Hello and welcome to another edition of The Crunch!
This week’s newsletter is going to be slightly different as the longlist for the 2024 Information Is Beautiful awards was released this week. We’ve trawled through the list to find our favourites.
But first … to the sea floor
Our colleagues in the UK have released two great stories from the ocean’s depths. The first is an explainer about mining the seafloor with lots of lovely visuals.
This map gives you an idea of the scope of the issue:
We covered seafloor mining in the Pacific way back in 2021. Scientists were already warning that we could lose marine species – even before we knew anything about them.
The next story follows the “shadow fleets” that seem to be attacking Europe’s undersea internet cables, below.
This story is chock full of great interactive maps and animations. I am very jealous.
This information is beautiful
There is a lot of amazing work in the longlist to explore, so we really encourage you to dive in for yourself. Our gender pay gap explorer and One Big Chart on the disproportionate impact of family violence also made the cut.
But here are some of the projects that jumped out at us (please note these aren’t exhaustive lists, and we’re trying to avoid stories that have already appeared in this newsletter – hence no AFL mullets).
Josh’s picks:
Shipping stuff around Africa emits a lot of pollution
I’m a sucker for an illustrated story, and this is yet another brilliant one from Reuters. It’s also a great example of following a counterfactual – looking at increased emissions once ships had to avoid the Suez canal after Houthi militants started attacking commercial ships. The design is lovely, as is using the Status of Liberty as a comparison for emissions.
Some other favourites (in no particular order):
after newsletter promotion
Nick’s picks:
Is the love song dying?
This is typically excellent work by contributors to the Pudding, which follows the publication’s formula of using data to tell a story that involves an “aha!” moment. Here’s the direct link and the IIB entry showcase.
I had a lot of trouble choosing only five entries for my picks, so here are five dot points loosely grouped into themes in no particular order:
Off the charts
This chart speaks for itself – the US tariff rate on aluminium and steel imported from Canada across one day (11 March).
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