The BP oil spill overlaid on a map of NYC, courtesy of If It Was My Home (via Flowing Data)
Incredibly effective way to bring home the magnitude of this clusterfuck. People are notoriously bad at conceptualizing large numbers/areas. By overlaying the spill on an understood geography, this map changes people’s thinking from the incomprehensible (“10,000 square miles”) to the estimable (“from Boston to Philly”). It’s a great illustration of a classic marketing lesson: if you want to make a point, make it in terms your audience can understand.
