This is a fascinating look at how flattening the world onto a two-dimensional sheet of paper for a map has created gross distortions in our perspective. Africa, which spans the equator, fares particularly badly on these sorts of projections: Krause says, Africa is so mind-numbingly immense, that it exceeds the common assumptions by just about anyone I ever met: it contains the entirety of the USA, all of China, India, as well as Japan and pretty much all of Europe as well - all combined!” Some have argued that since people associate size with importance this encourages the already strong tendency of the worlds wealthiest nations to disregard those who live in the tropics. Even if you are skeptical of those theories, there are clearer examples. Krause initally released the map years ago, achieving a burst of fame. The image has come back into the spotlight with a renewed relevance recently; the Ebola crisis has led to panic about visiting Africa. Any part of Africa. Tourism in Cape Town and solar installations in Tanzania have been affected because people are scared to fly to those places, despite the fact that Paris is actually closer to the countries with an Ebola outbreak than either of them. iflscience/environment/africas-size-perspective
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:11:37 +0000
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