Times being what they are, some of you believe in climate change and others do not. I’m married to a scientist and I like data, especially when it is presented in a way that is both visually interesting and understandable.

I read this article in the Washington Post on Tuesday that shows various ways that data visualizers are representing temperature increases. We all recognize hot and cold days as we live in them, but these visualizations put daily temperatures in a longer context.

Dr. Ed Hawkins is a climate scientist in the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) at the University of Reading. His visualizations resonated with me. This one could be printed on fabric, if only what it represents wasn’t so concerning.

by Ed Hawkins

The climate spiral, below, is in the WaPo article, and you can also find it here. This is a photo of the final spiral, but if you click this link you can watch the spiral grow from cooler, bluer rings to where we are now.

by Ed Hawkins

I’m sharing this because I find it interesting. Some of you might be poised to tell me why you think climate change is made up. You can, but please keep it pleasant.

We need to be able to have conversations, that include listening, about topics on which we might not agree. Most of our collective conversations happen on flat, glass screens. If we were looking at each other, face-to-face, we would likely respond differently than we do on a keyboard. Pretend we are in the same room :-).

Link to the article in the Washington Post for those of you whose links above don’t work:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/08/28/climate-change-switchboard-shows-every-country-on-the-planet-turning-red-hot/?utm_term=.0c7e3a34808c