40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World

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If you’re a visual learner like myself, then you know maps, charts and infographics can really help bring data and information to life. Maps can make a point resonate with readers and this collection aims to do just that.

Hopefully some of these maps will surprise you and you’ll learn something new. A few are important to know, some interpret and display data in a beautiful or creative way, and a few may even make you chuckle or shake your head.

If you enjoy this collection of maps, the Sifter highly recommends the r/MapPorn sub reddit. You should also check outChartsBin.com. There were also fantastic posts on Business Insider and Bored Panda earlier this year that are worth checking out. Enjoy!

for the wonderful and insightful collection of maps go to 

http://twistedsifter.com/2013/08/maps-that-will-help-you-make-sense-of-the-world/

Bark's posting "Stop the North Slope Assault"

Reply-To: alex@bark-out.org We were shocked to see the Forest Service timber program plan three timber sales back to back on Mt. Hood's north slope... Dear Janine, In our Communiqué #2, we talked about working with Forest Service staff to rewild two miles of old logging roads in the Sandy River watershed. Sadly, the timber branch of the Forest Service now wants to build 15 miles of roads on the North Slope of Mt. Hood to facilitate logging 1,700 acres in the Lava Timber Sale.  Please use Bark's action page to get your comments in before midnight tonight. Our goal is 300 comments between now and midnight! (We'll post updates on Bark's Facebook page) THANK YOU so much for your recent donation to Bark! When you donate to Bark, you keep eyes and ears in Mt. Hood National Forest to protect the places that you love. See the results yourself by reading the 23-page comments on the Lava Timber Sale that we submitted this afternoon. The Forest Service should decommission roads to protect water and wildlife, but instead it plans to build 15 miles of roads and log 1,700 acres of forest. Your action today adds strength to Bark's strategies to protect Mt. Hood 365 days a year: •    Bark trains dozens of volunteers to groundtruth proposed timber sales like Lava, and challenge the projects based on current science and law; •    Bark staff assess the data using the best available science and environmental laws, and takes legal actions if necessary; •    Bark lobbies elected officials to support restoring our forests by decommissioning roads, not building roads and dumping sediment to our water; •    Bark keeps the Mt. Hood Projects Database, providing the public and elected officials with critical info on the Lava Timber Sale and other Mt. Hood threats; •    Bark invests your money in a new future for Mt. Hood National Forest by improving the Forest Plan -- our best opportunity for establishing quiet recreation, clean water, and wildlife habitat as the management priorities. Thanks in advance for your action and for your recent financial support. And please don't hesitate to reply to this email with questions about Bark's campaigns or anything Mt. Hood. Sincerely, Alex P. Brown, Executive Director PS- Did you notice in the banner photo that the Lava Timber Sale is planned right next to two other proposed logging projects? In all, at least 4,000 acres would be logged! Help Bark stop the North Slope Assault with a donation today!

Get out... and stay out

It's high time I resume practising what I preach

By: Bartley Kives

If there's one resolution I have to make for 2014, it's get outside more often and stay there.

For years, I've been telling friends and acquaintances to ignore all the supposedly important distractions that prevent them from going on daytrips, overnights or multi-day wilderness trips.

I've preached the gospel of planning ahead, telling people to block off time months well in advance to ensure planned trips will happen and organize gear and food to allow quick getaways when spontaneous opportunities arise.

I've yammered on ad nauseum about the psychological, physical and spiritual benefits of unplugging from city life and going with the natural flow of rising at dawn and sleeping at dusk in places where mobile devices can not bathe you in their poisonous glow.

In short, I've been a sanctimonious pain in the posterior, at times. But when I look back the past year, I see I didn't practice what I preached in 2013, when I spent a grand total of seven nights in a tent on pair of excellent but too-brief multi-day trips.

New Year's resolutions are arbitrary and cheesy. But I'm pledging in public to spend more time with the stars above my head in the coming year as a means of holding myself accountable - and maybe inspiring other dilly-dalliers to do the same.

Yes, most of us are restricted from unlimited acts of escapism by our jobs, families and financial resources. But no other form of escapism is as healthy, restorative and inexpensive outdoor recreation. But now I'm preaching again, so enough forward-looking nonsense.

there's a bit more of his posting at http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/other/get-out-and-stay-out-237796281.html.  while the whole post targets Manitoba Canada, I thought it pretty much applies here as well.

Eastern Oregon timber bill, like O&C plan, strikes right balance: Editorial Agenda 2013

another nice editorial on OregonLive

Includes this:

"Wyden should be commended. He probably has more political goodwill than any other person holding a statewide office in Oregon. And he is willing to spend some of that goodwill on an issue that is vitally important to Oregon's economy but certain to leave him dusting off dirt kicked on him from all directions."

source:  http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/12/eastern_oregon_timber_bill_lik.html

Marine Important Bird Areas in the Pacific Flyway

Audubon has identified more than 200 marine Important Bird Areas (IBAs) for the Pacific Flyway. Detailed information about these key habitats are available in this interactive map. The map describing IBAs from Alaska's Beaufort Sea to northern Mexico's Baja Peninsula. The map shows site boundaries, photos, points of interest, significant species, estimated seabird abundances, and more.

Background and methods

This map is the product of several years of research from Audubon Alaska and Audubon California. Below you can find a detailed report describing our methods and results, as well as GIS layers and Google Earth documents related to the Pacific Flyway marine Important Bird Areas.

source:  http://conservation.audubon.org/marine-important-bird-areas-pacific-flyway

interactive map:  http://gis.audubon.org/pacificflyway_ibas/

The American pika could survive climate change by eating its own feces

By Todd Woody @greenwombat December 21, 2013

One of the most contentious climate change debates is whether wildlife will adapt or die when threatened by global warming, and what humans should do to save them. Now a new study suggests that one of the critters most at risk from climate change could indeed survive by adapting a rather unappetizing diet.

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An impossibly cute member of the rabbit family, the furry pika lives on rocky slopes of the mountains of the North American west. It survives frigid winters by maintaining a high body temperature. But since it cannot control its internal thermometer, the pika is extremely vulnerable to rising temperatures as climate change accelerates. In the summer, the pika can die if its body temperature increases by as little as 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees F).

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As some populations have disappeared from lower elevations and others have migrated toward mountain tops, environmentalists have fought (so far unsuccessfully) to have the pika listed by US state and federal governments as endangered. That in turn could obligate governments to stop carbon-spewing industrial development harmful to the pika.

http://qz.com/160506/the-american-pika-could-survive-climate-change-by-eating-its-own-feces/

and another article

What an adorable fur ball can teach us about climate change

Evolving eating habits of the pika reveal we must find a way to adapt in the face of inevitable near-term warming

MICHAEL TODD, PACIFIC STANDARD

.....

Normally, a pika would forage around and collect a pile of vegetation to dine on during the winter when provender grows scarce. These haypiles can hold as much as 60 pounds in the Rockies, although the low-elevation Oregon pikas only store about 10 pounds for their milder winter. But by eating moss, which grows in the shadier part of the heaps of rock where the pikas live, the animals don’t have to head out into predator-filled open land and can stay in the shade. The latter matters a lot, because pikas are basically fur-covered six-inch balls optimized to be as warm as possible at all times. Two hours at 78 degrees, the researchers note, is all it takes to do in a pika—which suggests they might literally be killing themselves in the summer at those higher elevations as they struggle to gather those 60 pounds of supplies.

Something else to know—using moss as a wall covering is cool. Literally. These lowland rockpiles with 40 to 80 percent moss covering are up to 27 degrees Fahrenheit less than mossy surroundings or prime pika habitat higher up. “Taken together,” Varner and Dearing write, “these results suggest that CRG pika populations may actually be better protected from heat stress caused by climate change than their counterparts living in the high mountains, who are obligated to construct substantial haypiles during the warmest parts of the summer.” (The researchers don’t claim that what’s true for these Mt. Hood-area pikas is automatically true for pikas everywhere.)

....

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/20/how_climate_change_is_driving_evolution_partner/

Oregon program would pay timber-lot owners for the carbon their trees absorb

Aging America: Oregon program would pay timber-lot owners for the carbon their trees absorb

• Article by: NIGEL DUARA , Associated Press 
• Updated: December 16, 2013 - 10:20 AM

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RAINIER, Ore. — For most of Oregon's history, the forests like the ones near Paul Nys' house were places where a landowner could get wealthy. Cultivated from seed, rows of trees were grown to a healthy middle age and then chopped down, buzzed into lumber at sawmills and shipped out.

Over the years, the retired schoolteacher has had many offers to buy his property, like many other landowners in the state's timber region, from both timber companies and developers. And each time, he would say no thanks.

Now 74, Nys and his wife have an unusual offer: Instead of getting money so someone could chop his trees down, he might get paid to leave them up. It's part of a program to preserve the forest land so that the trees can help absorb greenhouse gases.

And why not, he said. He worries about their health when they can longer care for themselves. The money could be used to help pay for medical bills. For those with fewer than 500 acres, like Nys, the arrangement could net participants more than $1,000 per year.

for the whole article go to this link

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/236030001.html

The Animal Communicator

The link goes to a rather long, but beautifully told story about a person who communicates with animals.  I recommend this link very highly.  

Also I rarely duplicate posting on this blog with my Facebook but did in this case because I like the "movie" a lot.  

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/11936/The-Animal-Communicator

enjoy

Sen. Ron Wyden's O&C legislation

There has been a number of articles and press releases about the possibility of increasing timber harvests on Oregon's O & C lands.

some background on O & C lands can be found at http://www.oandccounties.com/

and http://www.oregonwild.org/oregon_forests/old_growth_protection/westside-forests/Western%20Oregon%20BLM%20Backyard%20Forests/history-of-blm-and-o-c-lands

the financial impact on Clackamas County is explained in part of this 2013 document

http://www.clackamas.us/pga/documents/legislative2013fed.pdf

Senator Wyden introduced proposed O&C Legislation a few weeks back - here is a link

http://www.oregonlive.com/mapes/index.ssf/2013/11/ron_wyden_releases_oc_forest_m.html

A financial analysis by Phil Taylor was posted by resident Steve Wilent here

http://forestpolicypub.com/2013/12/04/econic-study-of-wyden-oc-bill/

I've included the following opinion piece because of its balanced approach as well as the information about the annual economic, value of outdoor recreation - $13 billion and 141,000 jobs (some commenters suggest that outdoor recreation value is much less, and I'm suggesting this number is even higher.)

Sen. Ron Wyden's O&C legislation works to solve long-standing management issues on public lands

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By Brian Jennings 
on December 09, 2013 at 4:34 PM, updated December 10, 2013 at 10:28 AM

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As one of many stakeholders of the 2.1 million acres called the O&C lands in western Oregon, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers has been actively engaged in helping shape this legislation which Senator Wyden hopes will become law. BHA is a boots-on-the ground conservation organization of backcountry hunters & anglers who work to protect wild public lands, waters, and wildlife. This legislative approach to a complex issue provides a chance for modern management of these lands. For 18 economically depressed counties, this proposed legislation also provides the opportunity for new jobs and a steady stream of revenue by increasing timber harvests in a scientific, sustainable, and ecological way. For sportsmen, it has many upsides as well.
The fact that half these lands will be set aside for conservation is encouraging news for thousands of people who make their living from hunting and fishing. Outdoor recreation jobs are big business in Oregon - supporting nearly 141,000 jobs and generating nearly $13 billion dollars in revenue according to the Outdoor Industry Association. The nearly one million acres set aside in this legislation represents the biggest protection of public lands for sportsmen in decades in Oregon.
For the first time, there will be legislation protecting sensitive riparian areas for wild salmon and steelhead which is a benchmark brand for the state. Backcountry Hunters & Anglers is also encouraged by the scientific approach to timber harvest that this legislation proposes. As an example, backcountry hunters have noted a continuing decline of wildlife over the past decades because of a lack of active forest management. Tree canopies have become so dense that forage for elk and deer cannot grow and wildlife departs for better habitat. This legislation will help reverse that situation where appropriate and this active management benefiting wildlife should be very encouraging news for all hunters. And, for the first time, legislation will specifically protect old growth timber from being harvested.
While the House of Representatives with the help of Congressmen DeFazio, Walden, and Schrader have already passed a bill for managing these lands, the President has said he will not sign that bill. Senator Wyden’s bill includes suggestions from most interested parties, relies on scientific forestry management and provides key protections for wildlife, water, and old growth timber while promoting economic sustainability in rural communities. Senator Wyden believes this bill will be more acceptable to President Obama.

As Senator Wyden noted in the rollout of his legislation, “Nobody will get all they want. Nobody will get all they think they deserve, but everyone will get what they need.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers will continue to monitor this legislation to ensure that what we need, which is quality wildlife habitat to provide robust native species, remains a pivotal part of the bill. We appreciate Senator Wyden’s open door policy and will continue to engage in the conversation as this legislation moves forward.

Brian Jennings is Sportsmen’s Outreach Coordinator - Oregon, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers and lives in Bend.