Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 17 submissions in the queue.

Australian Bushfire Map Superimosed Over America Sows Disbelief

posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 08 2020, @07:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the let's-measure dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Which is larger? Yours, or mine? Australia or the United States of America, that is. With the bushfires in Australia out of control incinerating large swathes of the country a map was produced to visually depict how widespread the fires are. For emphasis the map was overlaid on top of America to give people an idea of the scope of the problem Australia is dealing with. Americans responded with disbelief that Australia was just as large as the USA. People were also in shock over how large an area, measured by size of US states, are currently burning. Responses on social media show how shocked and dumbfounded people were learning this.

  • Area of Australia = 7.692 million km2
  • Area of USA, excluding Alaska = 7.653 million km2

Here is the image under discussion.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Australian Bushfire Map Superimosed Over America Sows Disbelief | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 76 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @08:55AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @08:55AM (#940965)

    citation needed.
    seriously though, can you provide a link?

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:15AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:15AM (#940968)

    https://www.downtoearth.org.in/video/climate-change/why-is-the-world-on-fire--68671 [downtoearth.org.in]

    Another AC. This says "Australia tops the 10 countries with highest fire alerts between December 1, 2019, and January 2, 2020, with 0.521 million alerts. However, the remaining nine countries are in Africa, often not reported widely."

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:54AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:54AM (#940977)

      The reference in the previous post has such a huge problem with comma placement, it is impossible to parse the numbers.

      However, it is always worth seeing more Americans realize that America is not that big in real life.
      (And Texas is smaller than Chuck Norris supporters imagine).

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @02:34PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @02:34PM (#941045)

        It's broken up into three now, but there used to be a cattle station (Ranch) in Western Australia that was bigger than Texas. Literally. One farm, and it was bigger than the whole state of Texas.

        • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @08:02PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @08:02PM (#941181)

          Sounds like the Wong Ranch, which occupies the entire western hemisphere of Mars, in about a thousand years.