11 Nov 2009 Showcases

Mapping Emissions by Country

The Center For Public Integrity together with Stephen Rountree have created an interactive visualization showing how countries differ on emissions. The visualization shows the data from four different angles: Per capita, current emissions, cumulative emissions and emission intensity. The data is plotted as a bubble chart on the wold map which makes it basically easy to read. Unfortunately the interface isn’t right where it would need to be, for example hovering over the same data twice restarts a growing animation that doesn’t convey any obvious information thus slowing down the reading process.

differing_emissions_01

Map – Global Climate Change Lobby

Share this article

Subscribe for more

Subscribe with RSS Join our 16545 Readers

Give Feedback

  • http://www.colorful-data.net/ Paul

    Now when I use a bubble chart to compare values, I should remember that every viewer will use the area of the circle as representation of that number, not the radius. Example: the circle of Brazil’s current emmissions should fit about 5 times into the one of the European Union. Visually, this map is simply wrong. Please try to correct that, Stephen.

    • http://www.artillery.ch/ Wiederkehr

      I have to agree with Paul. Although we (as humans) are not really good in comparing areas, it’s important to keep in mind that whenever data is represented by an area, the user will naturally interprete the size of the area instead of a metric used to create the area (like the radius for example).

  • http://www.colorful-data.net Paul

    Now when I use a bubble chart to compare values, I should remember that every viewer will use the area of the circle as representation of that number, not the radius. Example: the circle of Brazil’s current emmissions should fit about 5 times into the one of the European Union. Visually, this map is simply wrong. Please try to correct that, Stephen.

    • http://artillery.ch Benjamin Wiederkehr

      I have to agree with Paul. Although we (as humans) are not really good in comparing areas, it’s important to keep in mind that whenever data is represented by an area, the user will naturally interprete the size of the area instead of a metric used to create the area (like the radius for example).

  • Pingback: Bad Infographic of Mapping Emissions by Country | VizWorld.com

  • http://jeromecukier.net/ jcukier

    I posted recently a CO2 emissions map on many-eyes:
    http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/co2-emissions-from-fuel-combustion-2

    I’ve only kept the CO2/capita in the map. I feel that comparing absolute values for countries (perceptions issues set aside) is biased as it depends from the limits of the country.
    For instance, almost every EU country has lower emissions per capita than Russia. Now if you take EU as a whole, its total emissions are greater than Russia’s, but its population is also 3.5 x greater.
    likewise, the Australian circle seems small, although Australia has greater CO2/capita ratio than the USA.

  • http://jeromecukier.net jcukier

    I posted recently a CO2 emissions map on many-eyes:
    http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/co2-emissions-from-fuel-combustion-2

    I’ve only kept the CO2/capita in the map. I feel that comparing absolute values for countries (perceptions issues set aside) is biased as it depends from the limits of the country.
    For instance, almost every EU country has lower emissions per capita than Russia. Now if you take EU as a whole, its total emissions are greater than Russia’s, but its population is also 3.5 x greater.
    likewise, the Australian circle seems small, although Australia has greater CO2/capita ratio than the USA.