Large-scale events, cycles and processes can be best grasped through graphs, flow-charts and maps. If you’re resourceful, you can even use software that helps you generate your own.

At Carbon Catalog, we’ve added a feature from Google maps that lets our readers pinpoint the location of the offset project – many of which are in far-flung locations (see right of projects’ listing). Maps for illuminating invisible carbon emissions are starting to crop up. Take for example, Mark McCormick’s Carbon Atlas, developed for The Guardian newspaper in December.

His atlas (pictured above and below) is a cartogram, which illustrates every country in the world as a carbon offset “bubble” scaled to how much carbon dioxide emissions it produces.

Continents are colour-coded which makes it easy on the eyes.

“Winners” with the biggest bubbles are the U.S., Russia, China, Japan, India and the UK (the worst emitters); and deep down in the map, visible only when you download the PDF, is other data such as ton-per-person equivalent per country.

We say – teachers everywhere – download the Carbon Atlas and hang it on classroom walls beside a regular map of the world. It’s an excellent visual to show the younger generation their nation’s impact on global warming.

::Kelso Cartography