First Published on the Rag Blog, April 20, 2020
In my work as a professional engineer, as an environmental researcher, and now as the director of the oldest independent climate science education organization in the world, I understand graphs. This is why I was concerned a few days ago when I saw a log (logarithmic) scale graph of confirmed COVID-19 cases on MSNBC. It looked like the top of the curve we have heard endlessly about was here, that the peak was at hand and we would soon be free of the curse of the exiles. The state of this disease today is that we may be peaking; please Great Spirit, let it be so. But presentation of a graph with a log scale to the public without explanation of what a log scale is, does not represent reality.