Happy Thanksgiving!

This is what out dinner table looks like tonight:


At this point, our tradition is to substitute hotpot for turkey.


I hope you all have a wonderful holiday, with family and friends and much to be thankful for!

Half the Earth for Wildlife

Here's a fascinating thought experiment: what if we set aside half the planet for wildlife?

It sounds like a pipe dream, too radical to consider seriously; humans, after all, have spread into every comfortable corner of the earth, and our population will only continue to rise. But the eminent biologist and conservationist E. O. Wilson believes that it's the best way to preserve biodiversity on this planet, and that it can be done:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-world-really-set-aside-half-planet-wildlife-180952379/

This would require, unsurprisingly, drastically reshaping the way we (as a species) consider the use of land and resources. Humanity has a fascination with the idea that we are the undisputed and rightful masters of the planet, that everything on this Earth is ours for the taking, consequences be damned. It's an incredibly shortsighted view, of course. From the first agricultural societies that learned to let certain fields lie fallow, to the English monarchs who decided to replant ship-worthy trees so that their heirs could build a navy to conquer half the world, to Theodore Roosevelt and his national parks, people have always recognized the value of safeguarding natural resources for future use and enjoyment.

E. O. Wilson's idea is really just taking the concept of a national park to a new level, albeit with judicious application of eminent domain and large-scale zoning laws. It wouldn't be the first time a government relocated groups of people in order to facilitate a greater national good, and this would be a much better cause than some of the previous incidences could claim. (I'm tempted to make some joke about flyover country, here.)

Even though the concept seems, in human terms, to be just a very large national park, its effect on our ecosystems is exponentially greater than that of our extant national parks. One mustn't underestimate the positive effects that uninterrupted migratory patterns would have on bolstering animal populations, especially those that are more sensitive to seasonal changes (and therefore more likely to be endangered in the first place). This scheme would revert, to the extent possible, a swath of land to its "original" state, before humanity molded it to suit our civilizations -- the state of nature, optimized for a balanced ecosphere. For all that we have done to alter the environment, that it would be possible to rectify the greater part of the damage we've caused in these parts, is itself no small feat.

We have reached a juncture after which the biodiversity of the planet will become increasingly more difficult to retain and salvage. Though Wilson's proposal is drastic, it is still, without a great stretch of the imagination, within our grasp. Some things are worth the cost -- surely the Earth is among them.

The New Yorker: Why Abraham Lincoln Loved Infographics

A (too) short, intriguing piece on the early history of infographics and data mapping:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/10/why-abraham-lincoln-loved-infographics.html

As a consequence of the way our brains perceive our surroundings, we humans are visual creatures with a knack for finding patterns (sometimes even where they don't exist, hence conspiracy theories!). It's easy to see why infographics would appeal to those of us trying to make sense of large amounts of information, like leaders considering their constituencies and commanders looking over battlefields. I'd wager that infographics first came about in the late 1700s not because of any lack of interest in the format, but rather because it was significantly more difficult to gather the data necessary to populate them! Once there were more reliable and timely reports of populations, troop movements, &c., it seems inevitable that somebody would have had the notion to display the information in a visually succinct fashion.

The Civil War, by virtue of its chronological place in history, was the first major American engagement after the advent of proper infographics; it stands to reason that Lincoln would have been delighted with this useful new instrument at his disposal. It's also worthwhile to note that the Union Army would have been leaps and bounds ahead of the Confederates in its ability to gather the type of data best suited to infographics. Not only did the North have access to decades of records, it also had by far more extensive postal and transportation systems. Lincoln's maps and charts would have been significantly more comprehensive than what Jefferson Davis had.

Lincoln's extremely detailed slave population map

These days, we have precisely the opposite problem. Information is much easier to come by -- so much so that we're constantly inundated by facts and figures in the news. Infographics have become, rather than a tool for aggregation, a tool for selection and analysis. (This is, of course, aided by technologies unfathomable in Lincoln's time.) We like charts and graphs because they speak to that ancient part of our brains that latches onto patterns, turning the night sky into constellations and the landscape into mythology. They shape a flood of information into a cohesive narrative -- and narrative is essential to how humans define who we are and how we fit into this universe.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.