(Roughly) Daily

One knows that CO2 emissions are fouling the atmosphere, but to see it in real time is an illuminatng– and chastening– thing…  Now, thanks to David Bleja’s Breathing Earth, one can.

Breathing Earth is a real-time simulation displays the CO2 emissions of every country in the world, as well as their birth and death rates; one simply scrolls over a country to watch it “puff.”  Worryingly, as David observes,

Please remember that this real time simulation is just that: a simulation. Although the CO2 emission, birth rate and death rate data used in Breathing Earth comes from reputable sources, data that measures things on such a massive scale can never be 100% accurate. Please note however that the CO2 emission levels shown here are much more likely to be too low than they are to be too high.

As we recommit to reducing our carbon footprints, we (at least those of us who remember how hard it used to be to get a decent cup of coffee in London until relatively recently) might add a celebratory extra lump of sugar today, in celebration of the opening on the Channel Tunnel on this date in 1994.  The influx of Continental visitors that this occasioned– all of them anxious for an espresso or a latte– has led to a London in which (as it seems to a pedestrian) every third store-front is a Starbucks or a Cafe Nero or a Seattle’s Best…

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