In his book Seeing Like a State, author James Scott points out that “the roots of the word ‘statistics’ lie in the Latin word statisticus, which means ‘of state affairs.’’ The word’s origin implies the inherent relationship between statistics, data and notions of political control that Yuval Noah Harari uncovers in his TED talk(link is external), Why Fascism is So Tempting. Warning that the greatest danger facing liberal democracy is information,...
California’s agricultural sector is reliant on the increasingly unpredictable mega-storms, called atmospheric rivers, that can dump as much water as twenty Mississippi rivers. Climate change has created unprecedented extremes: in some years there may only be one atmospheric river, while in others California can be inundated by twenty. As a result, farmers may face one year of extreme drought and be forced to fallow their land, and in others their fields may be unprepared for a deluge of water. In order for players in the nation’s largest agricultural sector to prepare for the increasingly...
