Have people stopped trusting science? The data tell a surprising story

Have people stopped trusting science? The data tell a surprising story (Nature, 1 July 2026) shows something that I did not expect - see figure below.

• The about 20 percent drop for Republicans beginning around 2018 makes sense: Thanks Donald & Fox News!
• But, what causes the about 10 percent drop for Democrats starting around 2020 & the about 5 percent drop for Independents starting a few years later? Is that just a methods artifact due to COVID?

Urban Plannning & Washington DC

Great scrolly map from the NYT for our history & urban planning nerds: Washington Has Been Carefully Planned for Two Centuries

The 3-30-300 'Rule'

Cool stuff over on Maps Mania: The 3-30-300 Rule for urban trees & interactive mapping tool. Read more about this rule or goal @ https://www.330300rule.com/.

Reality Mapping vs Digital Twins

This Esri article sounds like a lot of marketing word salad, but the animated GIF is cool!

True Orthos vs Trad Orthos & ArcGIS Reality

First, what is ArcGIS Reality?

I'm not entirely sure, here's what Esri says: ArcGIS Reality is a suite of photogrammetry software products designed to enable reality capture workflows for sites, cities, and countries.

One main feature seems to be the abilaity to create & use so-capped True Orthophotos as opposed to Traditional Orthophotos.

• True Orthophotos vs. Traditional Orthophotos: Why do pixels matter in the age of AI?
• The Different Types of Ortho Images Created in ArcGIS

The animated GIF below demonsrates the main difference between true orthos & trad orthos. 

Climate.us

It is scary that we have come to this: Climate.us is the 'new' = reliable version of Climate.gov. More here: https://ncse.ngo/climateus-launches.

Here's the short version: Climate.us "launched the full version of its new independent, nonprofit climate information website, creating a public-backed home for trusted climate science at a time when access to federal climate resources has become increasingly vulnerable to disruption," according to a June 22, 2026 press release. The launch was covered by The New York Times (July 23, 2026), which described Climate.us as "an effort by former staff members at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to present climate science previously housed at climate.gov, including data, reports, articles, and congressionally mandated national climate assessments."

AI & Data Viz

How can we use AI as a collaborator for data viz? The folks over at SWD have a nice selection of videos and practical tutorials on how to collaborate with AI in the data viz / data storytelling process: https://www.storytellingwithdata.com/ai-data-storytelling