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UN backs new map showing Africa's true relative size with US alone in opposition

npr.org

11–20 of 22 posts

Re: UN backs new map showing Africa's true relative size with US alone in opposition

#11
The old map's Africa looks just like Africa on my globe. I understand that the new Africa is bigger, but it no longer looks like the real shape of Africa on planet Earth.

When I look at a map - political or geographic - my primary observation is the shapes of the nations or landforms. Not the size.

Re: UN backs new map showing Africa's true relative size with US alone in opposition

#13

The old map's Africa looks just like Africa on my globe. I understand that the new Africa is bigger, but it no longer looks like the real shape of Africa on planet Earth. When I look at a map - political or geographic - my primary observation is the shapes of the nations or landforms. Not the size.

Yes, contrary to reporting, the map doesn't represent Africa more accurately, but instead it represents regions near the poles more accurately to eliminate size distortion, at the expense of more shape distortion near the equator. But you aren't going to see many news outlets titling "UN backs new map showing Greenland's true relative size with US alone in opposition."

Re: UN backs new map showing Africa's true relative size with US alone in opposition

#14

> In a statement after the vote, Yaryna Ferencevych, deputy U.S. representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, accused the United Nations of promoting an ideological agenda and distracting from more pressing issues. > "Resolutions like this and the ideological agenda they promote, are barnacles on our work here, and the reason this institution is losing its credibility," the statement read. I dunno, bro, "m…

Is it a more accurate map? It more accurately represents the size of Africa but there are distortions in other places that aren't present in a Mercator projection.

Re: UN backs new map showing Africa's true relative size with US alone in opposition

#15

> In a statement after the vote, Yaryna Ferencevych, deputy U.S. representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, accused the United Nations of promoting an ideological agenda and distracting from more pressing issues. > "Resolutions like this and the ideological agenda they promote, are barnacles on our work here, and the reason this institution is losing its credibility," the statement read. I dunno, bro, "m…

Is it a more accurate map? It more accurately represents the size of Africa but there are distortions in other places that aren't present in a Mercator projection.

To be fair you either produce a globe that faithfully reproduces the geoid (a sphere should do for most cases) or you'll always distort something on the map: angles, areas, distances. And then there's the question of the overall map shape: you can get away with less overall distortion at the price of partitioning the map into more pieces (as done e.g. by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map). The Mercator projection has the advantage, if indeed it is one, of being rectangular. To me, a shortcoming of the Equal Earth projection is that it makes places like Australia and Alaska look like they're somehow 'on the fringe'.

Re: UN backs new map showing Africa's true relative size with US alone in opposition

#16
post #9

Noted in the linked UN news source: > Six countries – Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine – abstained. It would have been interesting if NPR had covered the diplomatic and economic considerations behind those countries abstaining, and no other right-wing nationalist regime siding with the US.

Reading the Wikipedia article on the Equal Earth projection it would seem the map used in the resolution indicates national boundaries.

Re: UN backs new map showing Africa's true relative size with US alone in opposition

#17
post #4

I'm neutral on the map. If it makes somebody happy, great. Would've been a lot more interesting of they promoted a population map: https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-cartogram

> Would've been a lot more interesting of they promoted a population map why?

The UN represents the interests of people, not land.

Re: UN backs new map showing Africa's true relative size with US alone in opposition

#18
post #9

Noted in the linked UN news source: > Six countries – Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine – abstained. It would have been interesting if NPR had covered the diplomatic and economic considerations behind those countries abstaining, and no other right-wing nationalist regime siding with the US.

Reading the Wikipedia article on the Equal Earth projection it would seem the map used in the resolution indicates national boundaries.

And Wikipedia outlines in considerable detail why those boundaries are quite objectionable to a good number of nations in Europe. Quoting multiple UN Ambassadors on this resolution.

Vs. NPR found an angle that'd push their reader's buttons, and figured their job was done.

Glad I stopped donating to NPR in the early aughties.

Re: UN backs new map showing Africa's true relative size with US alone in opposition

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the Wikipedia article on the Equal Earth projection it would seem the map used in the resolution indicates national boundaries.

And Wikipedia outlines in considerable detail why those boundaries are quite objectionable to a good number of nations in Europe. Quoting multiple UN Ambassadors on this resolution. Vs. NPR found an angle that'd push their reader's buttons, and figured their job was done. Glad I stopped donating to NPR in the early aughties.

Media organizations famously are able to do more in-depth reporting when you stop funding them...

Re: UN backs new map showing Africa's true relative size with US alone in opposition

#20
post #9

Noted in the linked UN news source: > Six countries – Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine – abstained. It would have been interesting if NPR had covered the diplomatic and economic considerations behind those countries abstaining, and no other right-wing nationalist regime siding with the US.

Estonia, Lithuania, Moldova, and of course Ukraine are US puppets with fierce anti Russian chauvinism (which was intentionally and carefully blown into its current horrific proportions by US and its western european satellites, and which was exactly what triggered the Ukraine war). Georgia and Serbia are currently being aimed at by US, and probably did not want to provoke the caveman Sam with a club.

What I don't understand is why Latvia is missing: the country that compared to the other baltic states is even more oppressive to its Russian population. Maybe because it is more a German than US puppet?

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