Climatopias

The latest in climate adaptation for the privilged: climatopias. Imagine flood-resilient settlements, amphibious communities, or floating cities that allow the rich & wealthy to continue to live on the water. 

This is a technological fantasy that distracts from sustaiable climate change adaptation. This may work in niche situations and for 'normal' fluctations in sea level, but these settlements remain extremely vulnerable to extreme events.

Read more here: Can floating homes make coastal communities resilient to climate risks?

Nate Silver: The River

Not sure I want to read the entire book, but I like the metaphor he uses: Imagine the world as a river = an ecosystem of people, ideas, and more. All of us are trying to best navigate this river and the associated currents of strategy, chance, and uncertainty.

A Different Perspective

 

Superblocks

Superblocks could be a way to create more pedestrian-friendly urban environments while still allowing for effiecient vehicle access. More here: https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2024/03/05/are-superblocks-future-urban-living

A.I. ‐ Humanity's Final Invention?

 

Great video - basically the story/history of intelligence & artificial intelligence.

• The general trend: narrow to general.
• Key step: self-learning by combining the power of super computers & Big Data.
• Then came ChatGPT, but that is still narrow AI: it can write and write well, but does not understand what it is writing.

But what about General AI = intelligence that is broad like human intelligence?

• This is now referred to AGI.
• AGI = humans, but much faster.
• AGI is not limited by the physical & biological limits of humans.
• AGI can be copied millions of times at an instant.

This then could lead to a self-improving AGI & a so-called Intelligence Explosion to create a Superintelligence Entity that is much much more intelligent than humans. Here's a scary quote from the video: "And We have not been  Kind to what we perceive less Intelligent beings.”

For now, the limiting factor in the development of AI / AGI seems to be electrical power - there is just not enough available these days - need nuclear fusion!

How Smooth Is The Earth, Really?

How Smooth Is The Earth, Really? is a cool 3D animation of Earth's topograhy (both to-scale & with vertical exaggeration). This would be great as two amimated GIFs to show side-by-side.

I actually like the chart even more - showing the layers of the Earth to-scale & showing how insignifcant Earth's topography is relative to the size of the Earth overall.

Data GIF Maker

Cool: the Data GIF Maker (by Google) is a super-simple animated GIF maker for data / charts.

Mapping Tipping Points

Great multimedia scrolly map from the NYT: How Close Are the Planet’s Climate Tipping Points? I'm not sure that I like the curvy temperature scale with the curvy reddish line that indicated 'where' these tipping points may occur.

NASA Earthdata

NASA Earthdata appears to be the (new) data portal for accessing all kinds of NASA data.

• NASA Worldview offers full-resolution, global satellite imagery from over 1000 data products from NASA’s Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EO (LANCE) and other NASA data providers.
• NASA Earthdata Search gives access to everything.

The AMOC

NCSE's Climate Change Story Shorts

Climate Change Story Shorts lookl useful - here's some information from the NCSE:

NCSE's Climate Change Story Shorts provide a new, teacher-friendly take on Next Generation Science Standards storylines. These shorter instructional units with modular activities and optional sidequests engage students in the three dimensions to resolve one or more common misconceptions within one to two weeks of instructional time.

• More information here.
• Climate Change Story Shorts

Jack's Book

The Power of Where: A Geographic Approach to the World's Greatest Challenges by Jack Dangermond sounds like a great read & could possibly be used as modern geography 'textbook' for a modern geography class. But $59.99 seems like an odd price: too much to make it accessible and too little to make decent money.

The Problem With Bar Charts

Pretty nerdy stuff: The Problem With Bar Charts

Open-Source Streetview

Google Streeview is obviously great, but (also) obviously a proprietary system. Here's a new open compilation of 10 million street-level images from 688 cities: https://ual.sg/project/global-streetscapes/

US Immigration since 1850

Nice analysis & maps from the Pew Research Center: How the origins of America’s immigrants have changed since 1850.

Evolution vs Creationism

New polling from Gallup (22 June 2024): Majority Still Credits God for Humankind, but Not Creationism. It is pretty wild (or scary?) that only 24 percent 'agree' with the scientific opinion.

How to Make Maps in Excel