This is not a data source in the sense that I usually feature columns and rows of numbers on Thursdays. Instead, I want to introduce you to a data tool. It is part of Google’s Public Data Explorer, which provides visualization tools tied to data set uploaded by you and me, and entities larger and more important.
Here, you can see the curve of the energy use by individual people around the world. There is an incline, but not as steep as one might guess with the emerging new economies like China and India. But what interesting here is our ability to select individual countries for comparison. Aside from some spikes in the ’70s, we’ve stayed fair static in our energy usage per capita with some dramatic declines in recent years. Could it be the a new concern for the environment or is it the decline in the economy? The sort of question you might ask your learners.
Google Page: http://goo.gl/D9UdC