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Mind the GDP, I Mean, the Gap

By sarahdasher on January 25, 2007.

Over at Retrospectacle, there was some discussion about whether the richest countries were the most polluting countries. This little tool from Google has an answer, and so much more.

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The US is represented by the large yellow circle in the (predictably) upper-right corner. Most European countries are in the upper right corner, too, although the logarithmic scale is a little misleading: for the most part, European countries emit about half as much CO2 per capita as the US.

In fact, the Middle Eastern oil trifecta--Kuwait, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates--is the only region that outpollutes the U.S. on a per capita basis. One exception: Trinidad and Tobago. Does anybody know why?

You can also make graphs of fertility, women as percent of workforce, even phone and Internet usage. And the coolest feature by far? The graphs are parametric, so you can watch the relationships change over time.

Hat-tip, Jacob Klein.

Tags
environment

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