Monthly Archives: September 2014

Sylvia Earle’s TED talk on our Oceans state & Chris Jordan on Data Visualization

Sylvia Earle’s TED talk on our Oceans state & Chris Jordan on Data Visualization

I was just recently sent a link from brainpicking’s on this subject so I thought I would put out a quick post on a wonderful post from there. Sylvia Earle has been in the news a bit lately because of the recently released on Netflicks documentary Mission Blue. I have not see the documentary yet but I believe her TED talk below is well worth watching.

Chris Jordan’s recent work on data visualization are well worth mentioning. Running the Numbers II: Portraits of global mass culture

We are stuck with trying to comprehend the gravity of these phenomena through the anaesthetizing and emotionally barren language of statistics. Sociologists tell us that the human mind cannot meaningfully grasp numbers higher than a few thousand; yet every day we read of mass phenomena characterized by numbers in the millions, billions, even trillions.

Anyone who loves the planet has got to check out this mans incredible works of art that utilize media from fossilized shark teeth to plastic bags to help humans wrap their minds around the staggering effects that the modernization of culture by homo sapiens have wrought upon the planet.

 

Depicts 2.4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic pollution that enter the world's oceans every hour.
Depicts 2.4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic pollution that enter the world’s oceans every hour.

 

Detail of the top of Mt. Fuji
Detail of the top of Mt. Fuji

 

Detail at actual print size
Detail at actual print size

 

As I prepare to take part in a clinic in La Paz that teaches us how to safely disentangle whales from fishing nets I find these works of art stunningly beautiful and horrifyingly real all at the same time.