Examining the COVID cases graph on Our World In Data was interesting to see the layout and change in frequency over time. This graph layed out several different nations and the deaths per day from COVID that they were averaging. When considering trends, the nations all appear to follow a similar pattern with deaths fluctuating very similarly. I was also surprised by India’s very low amount of deaths and didn’t know they had controlled COVID that well.
Another interesting graph I found was “Daily Per Capita Caloric Supply”. This is because it lets you examine all the countries’ average household calorie supply since as far as 1270 up to 2013. During the US’s development it appears that they had a higher caloric supply which could definitely be a factor in boosting development. One surprising detail I noticed was that Russia actually had a larger caloric supply than the US throughout the 70’s and in the beginning of the 80’s. This surprised me because I didn’t think of Russia as being a country great for farming and producing food because of its latitude.
One extremely unique graph to me was of “How do People Spend Their Time?” This made me curious on how they gathered this data and got accurate measurements between countries. It seems like a great way of interpreting social life and work life in different countries and what they find to be a normal balance. There seems to be an obvious trend between leisure time and time spent at work which would make sense. I was intrigued by South Korea’s education and time sleeping especially, because South Korea had the most time dedicated to education in comparison to the other countries as well as the least time sleeping. This made me wonder how correlated these are and what their societal expectations are like and if education trumps sleep.
A quick graph that was thought-provoking to me was Marriages per 1,000 people. The US appears to have a higher average marriage rate throughout history likely for social reasons. There is an obvious spike in marriages after the end of World War II as well which is predictable enough from the large resulting boomer generation. What I thought was the least explainable phenomenon was the declining trend by most countries in marriages. I couldn’t think of any possible reasons that seemed like obvious explanations. The data table makes me wonder if there will continue to be a global drop in marriages and how low the level might reach before leveling out, if of course it does.
The global warming graph provides fairly irrefutable evidence that global warming is occurring as we know. It surprises me when I see evidence as strong and scientific as this yet people are still able to deny its existence. There is certainly a level of fluctuation from the graph, but even within that fluctuation temperatures are trending up. One aspect of this graph that shows a different story than usual is the ability to look at the hemispheres and their respective increases. It appears that the northern hemisphere is having a decently higher amount of warming as opposed to the southern hemisphere. However, both are contributing and trending up.