Issue 64
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World
World Painted
Awesome new hand-painted, water color base, World Map. Beautiful.
- Kontiki Maps: https://kontikimaps.com/worldpainted
Global Wind Atlas Story Map
New Wind Atlas layers from ESRI.
Changing Human Geography. After the collapse.
“Self Termination”
Teach your kids how to grow food, fish, forage, and even hunt. They don’t have to use guns. Traps, wrist rockets, arrows are all effective. They may not need it. But their kids might. A real collapse will take decades, even centuries.
- Guide to Climate Tipping Points: https://medium.com/climate-conscious/a-guide-to-climate-tipping-points-a083d601033d
Which Humans?
AI Cultural Geography and Demographics. WEIRD: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. Research has shown that WEIRD populations, particularly American university students, are not representative of the majority of the world’s population but are vastly overrepresented in research samples. AI Adoption numbers are still super tiny.
- The paper: https://scholar.harvard.edu/sites/scholar.harvard.edu/files/henrich/files/which_humans_09222023.pdf
- Geography of AI adoption. D.C. tops US, Utah 2nd: https://www.anthropic.com/research/anthropic-economic-index-september-2025-report
SWOT Spots Tsunami
EU
Chronotrains
Ireland
Wait, it wasn’t Finn McCool?
Asia
Japan
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd07nljlyv0o
India
The Ganges River Is Drying Quickly
- https://phys.org/news/2025-09-ganges-river-drying-unprecedented.html
- Journal article (full access restricted): https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2424613122
I’ve ordered this guy’s book which isn’t out until late September. I’ll tell you what I think after I read it.
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/02/self-termination-history-and-future-of-societal-collapse
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/28/we-need-dramatic-social-and-technological-changes-is-societal-collapse-inevitable
‘A climate of unparalleled malevolence’: are we on our way to the sixth major mass extinction?
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/19/a-climate-of-unparalleled-malevolence-are-we-on-our-way-to-the-sixth-major-mass-extinction
- Large Igneous Provinces (of which Columbian Basalts are one): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_igneous_province
- Siberian Traps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Traps
Chlorophyll from space https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/154699/a-sea-aswirl-with-chlorophyll
Oceania
Maori discovered Antarctica
- The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/11/new-zealands-maori-may-have-been-first-to-discover-antarctica-study-suggests
- Journal article abstract (paywalled article): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03036758.2021.1917633
World Values Survey and AI. Only a portion of the World’s Values are represented in current models.
- https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp
- AI LLM’s mapped to the Inglehart-Welzel World Cultural Map: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/teybannerman_theres-something-almost-nobody-is-talking-activity-7358405153139367937-4GVf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAAIQb1UBK_IDoxfnC6cp5FyABG26RHlmXyY
What climate zones do humans live in world-wide?
- LinkedIn (in French but easy to translate): https://www.linkedin.com/posts/perrin-remont%C3%A9-b782a792_dans-quels-climats-vivent-les-8-milliards-share-7361632335626133504-t87k?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Better than Dijkstra https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-method-is-the-fastest-way-to-find-the-best-routes-20250806/
Americas
Panama
Ocean Upwelling Tipping Point
Chile
Chile’s plummeting births take fertility rate below Japan’s Social mobility and high living costs contribute to 42 per cent drop in rate over past decade
United States
New Vegetation Data/Map
- From Joseph Kerski: https://spatialreserves.wordpress.com/2025/09/01/new-data-layer-vegetation-classification-for-north-america/
- The map (and data download): https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=66c13612635d4ee9bd4d6500cf462e7f
Datum
Eco-Nana
Geography of Cars How about if we have fewer cars on the road. I don’t like living in Seattle. Not because it’s not a great city - but because the traffic makes it pretty intolerable. There’s lots of things I like, and dislike, about cities. But, I finally realized one big thing I dislike about cities is not the number of people, it’s the number of cars.
Dave’s Redistricting App
Smellscapes!
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24694452.2025.2485233#d1e932
- From Minneapolis Star Tribune: https://www.startribune.com/smells-of-the-minnesota-state-fair-create-a-festival-for-the-nose/601443971?utm_source=gift
Snap https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/alibabas-amap-becomes-worlds-first-ai-native-map-app
Utah
Great Salt Lake Bathymetry and Key Lake Levels
