This widely shared infographic uses a trick to make its message appear much stronger than it actually is.
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This video is based on a short talk (live-audio/screenrecording) I gave at the Berlin Hack&Tell event in July @BHNT https://bhnt.c-base.org/2024-07-30-no97-crowdstruck
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I'd be interested in feedback whether you enjoy such videos and take value from it. While it's obviously technically limited, particularly if I directly use a live recording, creating videos like this is feasible with not-too-much effort. If I should do it more often, please give me feedback.
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You can find the background article with details, a fixed infographic, and links to an interactive version here: https://industrydecarbonization.com/news/misleading-logarithmic-scales-and-the-disregard-for-energy-efficiency.html or, in case you prefer German, I translated it for @grimm 's newsletter: https://cleanteching.beehiiv.com/p/diese-berhmte-antienergiewendegrafik-ist-irrefhrend
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Graham Sutherland / Polynomialreplied to hanno last edited by
@hanno I assume Singapore is massively skewed by the huge volume of marine port traffic, given that its population is so small and almost every single foot of seafront is a port or drydock of some sort?
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hannoreplied to Graham Sutherland / Polynomial last edited by
@gsuberland I had a question about this after the talk, tbh, haven't looked in detail into singapore, but I assume being "Asia's central airport" plays a role, too.
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the titular tooth :flow:replied to hanno last edited by
@hanno so your belief is that itβs never appropriate to use a log scale for communication with laypersons? I gotta strongly disagree with that. some data is simply more accurately expressed on log scales and even if your audience doesnβt understand it it may be more honest to make a chart that accurately explains the situation than a chart that is βeasierβ to read
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hannoreplied to the titular tooth :flow: last edited by
@timmy of course you're free to disagree, but I recommend checking out the opinion of these scientists that have studied it: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/covid19/2020/05/19/the-public-doesnt-understand-logarithmic-graphs-often-used-to-portray-covid-19/ (I have that mentioned in my original article)
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@hanno
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"A decomposition analysis within the manufacturing industry shows that Switzerland produces more in industry sub-sectors that are generally less energy-intensive (structural effect) and also produces more energy-efficiently within the sub-sectors (intensity effect), with the intensity effect being significantly stronger."In other words, the primary reason for Switzerland's low energy intensity is that, compared to its European neighbors, Switzerland uses less energy to do the same things.
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>Switzerland uses less energy to do the same things.I'm not a native speaker, but it seems that:
"Switzerland produces more in industry sub-sectors that are generally less energy-intensive (structural effect)"
says the opposite to what you have said. And it's impossible to draw your conclusion from the whole sentence.Switzerland is an extremely bad example to project on the global economy. Doing this leads to widespread "let's move all dirty parts of the supply chain to the China/India and get all the praise for being green!" approach (while the exact opposite is preferable as the regulations, access to the cleaner technologies and trained personnel etc. are better in the West).
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@tyx It says the intensity effect (efficiency) is significantly stronger. I.e., the structural reffect (different industries) exists, but is small compared to the intensity effect.
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Marek, lost in computationreplied to hanno last edited by
@hanno I appreciate the video and I think it's an important thing to talk about! One thing that might explain the point about the scales even better is if you showed the random data on a normal scale first and then made it logarithmic to better visualize the distortion.
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Danielle π³οΈβπ ΧΧ ΧΧΧ ζ§η ππ¨π΅π¦π€replied to hanno last edited by
@hanno I also prefer the non-logarithmic charts, but I don't understand how it contradict the correlation between energy consumption and wealth?
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hannoreplied to Danielle π³οΈβπ ΧΧ ΧΧΧ ζ§η ππ¨π΅π¦π€ last edited by
@danielle it exists, but is much weaker than the original graphic implies. And it largely only exists below a certain threshold. Below 20k, there's a reasonably strong correlation, above 20k almost none (r=0.19 vs r=0.68 if you prefer the statistics answer). I have more details in the text version, in case you haven't seen that: https://industrydecarbonization.com/news/misleading-logarithmic-scales-and-the-disregard-for-energy-efficiency.html