Many Eyes is a free beta tool from IBM that creates ‘visualizations‘ from data sets. These are then shared on the site (there are thousands). Anyone can use it. MIT’s Technology Review has an article with details.
The one shown is carbon emissions by country shown as a cloud diagram.

My sister’s husband’s son Jon-David is working and living in Taiwan. He recently sent me an email about his trip to the mainland and the incredible disparity between the rapidly modernizing cities and the extreme poverty of the rural areas:

‘ Anyways…. about China…. Man — I saw some strange things there. The cities were some of the most modern / developed I’ve ever seen (Qingdao / Shenzhen). Big buildings, fancy cars, good restaurants, etc, etc, etc.

But outside of the big cities, it was by far the poorest, least developed place I’ve ever been to. In Tai’An — six hours west of Qingdao, by train — it was so dirty that the air was literally brown. There was no grass on the ground — just dry dirt. And the factories were everywhere…. pumping out mountain-clouds of dark, black, smoke / soot.

All of the people were dirty. Filth saturated their skin and clothing. They wore old, spartan rags for shirts, not nearly thick enough to protect them from the Tai’An winter cold. Also, none of them had cars or motorcycles. The primary form of transportation was either bicycle or foot. I saw people walking down huge, long stretches of newly-paved road. God only knows how long they had been walking. And their houses….. either factory dormitories with broken windows…. or ramsackle shacks that a strong rain storm could wash away. Pretty amazing to say the least.

That being said, although the people were pretty rough, they all seemed kinda happy. They were generally happy to see me in their town, and each person that I spoke with seemed optimistic about the future of China and the future of their lives.

So even though I saw some shocking things — including Greenhouse gas producers that would send Al Gore to his grave — I left the scene with a nice optimistic feeling — of a people that are being pulled out of poverty with good, old-fashioned capatilism. Bravo! ‘

It was nice of him to end on a note of optimism. However, given the horrendous pollution he describes and the fact that China is building very dirty coal plants at the rate of one a week, the problem there may be the worst impediment to dealing with climate change.

He also sent a recommended reading list which I’ll post soon- I’m fascinated by China and hope to get there in the near future so I’m going to be doing some reading…

Update: Here’s some satellite images of the haze over China (NASA)

Until now I’ve avoided the conversation and speculation regarding Gore running for President. Is he losing weight? If he waits can he still raise money? Etc. The main argument he will face in the coming months is the question of whether he has an qbligation to run because as President he would be in the best position to speed up America’s response to the planetary emergency.
There is another path, one that the Democratic party as a whole might embrace. Offer him Secretary of State. As the head of foreign policy he would be extremely visible, be in a position to directly engage the world’s leaders and deal with the disastrous ‘oil wars’ policy of the Bush administration. He is highly admired worldwide and has extensive foreign policy experience, far more the Obama, Edwards or Hillary. Should he win the Nobel, he’d have even more leverage and gravitas when dealing with the massive engine of denial being built by the oil companies and the right wing conservative business lobbies.

Here are few dedicated media pages where the publishers have an ongoing collection of articles on climate change. These are a fast way to scan the latest news on the subject. I’d also recommend doing a Google Alerts which sends you a daily email as new articles are posted. The subject is extremely dynamic and Google Alerts are particularly interesting because they show the breadth of the Bush supported, oil company funded denial community which receives an inordinate amount of uncritical publicity despite overwhelming scientific consensus that the threat is real and immediate:
Washington Post: The Threat of Climate Change
New Scientist Environment
NYTimes.com Environment
The Economist Technology Quarterly

Some of these may require registration or viewing an interstitial ad. I’d include the Wall Street Journal for balance but they continue their backwards strategy of hiding all content behind a paid sub firewall.