David 
Marine heatwaves are becoming increasingly frequent, forcing fish populations to move in search of cooler waters. These movements affect fishers and their ability to catch fish. They also impact how marine ecosystems and fisheries are ultimately managed. To address this challenge, we need to know where the fish are in real-time. But since we can’t … Read more
A recent blog post by Noah Smith highlights the prevalence of forced labor, overfishing and illegal fishing in the Chinese fleet. These problems are not specific to China, however – China just has the largest fleet. And for most of these problems, more transparency can help. First, a surprising correction. Noah says “China’s fishing fleet … Read more
On Dec. 25 in the East China Sea, hundreds of fishing vessels suddenly formed a mysterious line across the water, dropping anchor as if creating a deliberate barrier. Then, just as quickly, they dispersed. The New York Times called it a possible military exercise. I wasn’t convinced — so I turned to the data. What … Read more
I started this blog in 2011 while working at Climate Central as a data journalist, where I learned to build interactive graphics and maps. After an initial flurry of content, the blog has lay largely dormant. I’m reviving this space as a home for new content we are producing at Global Fishing Watch, including reposting … Read more
I recently reread the book I published a decade ago, The Bicycle Diaries. I wrote a long essay on the experience of rereading it at rideforclimate.com (and why I think you should read it to!). You can read the essay here.
I’m now working for SkyTruth on an exciting environmental “Big Data” project, Global Fishing Watch. Just last week, a number of my colleagues published a paper in Science, which you can read about in this blog post I wrote. The key technology behind Global Fishing Watch is AIS – the “Automatic Identification System” that almost … Read more
When traveling across China by bicycle, I was amazed by how we seemed to pass a new power plant almost every day. I found myself wanting a map of where the power plants were in the country. Are they everywhere, or only where we were riding? I found an online database of power plants from … Read more
On Lindsey’s and my recent journey across Asia, I was sure to record every day on our Garmin GPS. This not only helped me get a few “King of the Mountains” on Strava, but more importantly, it allowed us to build a detailed map of our route. Using a Python library that parses Garmin .fit … Read more
From May 2014 to March 2015 Lindsey and I biked across Asia (with some help from trains, buses, boats, and hitchhiking). I wrote an essay at the end of the trip that you can read at rideforcliamte.com. This journey was so different from my ride across Latin America in so many ways – Asia’s diversity … Read more
I recently re-edited my film Ten Tips for Biking Eastern Europe to submit to the Banff Film Festival (yes, a reach, but why not?). I had to alter the film because the old version uses Google Earth to show our bike route, and this is, of course, copyrighted. So I had to make a non-copyrighted … Read more