies because of a loophole in a decades-old law, a federal watchdog agency said Thursday, offering the first detailed accounting of the consequences of a misstep by lawmakers that is expected to continue costing taxpayers for decades to come."
"Opponents of the proposed PolyMet copper-nickel mine urged the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Wednesday to cancel two of the project’s most important permits and order further proceedings to determine whether the mine’s environmental and financial safeguards are adequate."
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