4 posts tagged “gis”

I didn't really intend to have two posts on mapping and the environment today; I actually have another project on my mind, but that's how it goes.

Via Google Blog:

A bird's eye view of mountaintop destruction with Google Earth

Posted by Mary Anne Hitt, Executive Director, Appalachian Voices

The first time I flew over southern West Virginia and saw mountaintop removal coal mining from the air, I knew that if everyone could see what I had seen—mountain after mountain blown up and then dumped into streams in the neighboring valleys—they would think twice about where their electricity came from the next time they flipped a light switch.

Last year, I read a book on mountain top removal called Lost Mountain, which detailed the destruction of one mountain via this process and it is shocking and extremely sad.  If you have any familiarity with Google Earth or have been looking for an excuse to try it out, this layer is absolutely worth the trouble.

Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation ofAppalac

One of my favorite books about mapping is How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monmonier which is not really about how to lie with maps but about how our worldview is constructed based on maps that have their own inherent flaws.  Or in some cases, how maps have been constructed to promote a particular worldview (i.e. that the U.S.S.R. was a massive threat during the Cold War).

Here is a site that presents different views of the world based on things like wealth, illeteracy among women, violence, carbon emissions, and nuclear waste: Worldmapper.  The group running this project is also working on maps that show depletion of resources, exploitation and debt.

If you see a map you like, you can generate a pdf poster with the category compared to total population or even download the data into excel.

Look at the U.S.'s giant fat ass in this image showing fuel use:

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How to Lie with Maps (2nd Edition)

... fish on maps?

Fish Mapper

From the National Arbor Day Foundation:
This animation illustrates the general warming that has occurred from 1990 to 2006. Click the play button to see how the hardiness zones have changed.