Data Vis Dispatch,
September 21

First, the earthquakes and then volcanic eruption on the Spanish Canary Island of La Palma. Thousands of people had to evacuate, and Spanish newspapers reported on the event with lots of maps:

Environmental disasters are happening all over the world. In the U.S., the wildfires continue, killing (or about to kill) some of the oldest trees in the world:

As we can see, global warming is still happening…

…and governments and the energy industry need to reshape and adapt. ZEIT Online offers a calculator for carbon prices, while Bloomberg does the math on how much money there is in clean energy:

But humans are destroying nature not just indirectly via global warming, but also directly with new roads and deforestation:

The new COVID-19 wave in the U.S. has led to even more deaths and an even higher ICU occupancy:

Vaccines still work, though. (Including booster shots.) Lots of the sorrow could have been prevented by more people getting a COVID-19 vaccine, as the New York Times shows:

But while vaccination rates go down, society debates: Who should be required to get vaccinated?

In the past week, news organizations also visualized different ways that the pandemic affects society and the economy:

In other news: Lots of elections are happening at the moment. Canada voted yesterday, Germany next Sunday:

This election in Germany will be special, with Angela Merkel stepping down as chancellor after 16 years. How did Germany change in the meantime? Some news organizations tried to find out:

Lots was visualized besides the mentioned topics. Here’s a colorful mix of electricity usage, sports, mobile usage, the size of the moon, and how close countries are to each other when it comes to what they value: