Hello and welcome to another edition of The Crunch!
In this week’s newsletter we have charts on … revenue sharing in the WNBA, how close we are to meeting global climate targets, elections in eastern India, how spinner Nathan Lyon eclipses everyone else, how the media covers transgender people, and a bonus cricket quiz.
But first … the climate crisis is expensive!
In Australia, some politicians have been making claims that achieving the target of net zero emissions by 2050 will cost too much.
However, looking only at the cost of the transition to net zero ignores how much it will cost the Australian economy if we – and the world – don’t make the changes required to meaningfully address climate change.
That is to say, how does the cost of net zero compare with the cost of a scenario where we don’t take any more action on climate change, or delay the net zero transition?
This chart shows that if climate change were not sufficiently addressed, Australia’s GDP would be 9% lower than it would otherwise be in 2050. This would amount to a difference of several hundred billion dollars:
You can read more about this here, and also check out an experimental animated and sonified version of the chart here. Our colleagues have also done some excellent work examining the numbers on other claims, including how net zero will affect power bills, whether Australians are really paying more for electricity than other countries, and factchecking various other claims.
Four charts from the fortnight
***
1. It’s Ashes Friday!
The most important time of year is upon us – the Australian summer of cricket. And to make it extra special it’s an Ashes year (for non-cricket lovers, the English team has come to Australia to get roundly thrashed play five test matches).
A lot of the talk in the lead-up to the series has been about fast bowling. But we loved this scatterplot comparing spinners in Ben Wylie’s Plot The Ball newsletter:
Really hadn’t appreciated what a workhorse Australian spinner Nathan Lyon has been. Or the gulf between him and Shoaib Bashir, England’s top off-spinner.
We have relaunched our cricket position quiz for the Ashes – are you in the 10% of readers who know where Extra Cover stands? Take our test.
Our colleagues from the UK and Australia have also worked out the top 100 Ashes players of all time – perfect fodder for some holiday arguments.
***
2. Where in the world
Narenda Modi’s BJP won a thumping victory in recent state elections in Bihar, a relatively poor and populous state in eastern India.
Just ahead of the poll The Hindu published this fantastic map diving into the demographics, geography, culture, challenges and electoral history of different parts of Bihar:
Speaking of election maps, here’s a super slick one from the New York Times about their recent mayoral election.
***
3. What a Cop out
The Cop30 climate summit has been under way in Brazil (and you can read all the Guardian’s coverage here), which means there has been a deluge of charts relating to emissions and global heating.
While there are some “good news” charts (more on these below), it’s important to show that the current trajectory for carbon emissions is still well above where it should be. This chart, from Glen Peters, plots recent global emissions (in black) against the emissions in modelled scenarios that keep global warming below 1.5C (in blue):
Elsewhere, the NYT plots the latest data from the Global Carbon Project, showing that “emissions are on track to soar to record highs in 2025”.
There is, however, some good news, with data showing China’s CO2 emissions have been flat or falling for the past 18 months, and the Global Carbon Project has a nice chart showing that 35 countries have managed to cut emissions while still growing their economies.
The Guardian and ProPublica have also published an analysis of how Trump’s expansion of fossil fuels and cutting of emission reduction efforts will result in an additional 1.3m temperature-related deaths over 80 years.
***
4. A cluster of clusters
This one is an interactive in two parts. A beautiful streamgraph showing the number of articles about trans communities over time:
But perhaps even more impressive, when you click through the articles are clustered by topic – and you can click through to the actual stories.
This was a collaboration between legendary data visualiser Alberto Cairo, the University of Miami, the Trans Journalists Association and Polygraph (the studio behind perennial Crunch-favourites The Pudding). Really recommend you click through and explore.
Bookmarks
LLMs see what they expect to see – Posit
50 species that save us – Washington Post ($)
Comparing the Greens’ preference flows to Labor – Antony Green
Tracking Monarch Butterflies – New York Times ($)
A colour palette synthesiser – Ryan Feigenbaum
Off the Charts
The Sportsball account on Instagram has some fantastic hand-drawn charts, with a pretty unique aesthetic – using a timelapse recording of the process of drawing everything. The latest one takes a look at how player compensation works in the WNBA, and why players want a better deal on revenue-sharing:
However, for the full experience you really need to watch the video as the chart is drawn from scratch, with a voiceover explaining each section.
Sign up
Enjoying The Crunch? If you like what you see and think you might know someone else who would enjoy it, please forward this email or send them a link to the sign up page.
