This geo-graphic from Statista looks at which metro areas have the most installed data farm capacity: www.statista.com/chart/31372/regions-cities-with-highest-data-center-power-capacity

Even if you've never heard of the autonomous New Zealand territory of Tokelau, you've probably gotten spam from a Tokelau email address. This article from MIT Technology Review looks at the combination of opportunism, unanticipated consequences, and "digital colonialism" that made .tk the go-to domain for cybercriminals and other shady operators around the world. www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/02/1082798/tiny-pacific-island-global-capital-cybercrime/

Above ground is not the only place to live. Historically, some communities have lived underground for safety, most prominently the complex near Derinkuyu, Turkey that is thought to have supported a community of 20,000 people and their livestock underground. In the Australian Outback and, more recently, in southwestern China, people have started living underground to escape the heat. This article looks at Coober Pedy, an underground community in and around abandoned opal mines in Australia: www.bbc.com/future/article/20230803-the-town-where-people-live-underground

Most people are familiar with the concept of life expectancy. Less familiar are the many variants on life expectancy, including "healthy life expectancy" (HALE), which is defined by the World Health Organization as the "average number of years that a person can expect to live in 'full health' by taking into account years lived in less than full health due to disease and/or injury." This map shows the countries with the largest gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy -- or, thought of another way, with the most years of unhealthy old age -- as of 2019. The U.S. tops the list, with a gap of 12.4 years, followed by Australia, at 12.1 years. Completing the top 10 are New Zealand, the UK, Norway, Spain and Italy (tied), Iran, and Canada, Kuwait, and Switzerland (tied).

Which countries have the largest share of their populations living abroad? It turns out island nations -- nearly one out of three Polynesians is living outside of their home country, for example -- and, not surprisingly, countries with stagnant economies and/or conflict are high on the list. This geo-graphic from Statista looks at the top 8 countries (min. population size 750,000) and a sampling of others:   www.statista.com/chart/4237/the-countries-with-the-most-people-living-overseas

The Cook Islands are a self-governing group of islands in the South Pacific (shown in red on this map). Formerly considered part of New Zealand, the islands have been in "free association" with New Zealand since 1965 and conduct their own foreign and defense policy. In September, the Biden administration recognized the Cook Islands as sovereign states, renewing the islands' quest to be the newest member of the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. tinyurl.com/ywp3hwsm

The Chinese government has become one of the world's biggest lenders, especially to countries in the developing world and those associated with its Belt and Road Initiative. This map, from Statista based on World Bank data, shows which countries are most indebted to China: www.statista.com/chart/19642/external-loan-debt-to-china-by-country/

Plants, animals, and microbes move around based on changes in the physical environment and human activity. This shifting geography was documented recently by the appearance in southern Mississippi of a dangerous microbe previously found only in tropical and subtropical zones, including northern Australia, parts of Central and South America, and South and Southeast Asia: www.nytimes.com/2022/07/27/health/deadly-bacteria-us-soil-water.html

Liquifying natural gas is a more expensive, energy-intense alternative to pipelines in the delivery of natural gas.  Several European countries are trying to bring more liquified natural gas (LNG) capacity online as quickly as possible to replace Russian, pipeline-delivered gas. This geo-graphic from Statista looks at which countries are currently the biggest suppliers of LNG: www.statista.com/chart/27839/biggest-liquefied-natural-gas-exporters

Although Russia has been the focus of the world's liberal democracies for the last several months, countering China remains the long-term project. In the wake of a recent security agreement between China and the Solomon Islands, The Economist (UK) looked at other countries in Asia, Africa, and Oceania in which China either already has a military base or likely has an interest in establishing a military base: www.economist.com/img/b/640/356/90/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20220507_CNM979.png   (Map from www.economist.com/china/2022/05/05/china-wants-to-increase-its-military-presence-abroad.)

Half way between Tasmania and Antarctica lies one of the only spots in the world where the earth's mantle is actually above sea level. Macquarie Island, considered part of Australia, was created by a collision of two tectonic plates that pushed rock that had been kilometers beneath the seafloor above water. Because of its unique geology, Macquarie Island is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.  www.atlasobscura.com/places/macquarie-island

Changes in physical geography -- including changes in weather patterns -- can create biogeographic changes too. Australia's recent, and unprecedented, outbreak of Japanese encephalitis is a case in point. Japanese encephalitis is a mosquito-borne disease endemic to Asia. However, record flooding in eastern Australia in March created wetlands for migratory birds, which are thought to have brought Japanese encephalitis with them to Australia. When native mosquitoes, also plentiful due to the flooding, bit the infected birds and then people and other animals, both wild and domestic, Japanese encephalitis began spreading in Australia. Because the virus is now present in animal hosts, it is unlikely the disease will be eradicated from Australia. Instead, the geographic range for Japanese encephalitis has expanded to include eastern Australia. www.newscientist.com/article/2312539-australias-japanese-encephalitis-outbreak-blamed-on-climate-change/

Brisbane, Australia, is vying to become the home port of Australia's new nuclear submarine fleet. Biogeography says this would be a very bad idea. Why? The abundant jellyfish in the waters off Brisbane would almost certainly clog the subs' intake valves and force a shutdown of the nuclear reactors powering the subs. It's happened before: www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/11/jellyfish-nuclear-submarine-emergency-reactor-shutdown-brisbane-base-moreton-bay-australia

It has been widely reported that last month's volcanic eruption in Tonga was one of the biggest in decades. To better appreciate the size of the ash plume generated by the eruption, this article from Reuters shows the ash plume, as caught on satellite, and superimposes it on a series of maps of more familiar places, from the UK to Florida to the Horn of Africa. 👀 graphics.reuters.com/TONGA-VOLCANO/lgpdwjyqbvo/index.html

Researchers have "mapped the location and density of Earth’s irrecoverable carbon — carbon locked in ecosystems that is potentially vulnerable to release from human development and, if lost, could not be restored to those ecosystems by 2050." This irrecoverable carbon, mostly residing in forests, peatlands, mangroves, and other natural areas, has been described as "the carbon we must protect to avert climate catastrophe." www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/111821_jl_carbon_inline_desktop_rev.png  (Map and quotes from www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-change-natural-carbon-stores-new-map)

Although Barbados achieved independence in 1966, the island elected to remain a constitutional monarchy with Britain's Queen Elizabeth II as its titular head. Only recently, 55 years later, did Barbados choose to become an independent republic (while remaining part of the Commonwealth). This map from Statista shows countries that used to be part of the British Empire: www.statista.com/chart/26297/countries-gained-independence-from-the-uk/

Melbourne, Australia, just finished the world's longest COVID lockdown to date. This geo-graphic shows cumulative days of COVID lockdowns by various jurisdictions around the world: www.statista.com/chart/26023/areas-with-the-longest-cumulative-pandemic-lockdowns.  (It is expected that the emergence of the so-called Delta-plus variant in the UK may result in one or more of the UK's subdivisions passing Melbourne in the not-too-distant future.)

By comparing population genetics, researchers have concluded that the practice of building moai -- the huge carved "heads" found on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and elsewhere in Polynesia -- may have originated on a single island in the Tuamotus, a lightly populated archipelago of nearly 80 small atolls near Tahiti that remains part of France. www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/092121_bb_polynesia_inline_desktop.jpg (Map from https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dna-genetics-how-polynesia-settled-migration-islands-pacific-ocean)

As we are already seeing, changes in the climate do not have the same impact across all regions. This geo-graphic from Statista summarizes the changes in key elements of physical geography -- precipitation patterns and temperature -- forecast in this week's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, by region. www.statista.com/chart/25511/scientific-consensus-climate-change-patterns-world-regions

The primary case study in this New York Times article is Kobe, Japan, but the issues apply equally well to any coastal area in an earthquake zone, which includes much of the Philippines, Indonesia, Turkey, Greece, Italy, New Zealand, Chile, Mexico, the South Pacific, the Caribbean, and the U.S. Pacific coast, among many others: how does one build -- and pay for -- new sea walls that will not fail during the next earthquake?  www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/climate/san-francisco-sea-wall-earthquake.html

Earlier this week, the MV X-Press Pearl, bound for Colombo, Sri Lanka, caught fire and sank, releasing 78 tons of plastic pellets into the Indian Ocean, tens of millions of which are now covering Sri Lanka's beaches. The plastic pellets aboard the MV X-Press Pearl were to be used in the production of plastic bags. This geo-graphic looks at single-use plastic waste by country: www.statista.com/chart/24874/single-use-plastic-waste-generated-per-person-in-selected-countries

According to the UN Environment Programme, the world wastes nearly a billion tonnes of food per year. This geo-graphic shows both the quantity of food waste in absolute terms in selected countries (orange bars) and the quantity of food waste per capita (in yellow circles). The reasons for food waste vary with the country; in poorer countries, waste may result from inefficiencies in field-to-table logistics, for example, whereas in wealthier countries more of the waste may be generated by the food service industry. www.statista.com/chart/24350/total-annual-household-waste-produced-in-selected-countries

The waters surrounding Indonesia are home to 20% of the world's coral reefs, with 75% of the world's coral species living in the so-called "coral triangle" of Southeast Asia and Oceania, from Indonesia to the Philippines to the Solomon Islands. Researchers studying these corals are finding they may be more resilient to temperature changes than has been feared. "In 2019, [scientists found] that corals that were predicted to exceed the bleaching threshold, defined by previous climate models, were actually showing a greater ability to adapt to thermal stresses. To investigate, [Kenya-based coral scientist Tim] McClanahan launched a study with researchers from 19 tropical research institutions to assess the sensitivities of 226 reefs in 12 countries across 2016, one of the Earth’s warmest years on record. Field observation data of bleaching events were collected and compared with satellite data of coral exposure to high sea temperatures. The team found that past climate warming models overestimated coral destruction in the Coral Triangle – the region that spans Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and the Solomon Islands, where three quarters of the world’s coral species live. In particular, reefs around the Australian, Indonesian and Fiji-Caroline regions were better able to adapt to thermal stress than was previously thought." geographical.co.uk/nature/oceans/item/3949-corals-susceptibility-to-bleaching-varies-with-geography-raising-conservation-hope