The Geoweb-Democratizing the Map and Changing the Web

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Data Interoperability in Global Modeling

This issue of V1 Magazine (promoting spatial design for a sustainable tomorrow) has a great couple of articles on the need for data interoperability in global modeling. In the digital earth/globe arena, we're moving forward. In terms of climate change modeling, there's much work that still needs to be done.

Atlas of Cyberspace

Some readers might still remember the website "An Atlas of Cyberspaces" at cybergeography.org, now unfortunately only available as a static online archive. Back in the days, it was a very inspirational site that collected various "information maps" that explored the realm of graphical representations of "cyberspace", and of Internet networks in particular.

Anyway, connected to this website was a book that originally appeared in 2002. Its contents are now freely available as a series of high resolution (228MB) PDF sections available here. The book gives an interesting overview of the early years of (more "popular" forms of) data visualization, including chapters about mapping Internet infrastructure and traffic flows, mapping the Web, mapping online conversation and community, imagining cyberspace in art, literature, and film. It comes highly recommended.

ASTRA - Baltic Sea Region Climate Strategies

Focusing on the Baltic Sea Region the project "ASTRA - Developing Policies and Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change in the Baltic Sea Region" assessed the regional impacts of climate change impacts and developed adequate adaptation strategies and policy recommendations together with relevant stakeholders. The ASTRA consortium consisted of research institutes, regional and local planning authorities around the Baltic Sea. Read more

The Role of Geospatial Tools in Carbon Emissions Trading Markets

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The Environmental Impact of Google Searches

Physicist Alex Wissner-Gross says that performing two Google searches uses up as much energy as boiling the kettle for a cup of tea. Therefore while millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 whilst boiling a kettle generates about 15g.

Google has responded to this saying that it's inaccurate. Their math works out to 1,000 Google searches using as much CO2 as an average car driving 0.6 miles. Read more

Map Reveals a Web of Oil Imports

The Rocky Mountain Institute, an organization that promotes technology for energy efficiency, has created an interactive map of oil imports into the US since 1973. This Google Map-based infographic is based on the Energy Information Agency’s database broken down by country of origin.   

An interesting trend illustrated on the map and noted by Bullis (2009), “is just how long oil prices stayed low after the oil crisis of the late 1970s: long enough for people to forget the lessons of that crisis and start buying big, heavy cars again, and get truly addicted to oil.”  

Climate Change: The Carbon Atlas

The Guardian has created an interactive map of global CO2 emissions. This is a nice intuitive map that provides good drill down from summary information to detailed data of carbon emissions. The map highlights that CO2 has increased to 29,195 tonnes in 2006 (up 2.4% on 2005) and confirms that China has overtaken the US as the largest emitter of CO2.

LIVE WEBINAR: Create and share GIS mashups

Wednesday, 4th February 2009, 10.00 – 11.00 am GMT

You are invited to join ESRI (UK) and the Microsoft Virtual Earth team to discuss the role of GIS-based mashups in improving business processes, unlocking data and creating better citizen and customer connections. 

This FREE 60 minute webinar will look at how Microsoft and ESRI (UK) are working together to connect people with geographic information via Web applications and services. 

To register for this webinar click on the following link: http://esriukevents.webex.com

sample website page

sample website page

Sample page for Lichen Tracker. Please note that it is a work in progress, and they blocky feel will evolve into something much more smoother.

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