August 2013
Direct link.
Instead of writing yet another paper, I handed in this visualization for the LERU Bright 2013 Student Conference which will be held in August in Freiburg, Germany. This year’s conference topic is “Energy Transition in the 21st Century” and I am part of the “Dependencies” working group.
This “Atlas der Globalisierung”-inspired visualization, based on very recent data by BP, allows the reader to quickly grasp the temporal and spatial differences in oil consumption and production. On one hand, during certain periods of history, some nations consumed almost as much oil as the rest of the world together. On the other hand, the data of the last ten years show a growing divergence between consumption and production. After all, I hope this work makes clear that nations are heavily interdependent when it comes to oil – the main driver of our global economy.
A linked view allows to interactively explore the data on oil consumption and production throughout the years.
Crafted with D3.js.
The visualization was later adapted by the Swiss daily newspaper “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” :
Adaption of the visualization by the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”
In my opinion, the team around Sylke Gruhnwald did a very good job in taking the essence out of my visualization and also in leveraging it in terms of usability. The according time series are not shown on mouseover, but triggered by mouse clicks and touch events, which makes it easier for mobile device users to study a country’s oil consumption as well as production. I also prefer the adaptive “stacking” of all chart lines in the background, which does not necessarily give more information but is still very aesthetic. What is missing, in my opinion, is the bar chart that directly compares the huge differences in consumption and production between different countries. The small data tables at the lower right corner give an impression of this, but do not visually convey it.
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