Our doom was never so beautiful

As a child raised on Edward Tufte, I find the visual display display of quantitative information endlessly fascinating — and, in the case of this NASA map of CO2 emissions for the year 2006, also gorgeous and oddly hypnotic. That’s too bad, in a way, because the message here is an ominous one. But watch, for example, the incredible seasonal variation of CO2 levels in the northern hemisphere. Watch, too, for the plumes of CO2 swirling around the regions of greatest population density. Or just watch, transfixed, and ignore the message, as so many have for so long.

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