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It's been suggested to state things in terms of 9/11/2001 for Americans who don't understand the distaste in such discussions. E.g. each "Hiroshima" would be w
by diydsp 3y ago
It's been suggested to state things in terms of 9/11/2001 for Americans who don't understand the distaste in such discussions. E.g. each "Hiroshima" would be worth 65 "9/11/2001"s. The scale of the graph's Y-axis would run from 195 to 585 "9/11/2001"s.
Derivation: Hiroshima: 129,000–226,000 deaths. E(death_Hiroshima) ~= 180k. 9/11/2011, NYC: 2,753 people died. 180k/2753 ~= 65.
- deanCommie 3y agoNeither is particularly helpful, though I should point out that American trauma from 9/11 wasn't based on the number of people who died but rather the symbol of how the attack was executed, and the fact that it happened on US soil. If the WTC towers were somehow successfully evacuated before collapse, and only 200 people died instead of 3000 (or however there were on the 2 planes), the cultural effect on the country would've been the same.
- data_maan 3y agoBoth are helpful. You need to frame it in the language your audience understands best (which typically nation-wide historical catastrophes).
- murphyslab 3y agoThe author is using this as a unit of thermal energy being absorbed, not as a measure of deaths: > As of March, 2023, on an annualized basis, the EEI was 1.61 Watts per square meter. That might not sound like a lot, but on a global basis it is about equal to the energy released from 13 Hiroshima sized nuclear bombs exploding every second. That "1.61 Watts per square meter" figure does sound low to someone who thinks in terms of 60 Watt light bulbs. Thinking of it on the scale of nuclear bombs being dropped may give people pause to reflect on the magnitude of the rate of energy being absorbed.