Kamala Harris’ Vice-Presidential choose Tim Walz loves maps. As a former highschool geography instructor it ought to come as no shock that Walz has an curiosity in cartography, but it surely seems that he’s in act a full blown GIS nerd who solely final yr referred to as for November fifteenth to be ‘GIS Day’. In response to Politico Tim Walz has additionally “addressed the geographic data methods software program firm Esri’s annual convention for the previous three years.”
With such a self-declared curiosity in all issues cartographical I want to suggest that the subsequent administration ought to set up a brand new Presidential Medal of Cartography – an award to be introduced to the creators of excellent maps. Should you watch Tim Walz’s 2024 deal with to the Esri convention you may get an perception into the sorts of maps which could win my proposed Presidential Medal of Cartography.
In his deal with Walz talks about how it’s doable to extend our understanding of “an interconnected world by graphic illustration of knowledge”. He says that maps are a method to an finish and that ‘the top product of those maps is a extra sustainable economic system, a extra sustainable setting, and lifting up of individuals’s lives in a approach that they will thrive”. Later in his Esri speech Walz additionally explains how “conveying information to folks (utilizing GIS) helps to construct belief.” It’s clear that Walz believes that maps can each enhance our understanding of the world and might help drive constructive social outcomes.
The brand new Presidential Medal of Cartography might due to this fact be awarded to maps which make a major contribution to our understanding of the world and promote sustainable economies, environments and enhance folks’s lives.
Throughout Walz’s Esri presentation it’s clear which maps he thinks meet these standards. As Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz was in a position to make use of “what I knew about mapping and the visible show of knowledge to convey complicated points.” He says that the rationale that the John Hopkins’s Covid-19 Map is essentially the most considered interactive map in historical past is as a result of folks needed to know “the place we had been having (the) highest degree of transmission”.
The Minnesota Government Map Portfolio has quite a few examples of the sorts of maps which Walz believes convey complicated information, improve understanding and enhance lives. In his speech he highlights the Common College Meals Map (displaying the rise within the variety of college students who can get free faculty meals underneath the Minnesota Free College Meals Program), the Doubtlessly Restorable Peatlands Map (displaying the place peatlands will be protected) and the Broadband Pace Map (displaying the place broadband infrastructure want extra growth in Minnesota).
Watching Tim Walz’s Esri speech you possibly can start to know why Kamala Harris selected this former geography instructor as her working mate. You can even start to know the probably standards that the doable subsequent Vice-President would possibly introduce for a future Presidential Medal of Cartography.
Earlier than I get accused of being fully partisan in proposing a Presidential Medal of Cartography I want to remind you that Donald Trump additionally likes to make use of maps to assist convey complicated data. For instance in September 2019 the then President used a NOAA hurricane map to elucidate how he hadn’t made a mistake when he warned that Alabama was at risk from the method of Hurricane Dorian. On this map Donald Trump used a sharpie pen to increase the cone of uncertainty into Alabama to show that he knew extra concerning the hurricane’s forecast path than the consultants on the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
